BY CANDY PARKER

A new study conducted by the University of Melbourne in Australia indicates that children raised in same-sex parent households were happier and healthier as compared to the general population.

Described as the largest study of its type in the world, the report — Parent-reported measures of child health and wellbeing in same-sex parent families: a cross-sectional survey — assessed 315 same-sex parents and 500 children in regard to their physical health and social wellbeing. Researchers found that children raised by same-sex parents scored 6 percent higher than the general population in the areas of general health and family cohesion. Researchers noted that these results “held up when controlling for a number sociodemographic factors such as parent education and household income.”

Lead researcher Dr. Simon Crouch cited parental harmony in same-sex families as contributing to the children’s wellbeing. “It appears that same-sex parent families get along well and this has a positive impact on health. We know that same-sex attracted parents are more likely to share child care and work responsibilities more equitably than heterosexual parent families, based more on skills rather than gender roles. This appears to be contributing to a more harmonious household and having a positive impact on child health.”

Predictably, detractors of the study have discounted the findings. Roslyn Phillips, research officer for Family Voice Australia said, “You’ve got to look beyond studies like these to what happens when the child reaches adulthood, and that’s the only time with independent assessment you can really say what’s gone on with the parenting and then ask them how they’re going in all sorts of ways; I think that would be a more relevant study.”

Ms. Philips went on to question the objectivity of the research, as well. “Simon Crouch is raising two young children himself with his male homosexual partner, The results should be taken with caution.”

Dr. Crouch responded, indicating that his personal situation did not impact on the results of the study. “I acknowledge that I am from a same-sex-parent family, however I am one of a number of researchers on the paper who come from all sorts of different backgrounds. There’s a wide range of research across many different areas; first and foremost I’m a researcher, I’m a medical doctor and I’m a public health practitioner, and the objectivity I bring to this study doesn’t depend on my own personal situation.”

The study corroborates prior research which has demonstrated a general wellbeing amongst children of same-sex parents and Dr. Crouch also suggested the findings may play a role in Australia’s marriage debate.

“Australian politicians and others still object to marriage equality and same-sex adoption based on arguments that children need to be raised by a married biological mother and biological father to do well. This study shows that children can thrive in a range of family contexts and the ways that these families are constructed can bring their own particular benefits to child health and wellbeing,” offered Crouch.

The post Same-sex couples raising happier, healthier children first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Steph (left) and Brooke

BY NATASIA LANGFELDER
Lesbian.com

There are so many superstar moms to celebrate this Mother’s Day and each is special in her own way. Today, Lesbian.com wants to celebrate lesbian moms everywhere by introducing you to Steph and Brooke who are mothers to two amazing children, are foster mothers to two more and provided donor eggs and surrogacy for their best friends and sperm donors, Chris and Dakota.

They have been friends with gay couple Chris and Dakota for years. Brooke and Steph even lived with Chris when they were all in need of a roommate. The two couples had a firm friendship and when Chris found out that Brooke and Steph were thinking of starting a family he approached them and offered to help, and asked if they would consider doing the same for him.

With the spirit of generosity and kindness, the two couples embarked on their journey to create their “modern families.” I spoke with Brooke and asked her to share the details of their arrangement from legal rights, to logistics, to juggling boundaries between the two sets of parents.

How did you come up with this arrangement and hammer out the details?

Once Steph and I began talking about starting a family we sat down and decided what was most important to us. We both have a strong passion for kids and shared the same opinions on what kind of life we wanted for the future. We talked about our own childhood, and from that took both things we wanted to carry on to our children and things we wanted to do differently. During that process, we decided that we still wanted a male figure in our kids’ lives. We wanted this person to be okay with the child knowing who they were and be there for the big parts of their lives. Basically an uncle figure but with no obligations at all. Let me add a disclaimer here by saying we do not by any means believe that families who use unknown donors are in some way depriving their children, we just did what felt right to us and our family.

Once we talked we realized we all wanted our kids to know who their mother(s) and father(s) are and be present as an aunt/uncle-type figure in their lives, but with no financial or legal responsibility on the part of the donor or surrogate biological parent. So, once a child is born there is an adoption and signing over of rights.

