BETTINA ARNDT: children with same-sex parents

Prejudice can make life miserable for children with same-sex parents

BETTINA ARNDT

From:The Australian

December 16, 2011 12:00AM

THIS week's story of the child of same-sex parents refused entry into Broken Hill

primary school shows prejudice against such families still has a firm grip, at least in parts of Australia.

While many support the couple, even on ABC radio some callers sided with the school, arguing that school communities had a right to exclude such children.

It's good to see the school's decision was overruled by the diocese's acting bishop. Yet it's hard to imagine the whole fuss wouldn't have an effect on the child.

Knowing a school doesn't want you must add a few extra layers to the thick skin required to grow up with two mummies. And when that exclusion makes news across the country that sense of rejection may well be many times worse.

The biggest problem facing same-sex parents is discrimination and prejudice -- against themselves or their children -- according to the Raising Children Network, an Australian parenting website. The site quotes parents complaining that homophobia is everywhere, with children fearing what others may say about their families, feeling different from their peers who have a mum and a dad, or worrying about being singled out by peers or teachers who are insensitive to their situations.

It's a very sad thought that these children are still having such a tough time and shows much work is still needed to increase tolerance and acceptance of same-sex families. But it shoots a very large hole through the oft-repeated claim that research now proves children are thriving in these families.

It has never made sense that gay parents complain of prejudice and exclusion and in the same breath propose their children are suffering no adverse consequences. In fact, in recent years the research allegedly supporting these rosy claims has come under scrutiny and found to be sorely lacking.

''The methods are so flawed that these studies prove nothing," say Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai, experts in qualitative analysis.

"Not a single one of these studies was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research," concludes sociology professor Steven Nock.

Most of the scholarship on gay parenting is conducted by researchers sympathetic to gay concerns and fails to include proper controls, relies on very small samples and uses unreliable or invalid measures.

The reality is that while resilient children may do well despite the prejudice many encounter, others have a hard time.

Young people who grew up in these families are now publishing their own stories.

Last month Benjamin Anastas wrote in The New York Times about his nervousness about his friends' reaction to his unusual household.

"It made me a liar. After school was a time of evasion and dread, of postponing my friends' inevitable peek inside our house for as long as I could," he wrote, describing his nerves about his friends' questions about where his moms slept. His older brother couldn't hack it and left home early after bitter fighting with the two mothers.

Of course this type of adolescent rebellion happens in many families, particularly after the break-up of a family -- Anastas's brother sorely missed having his father living at home.

But it is simply unfair to children in this situation to whitewash very real concerns about their unusual lifestyle for the sake of preserving the steady flow of propaganda promoting the gay cause. Promoting the myth that all children cope well in this situation makes it very hard for them to acknowledge when they are struggling and seek appropriate help.

A few years ago the Tasmanian Law Reform Commission held an inquiry about whether same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt. Two-thirds of the submissions were firmly against the proposed change, despite the fact most applications for adoption from gay men and women involve adoption by the partner of a gay mother or father.

Now that birth mothers have a say in the choice of adoptive family, homosexuals are very unlikely to be chosen as adoptive parents in unrelated situations.

Tasmanian Centacare adoption social worker Philippa Chapman points out in her submission that no birth mother has ever requested her child be placed with same-sex parents, a situation she believes applies across Australia.

That's hardly surprising.

A birth mother making the painful decision to give up a child will try to ensure the best possible chance of a happy, untroubled life with the adoptive parents. She knows our society still makes it much harder for same-sex parents to provide that.

There are loving same-sex parents creating warm, nurturing homes for their children and at last we live in a community where many are ready to embrace them. The warm reception to Penny Wong's new baby is proof of that.

But life isn't always easy for these young people and we do them no favours by pretending otherwise.

Bettina Arndt is a social commentator and author of What Men Want and The Sex Diaries.