Children’s Developmental Trajectory and Psychological Outcomes
Many factors confer risk to children’s healthy development and adult outcomes, such as poverty, parental depression, parental substance abuse, divorce, and domestic violence, but the sexual orientation of their parents is not among them. Many studies have assessed the developmental and psychosocial outcomes of children whose parents are gay or lesbian and note that a family’s social and economic resources and the strength of the relationships among members of the family are far more important variables than parental gender or sexual orientation in affecting children’s development and well-being.
20 A large body of scientific literature demonstrates that children and adolescents who grow up with gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.
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37 Although the methodologic challenges are daunting in addressing phenomena as complex and multifactorial as children’s long-term developmental and psychosocial outcomes, the literature accumulated over more than 30 years, taken together, provides robust, reliable, and valid assurance about the well-being of children raised by parents of the same gender.
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Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian