Gay Parents Raising Kids: How Will They Fare?
Throughout many years of working with families, I’ve studied the lives of gay parents raising sons and daughters. In general, gay parents tend to be more motivated, more committed, and more thoughtful parents than heterosexual couples. That’s because they usually have to work very hard, and plan very far in advance, to become parents, and so rarely do so by accident.
The children, meanwhile, show few differences in achievement. They perform as well in school, at sports, and in extra-curriculars as peers with heterosexual parents. At the same time, they are more self-aware, more adept at communicating their feelings, and exhibit more empathy for people different from themselves. They learn early how to negotiate the outside environment, gauge other people’s motives, and assess how open they dare to be in specific situations. They are strong. In my work, I routinely saw how, with enough support from their families, children of gay parents developed skills at thinking independently and standing up for what they believed in. This distinguishes them from many children with straight parents.
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