Society & Culture - Posted by Suzanne Wu-USC on Friday, January 22, 2010 13:03 - 14 Comments 
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading ...
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) Loading ...Good parents wanted: All genders apply
“The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter,” says study coauthor Judith Stacey of New York University.
USC/NYU—A new study calls into question the idea that “fatherless” children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different, indispensable set of parenting skills than women.
Both premises have been used in the fight against same-sex marriage and same-sex adoptions, but the study finds there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian parents and heterosexual couples.
“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,” argues Timothy Biblarz, associate professor sociology at the University of Southern California. “One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents.”
Extending their prior work on gender and family, Biblarz and Judith Stacey of New York University analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents, and lesbian parents. The study is the lead article in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family.
“That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical,” Stacey says.
In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the “partial exception of lactation,” noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children’s psychological adjustment and social success.
“The social science research that is routinely cited does not actually speak to the questions of whether or not children need both a mother and a father at home,” the study says.
Instead proponents generally cite research that compares (heterosexual two-parent) families with single parents, thus conflating the number with the gender of parents.”
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.
However, like two heterosexual parents, new parenthood among lesbians increased stress and conflict, exacerbated by general lack of legal recognition of commitment.
Also, lesbian biological mothers typically assumed greater caregiving responsibility than their partners, reflecting inequities among heterosexual couples.
“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, Biblarz says.
“This is obviously inconsistent with the widespread claim that children must be raised by a mother and a father to do well.”
Stacey concludes: “The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter.”
USC news: http://uscnews.usc.edu/
NYU news: http://www.nyu.edu/
14 Comments
Cilla Mitchell, Galveston, Texas
Children need love and guidence. It doesn’t matter what type of family unit it comes from. Many children grow up in the traditional family unit and end up being dysfunctional.
Cilla Mitchell, Galveston, Texas
Children need love and a structured setting. It doesn’t matter what type of family unit it comes from. Many children grow up in the traditional family unit and end up being dysfunctional.
M@
“partial exception of lactation”
Not to discount the importance of human milk and bonding during breast feeding, but the mere mention of a “partial exception of lactation” is as ludicrous as would be mentioning “a 100% exception for pregnancy/birthing” — it’s a physical thing, not a family thing that is no more difficult to get around than the fact that most fathers can easily carry a 2,3,4-year old on their shoulders (or teach how to properly throw a football), while most mothers cannot (unless they specifically work on/develop their upper body strength).
Some males are willing and can lactate in order to breastfeed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation therefore there is no “partial exception”
Links for 25th January 2010 | Velcro City Tourist Board
[...] Good parents wanted: All genders apply [...]
Parenting: What it Takes « Leave it to Seaver
[...] new research adds to the long list of research that counters this ridiculous claim (Women can’t change [...]
elmer
can we have proper citations please? I find the articles here informative but I’m leery of quoting them as futurity is … well an unquantified unkown
Jill
Study link leads to abstract and citation. I’ve found that this is usually the case with the Futurity reports.
JB Donovan
The prisons are five times larger today than in the Sixties, and much of that has to do with the fact that a father commands the respect of an older boy in a way that a mother cannot, and fathers are not on the scene half as much as they were before. Girls without fathers twice as likely to become promiscuous and pregnant when they are lacking the kind of love and structure that a father provides.
Jill
JB – Where are those numbers from? Citations would be good. Thanks
JB Donovan
the heart of the heart of the whole thing is that human beings need to have the influence of a mother’s parenting style AND a father’s parenting style or else they are handicapped to the extent that one is lacking. Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale in his book called Fatherneed spells it out from that viewpoint and Brenda Hunter in The Power of Mother Love spells it out from the other side. Kids need the softness of a mother and the roughhousing of a father, or as Carol Gilligan of Harvard says, fathers stress rules, mothers relationships, fathers fairness, mothers sympathy. Boys who grow up with fathers are less likely to be violent because they learn from fathers how to affirm and channel masculinity properly. Kids need the constant experience of the complementary parenting styles, and all the meddling of church and state to nullify that is damaging.
JB Donovan
This is one of those cases where certain ivory-tower people can directly contradict obvious logic. Anyone who can remember his mother when he was little knows perfectly well that if she was suddenly replaced by one of Dad’s friends would regard the event as miserable if not catastrophic.
M@
I dunno, my dad had some phat female friends, and I was a stay-at-home dad with a 6-month old baby girl during the dot-com bust while on unemployment. I found both enjoyable.
See Wikipedia entry on common knowledge/obvious logic, paying particular attention to the fallacy section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge
Many times common logic/knowledge just ain’t reliable: e.g. if you remove all the stoplights/signs in a town, it does not become more dangerous, but SAFER.
JB Donovan
What I’m talking about isn’t just common knowledge but common personal experience. I’ve had decades of experience as a son, as a father, as the brother of a sister who has children, as the neighbor of people with children, and so on, and my experience isn’t at all unusual. We’re not talking about the Hottentots here or what happens when you remove stop signs. There’s a huge myth around all this, which is that sexual differences stop at the stage of propagation — that’s they just pertain to anatomy — but you’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to observe that men and women are difference, and vive la difference. The connections between social problems and the economy (such as joblessness) are fairly weak, whereas those connected to lack of a father are extremely strong.
Leave a Comment
New: Futurity’s App
Futurity’s on Alltop
Also find Futurity highlights on related blog Holy Kaw and on the well-followed Twitter page of Alltop cofounder Guy Kawasaki.
In Today’s ScienceBlogs
- The Benefit of Working Bankers Hours? [On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess] September 1, 2010
- Hurricane News and Coolest Pictures EVAH! [Greg Laden's Blog] September 1, 2010
- That didn't take long [Pharyngula] September 1, 2010
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by thaliachaltas: @leewind Take a look at this article, my friend! RT @FuturityNews: Is gender irrelevant to good parenting? http://bit.ly/8q81uX…