Does gender matter in Parenthood? An insight.

Parenthood is unarguably the best thing to experience. The journey of being a parent is much more than just having children. The emotional and physical dependency of the child needs to be addressed by a parent until they become independent. It refers to leading them and being a torchbearer for the children towards the path of adulthood. Opposite genders can give birth to offspring, but it does not quite establish that the parents of the child are necessary of the opposite gender.

LGBTQ is a community that can be related to terms like Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. The historical methods of this community have been in the figure for a long now. LGBTQ Parenthood is another aspect that came into the picture around the second world war. At that time, if two people of opposite sex divorced, then, both refrained from the custody of the child. Talking about the history of LGBTQ parenthood in the United States of America, around 1975, some courts brought up the matter of custody of the child for LGBTQ parents. In the decade of 1970s, many movements upholding the rights of the LGBTQ community were active and the parents belonging to the community had supported each other a lot by helping and joining hands in the movements. There was a gay man named Bill Jones who was the first single father who adopted a child in California. ‘Homosexuality’ came under the rejection criteria of adoption applications during that time but around after a decade, New York became the first state of removing ‘Homosexuality’ off the rejection criterion at the time of adoption.

California became the first state where a gay couple adopted a child and that was in 1979. The strength among themselves was a massive advantage for the community. Around the mid-1950s, the San Francisco Lesbian Group formed groups for discussion on lesbian motherhood which ultimately led to the formation of the Lesbian Mothers Union after a decade. This boosted the rise of such unions and around the same time, Gay Fathers Coalition came into existence. By the tear 1990, the number of same-sex parents significantly increased and established the term ‘gay baby boom’. In 2015, Equality in Marriage for same-gender couples was legalized in the whole of the United States of America after 10 years of legal conflicts and protests. But, still in a recent poll in 2019, around 30 percent of the voting population in the United States voted against same-sex couples.

According to the studies, in the United States, at least one among 8 million children have a gay/lesbian parent. Numbers suggest that there are around 594,000 households with like-sex partners and about 30 percent of them have children in the households. These results were extracted despite many gays and lesbians not being discreet about themselves fearing discrimination. LGBTQ parents often must tackle discrimination in custody meetings where they can be targeted based on their gender-orient or gender-identity and this might be the reason for denial in the custody of children. They also must provide an explanation of their relationship or marital status to the professionals in schools, colleges, hospitals, and to the parents of friends of their children and most importantly describing the complexity of the structure of their own family to their children. This is a tough or rather challenging task as every child refers to the social norms and might question their parents about the family set-up.

Many research histories are evident that children having two fathers, or two mothers come up the same as children with different-gender parents. The differences among emotional traits, behavior corresponding to gender role, and basic learning have not been seen among the children in both cases. Some research that showed differences have gone in the favor of same-gender parenting. Like, children who belong to same-gender parents turned out more associative in school. These children are more tolerant, robust, and at the same time more sympathetic than the children in different-gender households. All the other challenges faced by same-gender parents are like those faced by different-gender parents which include money, time, and other responsibilities that come up with parenting like having an emotional connection with their children, resolving conflicting issues, talking to them about communication, and providing everything possible for the welfare of their children. Another important difficulty that might be faced by same-gender parents refers to living in a society that is open to and accepts homophobic beliefs as a social norm. The dissimilarities which exist for the same-gender parenting families are being accepted and adapt to the normal family frames and they must tackle with unsupportive relatives, friends, and other family members. These things can have a great impact on the family. If the biological parent of the child offers no support in whatsoever way, then that might lead to conflicts and can also induct stress and loss of motivation in the family.

Sampling research showed that in primary school tests, children having same-gender parents scored higher than children raised in different-gender parent households, and that too by around 0.14 deviation on a standard scale. But, after some days, the same-gender household children perform worse than the other children. When a comparison was done on performance based on secondary education, same-gender household children were again up and higher than other children. Another observation was that there was a 4.8 percent difference in high school graduation among the children in both households and same-gender household children took this one home again. Still there exists a limitation, as many children in the same-gender households are not raised by them from birth but generally given birth by heterosexual parents who at a later stage get separated due to gender orient dissimilarities. This limitation can pose a problem in the sampling research as the break-up of the family of that sort can traumatize the children and may also affect the performances of children in school negatively. Emotional capabilities also matter when raising a child and a gay or lesbian couple might pose at the same emotional level for them whereas a heterosexual couple might be able to offer something different. According to a survey in Sweden, there were only 5% of children raised by gay couples and the rest belonged to lesbian mothers. Having conducted the same survey in the United States, around 75% of children from LGBTQ households belonged to lesbian couples which suggested that they received more of a duality of motherhood.

Health comparison is also an important piece of research among the children in both households and in Sweden, research showed that till the age of 10, same-gender household children turned up healthier than those in different-gender households. However, this research had small samples and was conducted among around 800 children.

As per the study which included 106 families headed by lesbian, gay, or heterosexual parents. They examined that how gender-typical parents develop over time within the family structure and remain consistent whether the child grows older. The observation was based on the kind of toys and how they played with them. Children responded with attributes that corresponded to the gender they belonged to. Some of the sampled children who played with toys that were not assigned to their respective gender were more likely to prefer the jobs and activities that were not assigned to their respective gender. According to the observations, the overall family structure had some effect on the development of the child’s gender sense.

On a global level, there has been a number of research and surveys and it was quite evident that the gender of parents has around minimal or no effect on their children. There is a typical way of raising children and both the same-gender parents and different-gender parents and the results have been pointing towards no psychological dissimilarities which need to be addressed. Everyone has the right to do what they want or feel like doing until and unless it is legal and same-gender parenting is as much legal and normalized as different-gender parenting.

• REFERENCES

1. https://www.aamft.org/Consumer_Updates/Same-sex_Parents_and_Their_Children.aspx
2. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180628120036.htm
3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122420957249
4. Allen 2015; Manning, Fettro, and Lamidi 2014; Stacey and Biblarz 2001
5. Oster (2019)
6. Boertien and Bernardi 2019; Rosenfeld 2010; Watkins 2018
7. Gartrell and Bos 2010; Golombok, Tasker, and Murray 1997; MacCallum and Golombok 2004; Sarantakos 199