How did you “do it”?

We performed artificial insemination at home. Steph is a nurse so we were able to do everything safely. The boys would leave their “sample” or drop it by.

Do you get asked, “Is it hard to ‘give up’ your biological child?”

We have never looked at it as giving up a child. It feels like you are giving it back. There is nothing that can describe the feeling of a seeing a parent hold their baby for the first time and knowing you were able to give that to them. We all see each other as often as we can and are always there for the big events, birthdays, etc.

What was the hardest part of piecing together your “modern family”? What was the best part?

I think there were different hard parts for each one of us. With our first child it was definitely just trusting everyone involved. We are human and sometimes we don’t know how we will feel until we are put into a situation. It has actually gone remarkably smoothly over the years and it seems the only time anything has ever turned negative has been when someone not in our arrangement tried to involve themselves.

People tend to get wrapped up in the “fairness” of the arrangement and really have a hard time understanding why we chose to do things this way. We have learned the key is to be very honest, open and to make sure we stay true to what we wanted from the start.

The best part has been the ability to give each other such an amazing gift. It also amazes us how successful our situation actually was/is. There could have been so many things go wrong and things could have been a disaster but it really did work out the way we all wanted.

From left to right: Daniel (child), Dakota, Steph, Avery (child),Cooper (child), Chris, Brooke.
[Order of births and bio parents involved: Avery by Brooke and Chris; Cooper by Steph and Chris; Daniel by Dakota and Steph; soon to arrive in July is Joey (girl) by Brooke and Chris]

We make it a point to do Christmas and the kid’s birthdays together. It is really not much different than most families who have multiple stops on a holiday. We always make sure we get together though even if it is after the fact.

What do all of your families think of the arrangement?

I think we have all been blessed with great family members who have been very supportive. The hardest part has been for everyone to know exactly where they stand. Especially with the grandparents involved. With every child the parents of the “donor/surrogate” were never sure if they should come to the hospital or tell people they had another grandchild, etc., but regardless they always found their place and what made them comfortable. Needless to say all of our kids get extra spoiled from multiple grandparents.

What are you doing for Mother’s Day?

We are pretty laid back and, as with most of our holidays, we surround ourselves with family, food and just relax and enjoy. Even though we have children that have two moms and two dads and we consider ourselves a big family, we live our daily lives as two separate families. For Mother’s Day we will celebrate with our kids and our own moms, while the boys will do the same with their own family. We usually get a picture or a call from one another for well wishes on days like this since the kids are still young. When they get older and want to spend the day with that mom or dad then we will be a bit more involved.

Brooke and Steph continue to challenge traditional notions of family in more ways than one. In addition to their “bio” kids, the women are also foster parents to two little boys, who, for legal reasons, cannot be included in this article but the couple is pleased to see that the boys are thriving in their care. Many children in the foster care system have parents who are trying to pass fitness tests and get their children back, while others might find new forever homes. Either way, strong familial ties are essential for these children. In the Brooke and Steph’s view, there are “too many kids out there and not enough foster homes.” They are correct. The most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Health states that there are currently almost 400,000 children in the foster care system with over 100,000 waiting to be adopted.

While I celebrate my mother today, I also am going to take a moment to celebrate all our “modern families” and the people, like Brooke and Steph, who have given of themselves to make someone else’s dream of being a parent a reality. I hope you will, too.

The post Celebrating Mother’s Day with a beautiful ‘modern family’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CAVAN SIECZKOWSKI

Same-sex parents might still have an uphill battle to forge, but a new study seems to provide a helpful push in the right direction. In a study billed as the first to compare adolescent-parent relationships and adolescent well-being in intact lesbian and heterosexual families, children of lesbians reported having higher self-esteem and lower conduct problems than those of heterosexual couples.

The study compared 51 Dutch children (25 girls and 26 boys) born to lesbian parents through donor insemination with 51 demographically similar teens from heterosexual parents. The children matched in age, gender, education and birth country. Last year, the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families conducted the world’s largest study comparing same-sex parents to heterosexual parents and found that children of gay couples are thriving in terms of health and familial wellness, Think Progress reported.

