Annotated Bibliography

http://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-014-9329-6

The main purpose of this article was to determine if there was a discrepancy between gays and lesbians raising a child and a man and women raising a child. The key question of this article was, does the wellbeing of a child in a same-sex marriage differ from that of a different-sex marriage? This article was an analysis of the findings and critiques of literature on child wellbeing and same sex parents. Also analyzed were over forty studies on the controversial topic. No study alone perfectly and fully assessed the wellbeing of a child in a same sex family, they instead each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Key conclusions of this article include that children growing up with same-sex parents

The United States legalizing gay/lesbian marriage and adoption was a huge step for the LGBT community. Even though people of LGBT can both marry and adopt, some people believe in the myths and stereotypes which suggests that same-sex couples are unfit to be parents. A growing interest in research studies involving LGBT couples and the wellbeing of children leaves people questioning if gay and lesbian couples can be appropriate parents for children.

There are many research studies with evidence as to why same-sex couples are or are not fit to care for a child. One study stated that children growing up with same-sex parents fare just as well as those who grow up with different-sex parents. In one portion of this study, the problem behaviors of both lesbian and straight parented children were analyzed. It was shown that children from both households fared similarly in frequency of substance abuse and delinquent behavior (Manning, W. D). In the same study the wellbeing of the children with same-sex parents were compared to those with different-sex parents under a wide spectrum of measures of wellbeing. These include but are not limited to, academic performance, cognitive and social development, as well as psychological health. All compared measures were again found to be if not the same than similar (Manning, W.

The question of if and how this general pattern extends to same-sex families was then examined. Results proved that children in cohabiting households have poorer health outcomes than those in married households (Reczek, C., Spiker, R., Liu, H., & Crosnoe, R. 2016). Historically, we know married couples in the United States have more socioeconomic resources than cohabiting couples. After comparing different and same sex families, it was shown that some of the same sex families had limited access to valuable socioeconomic resources. This is mainly due to disenfranchisement, fear of homophobic treatment within the community, and discrimination specifically in the workplace (Reczek, C., Spiker, R., Liu, H., & Crosnoe, R. 2016). Although these studies are beneficial, they can at times be difficult to conduct. This is due to a few reoccurring limitations within LGBT parental studies. One major limitation of these studies is small sample sizes (Meezan, W., & Rauch, J. 2005). There isn’t necessarily a list of families in which you can draw representative samples, rather they learn about the studies through other means. These small sample sizes of same-sex couples make it difficult to accurately test gender differences among groups (Meezan, W., & Rauch, J. 2005). Limitations also included statistical and