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Their family situation may be atypical, but kids with two moms grow up to be typical teens, according to new research. In fact, they may be even more well-adjusted than their peers. According to findings that appear in the July issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics, children of lesbian parents are more likely to rate higher in academic performance and less likely to have social problems.
The research comes from a study that began in 1986, when Nanette Gartrell, M.D., now at the University of California San Francisco and UCLA, started the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study to follow children of lesbian couples who conceived via donor insemination. Today, 78 families--93 percent of the original participants--remain in the study. For the latest findings, Gartrell and her colleagues checked back with the biological moms and teenaged offspring and compared them to age-matched and socio-economically matched counterparts in a University of Vermont database. They found those with lesbian moms rated significantly higher in social and academic competence and significantly lower when it came to rule-breaking and aggressive behavior.