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

The post Yet another study finds lesbian moms are awesome first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Lesbian couples who have families through assisted reproduction with donated sperm are more satisfied with their relationships and have less parental stress than straight couples who use IVF treatment, a new dissertation from Sweden’s Uppsala University finds according to a Health Canal report.

“Same, safe but different: Lesbian couples undergoing sperm donation” studies and compares the quality of the couple’s relationship, mental health and parental stress among lesbian and straight couples who undergo assisted reproduction. Catrin Borneskog, a midwife and doctoral candidate at Uppsala, says the findings are important because assisted reproduction is not available to same-sex couples in many countries, Heath Canal reports.

Read more at Washington Blade

Washington Blade is America’s leading gay news source.

The post Swedish study: Lesbian couples are better parents first appeared on Lesbian.com.

LGBT rights advocates in Northern Ireland continue to celebrate the lifting of a ban on gay couples adopting children.

The Belfast Telegraph on Wednesday reported the government made the announcement after a group of gay activists interrupted a Nov. 27 meeting that Northern Ireland Health Minister Edwin Poots attended.

Poots challenged a Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruling in June that said the adoption ban violated European human rights law. The U.K. Supreme Court on Nov. 1 denied Poots’ request to appeal the decision.

Read more at Washington Blade

Washington Blade is America’s leading gay news source.

The post Gay adoption ban lifted in Northern Ireland first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY KELLY MORRIS

In 2004, a woman had her egg fertilized and implanted in her partner to create their child. Two years later the couple split up and the birth mother took their daughter and left the country. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court decided that the woman who donated the egg, the self-proclaimed biological mother, has rights to the child.

“The couple’s actions before and after the child’s birth — including their use of funds from their joint bank account, their statements to the reproductive doctor that they intended to raise the child as a couple, the counseling they underwent to prepare themselves for parenthood, the use of a hyphenated last name for the child, and the joint birth announcement — reveal that the couple’s agreement in actuality was to both parent the child,” the court wrote.

Read more at TheSeattleLesbian.com

The Seattle Lesbian online magazine reachers over 188,000 readers per week globally

The post Florida court rules lesbian egg donor has parental rights first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Hart talks parenting techniques, motherhood and her hopes for a family.

The post Hartbeat talks motherhood first appeared on Lesbian.com.

“Lez Build a Family” is a resource for queer and lesbian women who have children or who are considering. Founder Maya Jean-Baptiste shares how a change of heart inspired her to start a web series to support LGBT parents.

The post ‘Lez Build a Family’: Interview with series creator Maya Jean-Baptiste first appeared on Lesbian.com.

If a breast is best, why should gay dads have to settle for giving their kids the bottle? That’s the thinking that has led one French nurse to offer her services as a surrogate breast feeder. An advert, published on e-loue.com by a 29-year-old woman who self identifies as a nurse, is in French but a rough translation reads:

“I am a young mother in good health … and I’m renting out my breasts for breastfeeding infants. I’m in the Paris region and I can offer up to a dozen feeds a day for your baby. Gay men in couples are not able to breastfeed … Breastfeeding helps babies be healthier because breast milk gives babies complete nutrition.”

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post French woman offers nursing option for gay dads first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Zach Wahls, the now famous son of lesbian moms.

BY ZACK FORD
ThinkProgress

Conservatives have launched a new offensive against same-sex parenting, accusing them of child abuse simply for raising a loving family. Lost in that rhetoric is the experience of the tens of thousands of children actually being raised by gay and lesbian couples — children who would enjoy greater protection if their parents could marry.

The Family Equality Council is working to change that through its Outspoken Generation project. Chaired by Zach Wahls and Ella Robinson, daughter of Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, Outspoken Generation champions the voices of children of same-sex couples so that they can challenge the myths about what it means to have two moms or two dads. In a new video, Wahls, Robinson, and several others talk about what wonderful experiences they’ve had and how the only difference they really experienced was the stigma their families endured.

Read more at ThinkProgress.org

The post Outspoken Generation: Children of gay parents speak out first appeared on Lesbian.com.