Back to David Blankenhorn:
Blankenhorn quotes a “research brief” from Child Trends on the ideal family structure for children:
In 2002 – just moments before it became highly unfashionable to say so – a team of researchers from Child Trends, a nonpartisan research center, reported that “family structure clearly matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”
The only problem in this context is that the study doesn’t deal with children of same-sex parents. It is concerned exclusively with opposite-sex and single-parent families and deals with poverty, teenage pregnancy, and similar concerns as they affect children. (See here (PDF).) On that score, I fault the authors for an overly broad summary conclusion, since their study didn’t deal with a whole population. In point of fact, the studies that do deal with comparisons of children of same-sex and opposite-sex parents find no difference in development or emotional wellbeing. Here’s a summary by Charlotte Patterson of the research, posted on the APA website, along with cites of the literature. Once again, Blankenhorn is doing a quick surface scan for data that agrees with his conclusions.
OK, it’s that time. I have to run off and earn money.
Really, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Has Blankenhorn ever done any real research?
Later.
[Reprinted from Hunter at Random]
I’d be VERY surprised if adopted-from-birth kids (with heterosexual parents in a low-conflict marriage) have any different experience than those who live with “two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.” Is this guy suggesting that kids do DNA tests on their parents before loving them?
Or was that not covered either? Ah well who needs control groups.
Shae,
I’d be VERY surprised if adopted-from-birth kids (with heterosexual parents in a low-conflict marriage) have any different experience than those who live with “two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”
This probably is true for kids adopted at birth in an open adoption who have contact with the birth parents, but there does seem to be a tendency for adopted kids who have no idea who the bioparents were and have no contact with them to face more difficulties. It is difficult for a child not to wonder what her “real” parents are like, and I imagine this is exacerbated for international and cross-racial adoption.
Hm, PG. The study apparently deals with “poverty, teenage pregnancy, and similar concerns as they affect children,” not so much painful episodes of wondering.
The adopted people I’ve known are indistinguishable from the non-adopted people I’ve known on the above difficulties, when similar levels of low-conflict are in effect.
Since anecdote is not the singular of data, I won’t bring up my personal counter-examples of adopted kids in low-conflict two-parent households who nonetheless were more likely to face difficulties — in the sense of getting into trouble at school, getting arrested, poor academic performance, failure to hold a steady job, etc. — than their non-adopted siblings. Even scholars like Brodzinsky and Schechter, who would support your idea that children adopted as infants in closed adoptions will have basically the same life outcomes as the biological children of parents, acknowledge that such adoptees still suffer from feelings of loss and grief that follow them through life stages. I intend to adopt children, but I hope to have an open adoption because I’m not blithe about the potential effects on a child of this break from knowledge about one’s biological and genetic history.
Anecdote is not the singular of data, but it can inspire one to think of ways in which a study might be flawed. Hunter points out that the study didn’t include same-sex couples, and while I didn’t pore over the whole thing, I didn’t find the word “adopt” with a word search.
Thus, one wonders just what sort of family(s) the two-biological-parent one was compared to and allegedly trumped.
Seems there was a jump made from “single parenting situations aren’t ideal” to “no other families can suffice.” Sounds like someone had an idealogical axe to grind, and drew conclusions before (and without) collecting appropriate evidence.
I suspect what “two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage” really means is “two parents who have been parenting the child pretty much since birth.” A lot of kids don’t get along well with their stepparents, even if the stepparent is in a low-conflict marriage with the custodial bio-parent, because the stepparent generally is an intruder and supplanter of the non-custodial bio-parent. The tensions that creates may well lead to worse outcomes for the kids than if the kid has had the same two parents her whole life. Of course, the kid can have the same two parents her whole life just as well if they are lesbian parents who made the baby with the assistance of a friend, as she can if they are heterosexuals who decided one night to toss the condoms and see what happens.
I’d be interested to know how much of the difference between one- and two-parent families is due to the single parent being more likely to be unhappy (bad breakup, loneliness, single-income financial hardship, no one to share the parenting with, etc). In the same way that two-parent high-conflict families are going to have trouble because the unhappiness rubs off on the children.
didn’t the NY Supreme Court use similar reasoning to Blankenhorn’s when it opted against same-sex marriage? i think it was something along the lines of: biological children only come from male/female couplings, and benefit from two-parent households, therefore het couples need incentive to stay together and raise the children that may result from sex, and marriage is that incentive.
is that how other folks understood it?
i wasn’t crazy. found the new york court of appeals decision (hernandez v. robles) and it says:
the opinion went on to say that the Legislature could decide that kids should have both a man and a woman in the house as parents.
so it looks like blankenhorn is using similar logic.
ick.
Stepchild,
In the New York marriage decision, Judge Smith also said that it was “common sense” that opposite-sex couples would parent better than same-sex couples. This remark, made in passing, was the one part of the decision that really pissed me off.
PG,
that remark pissed me off, too. the opinion is really frustrating.
“I suspect what ‘two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage” really means is “two parents who have been parenting the child pretty much since birth.'”
Except that that’s not the definition of biological. A study purporting to be scientific should go ahead and not promote fallacious conclusions by semantic switcharoos that imply (but fail to prove) that gay parents are bad.
Shae, et al:
To be honest, the study from Child Trends bothered me more than I indicated in my post. The conclusion is rather sweeping and and hard to justify — given the weight of the research to date, it’s more than suspicious. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find out more about the organization, which I suspect may not be as nonpartisan as Blankenhorn claims. (Let’s face it, when someone like Blankenhorn says “nonpartisan,” that translates as “agrees with me.”)
Given the dishonesty of his essay in general, I’m more than prepared to dismiss this “study” but held back because I couldn’t verify that Child Trends has a political agenda.
I emailed the three authors of the child trends report shortly after Blackenhorn’s op-ed was published, asking them for a comment. None of them have responded, alas.