Psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic relationships of adolescents with same-sex parents.

Abstract

This study examined associations among family type (same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents); family and relationship variables; and the psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic attractions and behaviors of adolescents. Participants included 44 12- to 18-year-old adolescents parented by same-sex couples and 44 same-aged adolescents parented by opposite-sex couples, matched on demographic characteristics and drawn from a national sample. Normative analyses indicated that, on measures of psychosocial adjustment and school outcomes, adolescents were functioning well, and their adjustment was not generally associated with family type. Assessments of romantic relationships and sexual behavior were not associated with family type. Regardless of family type, adolescents whose parents described closer relationships with them reported better school adjustment.

Full text

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Psychosocial Adjustment, School Outcomes, and Romantic Relationships of
Adolescents With Same-Sex Parents
Jennifer L. Wainright, Stephen T. Russell, and Charlotte J. Patterson
This study examined associations among family type (same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents); family and rela-
tionship variables; and the psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic attractions and behaviors
of adolescents. Participants included 44 12- to 18-year-old adolescents parented by same-sex couples and 44
same-aged adolescents parented by opposite-sex couples, matched on demographic characteristics and drawn
from a national sample. Normative analyses indicated that, on measures of psychosocial adjustment and school
outcomes, adolescents were functioning well, and their adjustment was not generally associated with family
type. Assessments of romantic relationships and sexual behavior were not associated with family type. Re-
gardless of family type, adolescents whose parents described closer relationships with them reported better
school adjustment.
Does parental sexual orientation have an impact on
children’s development? The issue of parental sexual
orientation has received a great deal of attention re-
cently from a variety of sources, including the pop-
ular press, the research community (Stacey &
Biblarz, 2001), and the medical profession (Perrin,
1998). This topic is important both because of its
implications for theories of socialization (Golombok,
1999; Golombok & Tasker, 1994) and because of its
relevance to recent controversies in law and social
policy, both in the United States and abroad (Go-
lombok, 2002; Patterson, Fulcher, & Wainright, 2002;
Patterson & Redding, 1996; Perrin & Committee on
Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health,
2002). Thus, it is not surprising that a growing body
of empirical research has examined psychosocial
outcomes among children who are raised by parents
who have same-sex partners.
Varied theoretical predictions about the develop-
ment of children with lesbian mothers can be drawn
from the psychological literature (Golombok et al.,
2003). Some authors have suggested that parental
sexual orientation might have an important influ-
ence on development during childhood and adoles-
cence (e.g., Baumrind, 1995). Others have argued
that the qualities of family relationships and inter-
actions are likely to be more important influences
than parental sexual orientation (e.g., Chan, Raboy, &
Patterson, 1998). A growing number of studies have
sought to evaluate these expectations by exploring
linkages between parental sexual orientation, on the
one hand, and children’s development, on the other.
Research has identified few associations between
parental sexual orientation and young children’s
well-being (Patterson, 2000), but it has suggested
that processes within the family such as parents’
division of labor (Chan, Raboy, et al., 1998; Patterson,
1995) may be associated with child adjustment. Re-
search has focused on children who were born to or
adopted by lesbian mothers (e.g., Brewaeys, Po-
njaert, Van Hall, & Golombok, 1997; Chan, Brooks,
Raboy, & Patterson, 1998; Chan, Raboy, et al., 1998;
Flaks, Ficher, Masterpasqua, & Joseph, 1995; Go-
lombok, Tasker, & Murray, 1997; Patterson, 1994) or
who were born in the context of a heterosexual re-
lationship (e.g., Golombok, Spencer, & Rutter, 1983;
Green, 1978; Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray, & Smith,
1986; Kirkpatrick, Smith, & Roy, 1981). Results of
these studies suggest that children’s development is
similar in many respects, whether they are raised by
lesbian or by heterosexual parents.
r 2004 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2004/7506-0018
Jennifer L. Wainright, Department of Psychology, University of
Virginia; Stephen T. Russell, Department of Family Studies and
Human Development, University of Arizona; Charlotte J. Patter-
son, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia.
This research uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health (Add Health), a program project designed by J.
Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and
funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding
from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R.
Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original de-
sign. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health
should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W.
Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (www.cpc.unc.edu/
addhealth/contract.html).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Charlotte J. Patterson, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 400400,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA 22904-0400. Electronic
mail may be sent to cjp@virginia.edu.
Child Development, November/December 2004, Volume 75, Number 6, Pages 1886–1898

