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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27150 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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children raised by two same-sex parents have equal or better life outcomes to straight parents

What evidence have you seen that makes this a matter of "fact" to you? From my understanding, the studies that show this are about as high a quality as studies on trans-youth medicine, relying on parental-reports of well-being and slanted samples.

Meanwhile, studies on heterosexual couples show that mothers and fathers parent differently and children living with unrelated adults suffer from increased stress measured by cortisol levels.

Children living with nonrelatives, stepfathers and half-siblings (stepfather has children by the stepchild’s mother), or single parents without kin support had higher average levels of cortisol than children living with both parents, single mothers with kin support, or grandparents. A further test of this hypothesis is provided by comparison of step- and genetic children residing in the same households. Stepchildren had higher average cortisol levels than their half-siblings residing in the same household who were genetic offspring of both parents (Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, page 565.)

Parents and Stepparents even abuse and murder children in different ways:

Stepparents commit filicide at higher rates than do genetic parents. According to M. Daly and M. I. Wilson (1994), motivational differences generate differences in the methods by which stepparents and genetic parents kill a child. Using Canadian and British national-level databases, Daly and Wilson (1994) found that stepfathers were more likely than genetic fathers to commit filicide by beating and bludgeoning, arguably revealing step-parental feelings of bitterness and resentment not present to the same degree in genetic fathers. Genetic fathers, in contrast, were more likely than stepfathers to commit filicide by shooting or asphyxiation, methods which often produce a relatively quick and painless death. We sought to replicate and extend these findings using a United States national-level database of over 400,000 homicides. Results replicate those of Daly and Wilson(1994) for genetic fathers and stepfathers. In addition, we identified similar differences in the methods by which stepmothers and genetic mothers committed filicide.

Given this, my prior would be that a kid raised in a Same Sex household, where they are by default unrelated to at least one parent, would have poorer outcomes than kids raised by straight parents (where a larger percentage are raised by two related parents.) What have you seen that makes you confident otherwise?

What evidence have you seen that makes this a matter of "fact" to you? From my understanding, the studies that show this are about as high a quality as studies on trans-youth medicine, relying on parental-reports of well-being and slanted samples.

I wouldn't be too surprised, tbh, if adopted children to gay couples showed better outcomes than an average child over the whole population. The reason is very simple - adoption is a selective process. Any adoption agency that isn't completely dissolved in wokeness and just melts with "awwww gays!" seeing any same sex couple, would require people to have stable relationship, clean home, decent income, etc. It's not that such people can't be abusive or just bad parents - it's just that the incidence in this cohort would likely be lower than over the whole population, where any couple with functioning plumbing can have as many kids as they feel like.

More interesting study would be comparing outcomes to adoptions of the similar social and financial stature, between same sex and hetero couples. But this may require a sample size that may be difficult to collect. We have less than 10 years when same-sex adoption has been fully legal, way too early to measure the outcomes.

This part of the review goes over research on comparing adoptions with adoptions:

If one looks on the surface, findings are mixed with respect to family functioning or children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. With respect to family functioning, there are few studies, but Erich, Leung, and Kindle (2005) found lower family functioning (d ¼ 0.14) for SSA parents in spite of those parents having advantages in terms of social support and education. After some, but not all, of the relevant variables were controlled, even lower levels of family functioning were found (d ¼ 0.36, p < .07) for the gay and lesbian adoptive families. Even though that discrepancy represented a small to medium effect, its nonsignificance (p < .07) permitted Ryan (2007) and Averett et al. (2009) to argue for the no difference hypothesis. Nevertheless, there were several other factors that were more influential for predicting family functioning than parental sexual orientation. Averett et al. (2009) also examined family functioning and found lower levels for same-sex families of younger (d ¼ 0.14) and older (d ¼ 0.27) chil- dren. Thus, with respect to family functioning, it appears that SSA families are experiencing lower functioning, but the effect sizes are small to medium at most, usually not significant given the small sample sizes involved. There is some evi- dence that same-sex families may do better with younger children than older children with respect to family functioning.

In part 3 of this report, outcomes for children adopted by same-sex parents are considered. Studies conducted within the past 10 years that compared child out- comes for children of same-sex and heterosexual adoptive parents were reviewed. Numerous methodological limitations were identified that make it very difficult to make an accurate assessment of the impact of parental sexual orientation across adoptive families. Samples were often small and nonrandom. Some ‘‘same-sex’’ adoptive or foster parents may be mother–adult daughter heterosexual dyads. Important variables were often overlooked, including social desirability response bias. None of the studies assessed child outcomes in terms of delayed gratification, self-control, impulsivity, emotional self-regulation, or time preference. Most par- ticipating gay and lesbian families were from the socioeconomic elite of U.S. society. Most studies involved the adoption of young children, under the age of six years. Because of numerous methodological limitations, it might be best to hesitate to draw much in the way of firm conclusions from the available research. We still know very little about family functioning among same-sex families with low or moderate incomes, those with several children, or those with older chil- dren, including adolescents. Some important child outcomes (e.g., substance abuse, sexual orientation, educational progress) may not become relevant or apparent until an adopted child reaches adolescence. Within the limited available studies, it appears that same-sex families may report slightly lower levels of family functioning, especially with respect to older adopted children, but most studies have found few differences in children’s internalizing or externalizing behaviors as reported by parents. Two studies appear to have found opposing longitudinal trends in which children in heterosexual adoptive families fared better over time while children in SSA families fared worse. Small to moderate effect size differ- ences were observed in terms of children’s gender role behaviors and attitudes, probably reflecting less traditional gender role attitudes among same-sex parents compared to heterosexual parents.

So mostly you nailed it when you said it was too early. A lot of the negative factors that we would measure couldn't manifest in the literature for a while. Couples adopt kids under 6 years of age, but things like academic excellence, teenage drug and sex habits, etc are things that can only be measured from kids 14+.

However, I am not sure that the average adoptive parent provides better outcomes than average natal parents. When looking at mixed families of adopted and biological children, adopted children receive more attention but have worse outcomes. Could this effect partially negate the socioeconomic effect?

I mean there’s also the question of ‘are gay parents an even more selected group than adoptive parents’- is there something about gay adoption which sets them apart other than the obvious(could it be that gay adoptive parents are more pro-natal than adoptive parents generally because there’s less cultural expectation for them to have children? Maybe something of that sort).

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