For the sake of the children

Columnist Maggie Gallagher has demonstrated once again how easy it is to spin news events to fit one’s own ideological notions about how people ought to live. In her latest piece (BDN, Feb. 6) she chides the American Academy of Pediatrics for its recent stand on legally recognizing unions of same-sex parents and thereby enhancing the security of their children. She faults the academy for failing to base its declaration on “sound scientific evidence” that pays close attention to health outcomes for children.

Apparently, sound evidence means anything that supports two-parent heterosexual marriage or shows the damage inflicted by other arrangements. Gallagher wants us to believe that same-sex mothers will more likely break up than heterosexual parents, and by extending legal protection to both parents within these households, more children needlessly will be exposed to vicious custody battles. She ignores the careful longitudinal work of psychologist John Gottman, who compared 42 heterosexual married couples and 42 same-sex couples, and found that after 12 years, 20 percent of the same-sex couples had indeed broken up, but 38 percent of the heterosexual couples had done so.

In general, Gottman’s research found that lesbian, gay, and heterosexual relationships are very similar in their levels of satisfaction and quality. Numerous other studies likewise turned up few if any consistent differences in children’s outcomes across different household types.

Suppose, however, that we ask what happens when same-sex mothers or fathers do break up in the absence of legal protection of both parents in the household. Most courts would recognize the parental rights only of the biological or adoptive parent. If that legally protected parent then wants to cut off all access of the children to the “other” parent, there is nothing to stop him or her from doing so, and the children are out of luck. Gallagher doesn’t worry about the children in these instances, no matter how active the non-protected parent has been in loving and caring for them. Her agenda is to keep us focused on the sanctity of Mom-Dad-Buddy-&-Sis family types, and any concern about the needs of children within other arrangements is beside the point. When the findings of social scientists are at odds with her agenda, her solution is then to argue that the science is tainted by bad methodology.

Gallagher also attacks the social science evidence coming from “divorce advocates.” Now, I don’t know any social scientist who “advocates” divorce. Mavis Hetherington has carefully followed more than 2,500 children into their adult lives, and she is clear that divorce can indeed devastate children. She is equally clear, however, that most writing has exaggerated the negative effects of divorce. The vast majority of children have returned to normal functioning within two years of the divorce, and some of these young lives actually improve because of the divorce. Once they became adults, some 75 percent ultimately fared as well in their careers and relationships as the children from intact families.

Other research is clear that while divorce itself certainly may be disturbing to a child, the atmosphere of destructive conflict and unhappiness that may poison a household prior to the divorce may be even more damaging. And distressed couples who stay together only “for the sake of the children” may be prolonging their children’s agony rather than saving them from it.

Gallagher’s one-size-fits-all approach to family life is not helpful for contemporary needs. Where children are concerned, we need to expand our support for anyone who is eager to love, protect, nurture and care for them, and we need to discard the myopic focus on their household arrangements. As for the Academy of Pediatrics, I applaud their call for more legal support of same-sex parents. It may well be that scientific research studies had nothing to do with their position after all.

Perhaps it was simply a matter of thousands of pediatricians seeing enough same-sex parents in their offices to conclude that children thrive when parents love them, regardless of what kind of sexuality their parents favor or what combination of gender their parents have.

Stephen Marks is a professor of sociology at the University of Maine.