Jan 24 2010
When Two Moms Are Better
A great discussion/debate my developmental psychology class would have each semester would begin with my projecting this statement onto the screen:
Dads are expendable.
A little background: The title to a weekly segment of the class was “Textbook Dig.” I’d give the students time to research the topic in their books for supporting or refuting information. Then all students would “vote” on the truth of the statement — agree, disagree, mixed. I’d chalk up the score. (It seems that people love to be heard and have their opinion counted.)
Scoring complete, the discussion would begin. Task number one: analyze the statement itself. “All dads?” “Expendable how?” Etc. And then students would share the information in the textbook that led them to their conclusion.
Invariably, a number of students couldn’t resist bringing their own experiences into the mix. Because I had this experience, therefore the statement is true. Or, for such a contentious topic as this one, some students would argue from social convention. Well, this is the way it’s supposed to be. Reasoning detached from any evidence would be confidently offered. Such as Without a father in the house boys won’t have the role model they need to grow up to become men.
Besides moderating, I’d ask follow-up questions. While that sounds true, is there any research that supports it?
For this specific topic I recall ending the sessions with this sentiment: There may be a difference between what is necessary and what is optimal.
The above is perhaps a long-winded way of introducing new research I encountered yesterday. You can see how the title would have grabbed my attention:
Do children need both a mother and a father?
While the research doesn’t provide a slam-dunk answer to the question, it does frame the problem nicely. And offer findings from one type of prior studies to suggest an answer.
The presumption that children need both a mother and a father is widespread. It has been used by proponents of Proposition 8 to argue against same-sex marriage and to uphold a ban on same-sex adoption….
The lead article in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family challenges the idea that “fatherless” children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different, indispensable set of parenting skills than women.
“Significant policy decisions have been swayed by the misconception across party lines that children need both a mother and a father. Yet, there is almost no social science research to support this claim. One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents,” said sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. [bold mine]
As for the findings:
“The bottom line is that the science shows that children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents. This is obviously inconsistent with the widespread claim that children must be raised by a mother and a father to do well,” Biblarz said.
Of course, left unaddressed is the more common situation of children raised by just a mother. As for the title to this post, “When Two Moms are Better,” I believe that having two parents, whatever sex, is likely to be, on average, better than one. For many reasons — emotional, social, financial, etc.
Additionally, there were these specifics to the research finding:
Indeed, there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents, according to the study. On average, two mothers tended to play with their children more, were less likely to use physical discipline, and were less likely to raise children with chauvinistic attitudes. Studies of gay male families are still limited.
No definite answers, but the science marches on. With each advance we become better able to answer questions. Even questions that pertain to issues of conventional morality and current social policy. Science is important.
[...] that go hand-in-hand with the theme of my this blog… he must have known I was hosting. When Two Moms Are Better talks about new research that claims to show that children raised by two men or two women are no [...]