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 Adoption Survey Gives Gay Parents High Grades
by The Associated Press
Posted: February 12, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(New York City) Adoptive parents invest more
time and financial resources in their children than biological parents,
according to a new national study challenging arguments that have been used to
oppose same-sex marriage and gay adoption.
The study, published in the new issue of the American Sociological Review, found
that couples who adopt spend more money on their children and invest more time
on such activities as reading to them, eating together and talking with them
about their problems.
"One of the reasons adoptive parents invest more is that they really want
children, and they go to extraordinary means to have them," Indiana
University sociologist Brian Powell, one of the study's three co-authors, said
in a telephone interview Monday.
"Adoptive parents face a culture where, to many other people, adoption is
not real parenthood," Powell said. "What they're trying to do is
compensate. ... They recognize the barriers they face, and it sets the stage for
them to be better parents."
Powell and his colleagues examined data from 13,000 households with
first-graders in the family. The data was part of a detailed survey called the
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Education and other agencies.
The researchers said 161 families in the survey were headed by two adoptive
parents, and they rated better overall than families with biological parents on
an array of criteria - including helping with homework, parental involvement in
school, exposure to cultural activities and family attendance at religious
services. The only category in which adoptive parents fared worse was the
frequency of talking with parents of other children.
The researchers noted that adoptive couples, in general, were older and
wealthier than biological parents, but said the adoptive parents still had an
advantage - albeit smaller - when the data was reanalyzed to account for income
inequality.
In particular, the researchers said, adoptive parents had a pronounced edge over
single-parent and stepparent families.
The researchers said their findings call into question the long-standing
argument that children are best off with their biological parents. Such
arguments were included in state Supreme Court rulings last year in New York and
Washington that upheld laws against same-sex marriage.
The researchers said gay and lesbian parents may react to discrimination by
taking extra, compensatory steps to promote their children's welfare.
"Ironically, the same social context that creates struggles for these
alternative families may also set the stage for them to excel in some measures
of parenting," the study concluded.
An opponent of same-sex marriage, Peter Sprigg of the conservative Family
Research Counsel, noted that the study focused on male/female adoptive couples,
not on same-sex couples, and he questioned whether it shed any new light on
adoptive parenting by gays.
Sprigg, the research council's vice president for policy, said he warmly
supports adoption, but believes it is best undertaken by married, heterosexual
couples.
Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute,
welcomed the study's findings, but cautioned against possibly exaggerated
interpretations of it.
"It's an affirmation that there are all sorts of families that are good for
kids," he said. "Adoptive parents aren't less good or better. They
just bring different benefits to the table. In terms of how families are formed,
it should be a level playing field."
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation
and the American Educational Research Association.
©365Gay.com 2007
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