More and more American children are raised in families where parents are both male or female. Same-sex marriage has arrived in every corner of the US – not only in metropolitan areas, but also in suburban and small-town America. According to the latest data, the number of two-parent gay families now exceeded the total of 160,000. That’s not counting single gay parents, but apparent quantities are those of a million, by most estimates.
What is it like for a child to be raised by same-sex parents? Is the publicity to stop this as outrageous or be liberal? What are pros, if any, and cons of this phenomena? We’ll discuss it in this article.
The first thing, throughout the world gay parents and their kids frequently meet with friction from the community which comes in the form of mocking classmates, scornful family members, and laws treating gay parents differently from straight ones. The society of the US is directly split on the subject. The latest national poll found 45 percent of citizens believe same-sex families should have the right to adopt kids, 47 percent do not.
Traditional-marriage advocates argue that lesbian and gay couples’ wish to adopt a child is self-centered and puts adult desires above those of children. Bill Maier, psychologist in the US residence at Focus on the Family, is totally against a family which proves to be ‘motherless and fatherless’. In effect, a child grows up with the perverse gender stereotypes. One study coauthored by prominent American psychologists found that children of lesbians are less likely to exhibit gender-stereotyped behaviour and tend to consider homosexual relationships themselves. That fact and the one that children in such families have to deal with scorn and sneers of their mates make the major part of the public object strongly to the laws giving gays the right to adopt. One more thing, seldom discussed in national mass-media, is the fear that new parents would sexually harass kids. But to be just, it’s the risk considering not only gay families, but unfortunately traditional ones, too. The only way to be on the safe side is to check all the data on potential parents in every detail and to have adoptive families in focus all the time.
Those who defend gay-family adoption also have a right thing to say. In the gay and lesbian communities ‘parents are a self-selecting group whose motivation for parenthood is really high’ argues Charlotte Patterson, a researcher at the University of Virginia. That gives high chances that they will treat an adoptive kid with care and true affection. Is it better for a child to live in children’s home or to have a family, even not traditional one? Is a child more likely to grow up happy without parental love or with the risk of being mocked at by classmates? That’s not estimating the very probable risk of following his single-sex parents’ steps.
The difficult choice to do. And while the debates continue, the number of kids with gay parents is still growing. It is as to the official data. And what are the real numbers considering that lesbian and gay couples are often reluctant to identify themselves as such when filling in census forms? The phenomenon becomes more and more widespread and we’re to solve the dilemma anyway, whether we like it or not.
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