Page 2

Little research, however, has been conducted on
adolescent offspring of lesbian or gay parents, and
some writers have suggested that caution be used
when generalizing the results of research conducted
with young children to adolescents (e.g., Perrin &
Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and
Family Health, 2002). Because adolescence is a time
during which issues such as personal identity, peers,
and dating become important, and because of con-
cerns about the possible effects of same-sex parent-
ing during adolescence (e.g., Baumrind, 1995), it is
an especially interesting period in which to examine
the development of youth with nonheterosexual
parents.
The small body of research that has focused on
adolescent offspring of families headed by same-sex
couples includes Huggins’s (1989) study of 36 ado-
lescents, ages 13 to 19, 18 with divorced heterosexual
and 18 with divorced lesbian mothers. In this study,
Huggins reported no differences in adolescent self-
esteem as a function of mothers’ sexual orientation.
Daughters of lesbian mothers also had higher self-
esteem if their mother had a romantic partner who
lived in the home, if their fathers did not display
negative attitudes about the mother’s sexual orien-
tation, and if they learned of their mother’s sexual
orientation at an early age. Huggins also reported
that one adolescent with a heterosexual mother, but
none with lesbian mothers, identified as nonhetero-
sexual.
O’Connor (1993) studied 11 young men and
women, ages 16 to 23, who were the children of di-
vorced or separated lesbian mothers. Qualitative
findingssuggestedthat
strong love, loyalty, and protectiveness toward their
mothers, and a desire for others to understand the
benefits of having a lesbian mother, such as an in-
creased sensitivity to prejudice. Informants, howev-
er, described worries about losing friends or being
judged by others and their need to keep their
mothers’ sexual orientation a secret from at least
some people external to the family.
Gershon, Tschann, and Jemerin (1999) studied
self-esteem, perception of stigma, and coping skills
among adolescent offspring of lesbian mothers. They
conducted interviews with 76 adolescents, ages 11 to
18, and examined the impact of societal factors on
self-esteem. The participants had either been born to
women who identified as lesbians (25 adolescents) or
had been born in the context of their mother’s earlier
heterosexual marriage (51 adolescents). Gershon et
al. found that adolescents who perceived more stig-
ma related to having a lesbian mother had lower self-
esteem in five of seven areas, including social
participantsexpressed
acceptance, self-worth, behavioral conduct, physical
appearance, and close friendship. They hypothe-
sized that the presence of various types of coping
skills would moderate this relationship between
perceived stigma and self-esteem. However, their
results showed that only good decision making had
a moderating effect: In the face of high perceived
stigma, adolescents possessing better decision-mak-
ing skills had higher self-concept in the area of
behavioral conduct.
A slightly older population was studied in Tasker
and Golombok’s (1997) longitudinal study of young
adult offspring of lesbian mothers. Forty-six young
adults, ages 17 to 35, were interviewed in this follow-
up to Golombok et al.’s (1983) study of children
raised in divorced lesbian mother or divorced het-
erosexual mother families. In this generally well-
adjusted sample, young men and women who were
raised by lesbian mothers were no more likely than
those raised by heterosexual mothers to experience
depression or anxiety. Adult children from lesbian
mother families were also no more likely than those
from other families to have sought professional help
for psychiatric problems. They reported having close
friendships during adolescence and were no more
likely to remember peer group hostility than were
those from other families. Offspring of lesbian
mothers were also no more likely to report same-sex
sexual attraction or a gay, lesbian, or bisexual iden-
tity than were those from heterosexual families. They
were, however, more likely to have considered a gay
or lesbian relationship as a possibility for themselves
and to have been involved in a same-sex relation-
ship, suggesting that although sexual attraction and
identity may not be related to parental sexual ori-
entation, the likelihood of considering or entering a
same-sex relationship may be associated with par-
ents’ sexual orientation.
In general, like the literature on children, these
studies found few differences in adolescent adjust-
ment associated with parental sexual orientation.
Research on younger children (e.g., Chan, Brooks
et al., 1998) found that variables representing fami-
lies’ organization of daily life, such as division of
household labor and child care, are more likely than
parental sexual orientation to be associated with
children’s outcomes. Research on adolescent off-
spring of same-sex couples, however, has not yet
addressed this issue.
A substantial body of research indicates that
parenting style influences the effectiveness of par-
ents’ efforts to socialize their children (Steinberg &
Silk, 2002). In particular, a warm, accepting style
of parenting is related to optimal outcomes for
Same-Sex Parents and Psychological Outcomes 1887

