If It's About Children

Maybe we should pay attention to what's happening with them. This, of course, stems from the time-honored battle cry of the anti-gay "Christian" right, "Save the Cheeeldren!!!" Well, aside from the travesty produced by Mark Regnerus on instructions from the Witherspoon Institute (and ultimately, it turns out, the Heritage Foundation), a number of sociologists and psychologists -- real ones -- have done studies about the effects on children of being raised in "non-traditional" families.

One of the first things I ran across this morning, which brought the whole issue to the fore, was this post at AmericaBlog, referencing a study from Britain (with, unfortunately, a broken link; if I find it, I'll link to it).

Whether the children lived with two biological parents, with a step-parent and biologic parent, or in a single parent family, made no difference: 64% said they were happy ‘sometimes or never’, and 36% said they were ‘happy all the time’.

Even when the researchers statistically removed the effects of other factors such as parental social class so that the effects of family type were isolated, the results showed no significant differences.

Jenny Chanfreau, Senior Researcher at NatCen, told the conference that, in contrast, relationships with parents and other children were strongly linked with how likely the seven-year-olds were to be happy. For instance, factors such as getting on well with siblings and not being bullied at school were associated with being happy all the time.

Ms Chanfreau said they found a similar result when analysing another set of survey data on 2,679 children aged 11 to 15 in the UK– this also showed no significant statistical difference in the level of wellbeing among children in the three types of family when the effects of family type were studied in isolation.

[She] told the conference: “We found that the family type had no significant effect on the happiness of the [two groups of children.]

“It’s the quality of the relationships in the home that matters–not the family composition.

Getting on well with siblings, having fun with the family at weekends, and having a parent who reported rarely or never shouting when the child was naughty, were all linked with a higher likelihood of being happy all the time among seven-year olds.

“Pupil relations at school are also important–being bullied at school . . . [was] strongly associated with lower happiness in the seven-year-olds, for instance.”

That called to mind a recent study from Australia that indicated that children of same-sex parents were happier and better adjusted than their peers from "traditional" families.

''Because of the situation that same-sex families find themselves in, they are generally more willing to communicate and approach the issues that any child may face at school, like teasing or bullying,'' Dr. Simon Crouch, the lead author of the Melbourne University study, said. ''This fosters openness and means children tend to be more resilient. That would be our hypothesis.''

It would seem that reality doesn't support Tony Perkins' often repeated assertion that "Social science has proven conclusively that children do best with their married biological parents." But then, we know Perkins will say whatever will bring in cash. (I actually remember seeing one study that stated that idea as part of the executive summary; it was a study comparing the children of married heterosexual couples with the children of unwed teenage mothers, and that statement wasn't even supported by the data. Draw your own conclusions.)

As to the kids and their reactions to their families -- well, someone decided to let them speak for themselves:

'Nuff said?