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Henehan, David

Psychology

2005

PhD

Research with lesbian, gay male, and bisexual (LGB) families has often focused on child outcomes while overlooking the personal characteristics of parents. Demographic factors, perceived social support from family and friends, and sexual identity variables were studied using a national sample of lesbians, gay men, and heterosexuals. Participants were drawn from the Civil Union Study (Solomon, Rothblum, & Balsam, 2004), which recruited LGB participants who had civil unions in Vermont the first year these were legally available, as well as members of their friendship circle who were in same-sex couples but did not have civil unions, and married heterosexual siblings and their spouses. This is the first study to compare lesbian mothers (n = 150), lesbians without children (n = 236), heterosexual mothers (n = 175), heterosexual women without children (n = 38), gay fathers (n = 40), gay men without children (n = 163), heterosexual fathers (n = 157), and heterosexual men without children (n = 32). Compared to women without children, mothers were older, less educated, more established in their current relationship, less geographically mobile, less likely to live in a large city, more formally religious, and more frequent in their religious service attendance. Fathers were older than men without children, less geographically mobile, less likely to live in a large city, more established in their relationship, more frequent in their religious service attendance, geographically closer to their parents and had more contact with their mothers. Only 28% of gay fathers and 37% of lesbian mothers had at least one child from their current relationship. Heterosexual women reported higher levels of family support and contact with family of origin than lesbians did. Lesbians and gay men did not differ on outness, but LGB parents were more out than LGB participants without children.
Gay men were younger than lesbians when they reached milestones in the coming-out process. Gay fathers reached most milestones in the coming-out process 2.5-4 years later than gay men without children, and lesbian mothers reached all milestones in the coming-out process 3-5 years later than lesbians without children. Lesbian mothers who had children before coming out reached developmental milestones 4-8 years later than lesbian mothers who had children after coming out. This was also the first study to examine couples where one person reported having children and the other did not. Approximately 11 percent of lesbians and gay men were from couples that were discrepant on parenting status. Parents from these couples had their children in prior relationships and reported infrequent contact with their children, possibly due to visitation restrictions or to a tendency to compartmentalize their parenting and LGB lives when first coming out. In the overall sample, lesbians and gay men had reduced contact with their families of origin and reported lower acceptance of their partners, possibly limiting opportunities to develop supportive relationships. Lesbians and gay men therefore perceived more social support from friends than from family, regardless of their parenting status. LGB parents who had children in heterosexual relationships may have delayed coming out due to concerns about sexual identity, financial status, custody, and potential stigma. However, having children might ultimately have increased community and political involvement for LGB participants or made their sexual orientation more difficult to hide. The results highlight the importance of increased community outreach and psychological interventions with alternative families, families of origin, and LGB stepparents.