Page 3

adolescents (Rohner, 1999), especially if it is com-
bined with appropriate limit setting and monitoring
of adolescent behavior (Steinberg, Lamborn, Do-
rnbusch, & Darling, 1992). The relationship between
parental warmth and positive outcomes has been
found for adolescents from a wide variety of ethnic,
socioeconomic, and family structure backgrounds,
and by researchers working with a variety of dif-
ferent methodological approaches (Khaleque &
Rohner, 2002). That these linkages have been found
among such a diverse group of adolescents suggests
that they might also be expected among the offspring
of gay and lesbian parents, and the current research
addressed this issue by assessing adolescents’ per-
ceptions of parental warmth and their own autono-
my, as well as parents’ perceptions of the quality of
their relationship with their child.
Overall, the research on adolescent and young
adult offspring of lesbian mothers suggests that they
are developing in positive ways. However, existing
research is still sparse and based on small samples,
the representativeness of which is generally difficult
to assess (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001). One recent study
assessed adjustment of 7-year-old children with les-
bian and heterosexual mothers, using data from a
large geographic population study (Golombok et al.,
2003). To the best of our knowledge, however,
the current study is the first to assess adjustment of
adolescents living with same-sex parents in which
data are drawn from a large national sample. Our
sample is drawn from the National Longitudinal
Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which
includes participants from many different back-
grounds (Bearman, Jones, & Udry, 1997; Resnick
et al., 1997).
Examination of the existing research indicates that
there is also a need for analysis of a more compre-
hensive set of outcomes for adolescents who live
with same-sex parents. In the current research, ado-
lescents were assessed on a wide variety of outcome
variables, including various aspects of adolescents’
psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and
romantic relationships and behaviors. This study
also examined several family and relationship vari-
ables that have not been included in past research,
such as adolescents’ perceptions of parental warmth,
care from adults and peers, integration into the
neighborhood, and autonomy, and parents’ assess-
ment of the quality of the parent–child relationship.
This research assessed normative levels of ad-
justment among adolescent offspring of same-sex
parents and explored factors that are associated with
individual differences in adjustment within this
group. We assessed structural variables such as
family type (i.e., whether parent has a same-sex or
opposite-sex partner), as well as family and rela-
tionship variables such as adolescents’ perceptions
of parental warmth, care from adults and peers,
autonomy, and integration into the neighborhood,
and parents’ perceptions of the quality of their rela-
tionship with their child. Based on previous findings
with children (e.g., Chan et al., 1998; Flaks et al.,
1995; Golombok et al., 2003), we expected to find few
differences in adjustment between youth living with
parents who had same-sex versus opposite-sex
partners. Consistent with the literature on sources of
individual differencesamong adolescents
Steinberg & Silk, 2002), however, we did expect to
find associations between family and relationship
variables and adolescent adjustment outcomes.
(e.g.,
Method
Participants
Participating families were drawn from a large
national sample of adolescents in the United States
collected by Quality Education Data for Add Health
(Bearman et al., 1997). Add Health is a school-based
study of the health-related behaviors of adolescents
in Grades 7 to 12. A sample of 80 eligible high
schools was initially selected. Schools were stratified
to ensure that this sample was representative of U.S.
schools with respect to region of country, urbanicity,
school type, ethnicity, and school size. More than
70% of the originally sampled high schools were
recruited by Add Health. If a high school refused to
participate, a replacement school within its stratum
was selected. Personnel at participating schools
provided rosters of their students and, in most cases,
agreed to administer an In-School Questionnaire
during one class period. They also assisted in iden-
tifying their feeder schools (i.e., schools that include
seventh grade and send their graduates to that high
school). The final sample consisted of a pair of
schools in each of 80 communities, with the excep-
tion of some high schools that spanned Grades 7 to
12 and therefore functioned as their own feeder
schools (Bearman et al., 1997).
All students who completed an In-School Ques-
tionnaire plus those who did not complete a ques-
tionnaire but who were listed on a school roster were
eligible for selection into the core In-Home sample.
Students in each school were stratified by grade and
sex, and approximately 17 students were randomly
chosen from each stratum so that approximately 200
adolescents were selected from each of the 80 pairs of
1888 Wainright, Russell, and Patterson

Page 4

schools. A total core sample of 12,105 adolescents
was interviewed.
Most interviews were conducted in 1995 in the
participants’ homes. All data were recorded on lap-
top computers. For less sensitive sections, the inter-
viewerreadthe questions
respondent’s answers. For more sensitive sections,
the respondent listened to prerecorded questions
through earphones and entered the answers directly.
A parent, preferably the resident mother, of each
adolescent respondent interviewed in Wave I of data
collection was asked to complete a questionnaire
covering topics including, among others, parents’
marriages and marriage-like relationships; neigh-
borhood characteristics; involvement in volunteer,
civic, or school activities; health-affecting behaviors;
education and employment; household income and
economic assistance; and parent–adolescent com-
munication and interaction.
Data employed in the present study were col-
lected through the In-Home Interviews and Surveys,
as well as In-School Surveys of students (collected
from 1994 to 1995) and through the In-Home Ques-
tionnaires of parents.
Offspring of same-sex couples were identified
through a two-step process. We first identified fam-
ilies in which parents reported being in a marriage or
marriage-like relationship with a person of the same
sex. Because no data had been collected on parents’
sexual identities, per se, families headed by gay, bi-
sexual, or lesbian parents who did not report that
they were in a marriage or marriage-like relationship
at the time of data collection could not be identified.
In the second step, the consistency of parental re-
ports about gender and family relationships was
examined. To guard against the possibility that some
families may have been misclassified because of
coding errors, we retained only cases in which pa-
rental reports of gender and family relationship were
consistent (e.g., a parent reported being female and
described her relationship to the target adolescent as
‘‘biological mother’’). Any families in which parental
reports of gender and family relationships did not
make sense or did not fit our criteria (e.g., a parent
reported being female and described her relationship
to the target adolescent as ‘‘biological father’’) were
discarded. This procedure was designed to ensure
that, insofar as possible, only adolescents whose
parents reported being involved in a marriage or
marriage-like relationship with a person of the same
sex were selected for further study. The number of
families headed by male same-sex couples was very
small (n56). Results of preliminary analyses that
included these families were nearly identical to those
andentered the
including only families headed by female same-sex
couples. To simplify interpretation of results, we
excluded these 6 families from the final sample.
The focal group of families identified through this
process consisted of 44 adolescents, 23 girls and 21
boys. Approximately 68% of the adolescents identi-
fied themselves as European American or White,
and 31.8% identified themselves as non-White or as
biracial. On average, the adolescents were 15.1 years
of age (SD51.5 years), with a range from 12 to 18
years of age. Average household income for families
in the focal group was approximately $45,500 per
year (see Table 1).
The resources of the Add Health database allowed
the construction of a well-matched comparison
group of adolescents. Each of the offspring of same-
sex parents was matched with an adolescent from
the Add Health database who was raised by oppo-
site-sex parents. This matching was accomplished by
generating a list of adolescents from the Add Health
database who matched each target adolescent on the
following characteristics: sex, age, ethnic back-
ground, adoption status (identified through parent
reports), learning disability status, family income,
and parent’s educational attainment. The first
matching adolescent on each list was chosen as the
comparison adolescent for that target adolescent.
The final sample included 88 families, including 44
families headed by mothers with female partners
and 44 comparison families headed by opposite-sex
couples.
To assess the degree to which our focal group of 44
families with same-sex parents was representative of
Table1
Demographic Characteristics as a Function of Sample
Variable
Family type
Opposite sex
vs. same sex
Same-sex
parents
Opposite-sex
parents
Number of families
Child’s age in years
Parent’s age in years
Annual household
incomea
Percentage female
Percentage non-White
Percentage adopted
Percentage with
college-educated
parents
44
15.1 (1.5)
41.1 (6.6)
45.5 (20.7)
44
15.0 (1.4)
41.9 (5.1)
43.0 (20.5)
to1, ns
to1, ns
to1, ns
52.3%
31.8%
4.5%
47.7%
52.3%
31.8%
4.5%
47.7%
w2o1, ns
w2o1, ns
w2o1, ns
w2o1, ns
Note. Standard deviations are given in parentheses.
aIncome given in thousands of dollars.
Same-Sex Parents and Psychological Outcomes1889

Page 5

the overall population from which it was drawn, we
compared the demographic characteristics of the
focal group with those for the entire Add Health core
sample (N512,105). Using one-sample t tests and
chi-square tests, as appropriate, we compared ado-
lescent age, parent age, household income, adoles-
cent gender, racial identification, adoption status,
and parental education in the two groups. For the
entire Add Health core sample, average age of ado-
lescent participants was 14.9 years and average age
of parents was 41.7 years. Average household in-
come was $47,400 per year. The sample was 52.2%
female, 38.5% non-White, and 1.5% adopted, and
42% of parents were college educated. None of these
comparisons was statistically significant. We con-
clude that our focal group of 44 families was de-
mographically similar to the population from which
it was drawn.
We also explored a more stringent approach to
identification of families with same-sex parents. In
this approach, we used the two principal criteria
described earlier: (a) parent described as being in a
marriage or marriage-like relationship and (b) pa-
rental report data about gender and family rela-
tionships were clear and consistent; in addition, we
required that (c) the responding parent reported
being unmarried and (d) the adolescent reported no
opposite-sex parental figure in his or her household.
The fourth criterion required that if an adolescent
reported living with his or her biological mother, he
or she reported no male figure (e.g., biological father,
stepfather) as residing in the household.
Because there was no way for adolescents to in-
dicate that they lived in more than one household
(e.g., in joint custody situations), we believe that
application of the more stringent criteria effectively
eliminated from the sample many adolescents from
divorced families in which one or both parents were
currently involved in same-sex relationships. Thus,
use of the more stringent criteria had the disadvan-
tage of failing to include many families of interest
but had the advantage of including only clear cases
in which adolescents described themselves as living
only with two same-sex adults, and in which parents
described themselves as unmarried and as involved
in a marriage or marriage-like relationship with a
person of the same sex. In short, these families con-
formed in every particular to an idealized image of
lesbian mother families. We identified 18 such fam-
ilies and completed all analyses with this sample and
a matched comparison group of 18 families (in which
parents reported being involved in opposite-sex re-
lationships). Results were essentially identical to
those reported, revealing few group differences but
much within-group variation in outcomes that was
significantly associated with the quality of family
relationships. We present data from the larger sam-
ple, however, because we believe that it more nearly
represents the real (rather than the idealized) variety
of families in which parents are involved in same-sex
relationships.
Dependent Measures
We examined data from Add Health regarding
various aspects of adolescent adjustment and ado-
lescent relationships with parents. Composite varia-
bles were created from the Add Health In-Home
interviews and In-School Questionnaires for adoles-
cents’ self-reported levels of depressive symptoms,
anxiety, self-esteem, school grades, trouble at school,
and school connectedness. Composite variables were
also formed for adolescents’ reports of their percep-
tions of parental warmth, caring from adults and
peers, integration into their neighborhood, and au-
tonomy. Adolescents’ romantic attractions, relation-
ships, and behaviors were assessed with individual
items.
Psychosocialadjustment. Adolescent
symptoms were assessed with a 19-question version
of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression
Scale (CES–D; Radloff, 1977) from the In-Home In-
terview. This scale of depressive symptoms includes
questions about the frequency of symptoms such as
feeling depressed, feeling too tired to do things, and
feeling lonely. Possible scores on this scale, based on
the sum of the 19 items, range from 0 to 57, with
higher scores indicating greater levels of depressive
symptoms. Cronbach’s alpha was .85.
Adolescent anxiety was measured with a seven-
item scale from the In-Home Interview that included
questions about the frequency of symptoms such as
feeling moody or having trouble relaxing. Items were
measured on a scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (every
day), with scores ranging from 0 to 28, and higher
scores indicating higher levels of anxiety. Cronbach’s
alpha was .68.
Self-esteem was assessed using a six-item scale
from the In-School Questionnaire that included
items such as feeling socially accepted and feeling
loved and wanted. Items were measured on a scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree),
with scores ranging from 6 to 30, and higher scores
indicating higher self-esteem. Cronbach’s alpha
was .80.
School functioning. School outcomes measured
included grade point average (GPA), school con-
nectedness, and trouble in school, all assessed in the
depressive
1890Wainright, Russell, and Patterson