Psychological Effects of Children Being Raised by Homosexuals - Term Paper Example

Although every country has rules and traditions that accompany the institution of marriage, most countries have no legal recognition of gay or lesbian marriages (Same sex marriages).  Even so, many of these committed couples stay together and try to live as their heterosexual married counterparts. According to Debra Busher, an expert in the field of child psychology, "Sexual orientation of a parent is critical to the upbringing of a child. Society is based on the ideal of having heterosexual parents, and it goes against values for same sex parents to raise children.

Having homosexual parents is also a major stressor for a child due to society's norms and values- it can cause embarrassment and abnormal feelings. Children who are raised in alternative family lifestyles are more likely to engage in drugs and have negative feelings towards their parents and themselves, than children raised by normal families." These couples usually adopt children and then raise them as they would if it had been their own biological child. A lot of research has been done on children raised in this type of home, but the research remains insufficient to reach a definitive conclusion regarding what side of the argument is most favorable.

Most of the research collected regarding children of same sex marriages has been done on the children of lesbian women. Very few studies have looked at homosexual fathers raising children. American research by Patterson, Chan and Raboy (1998) compared the psychological adjustment of children from 55 lesbian-headed families and 25 families headed by heterosexual parents. All children were conceived by donor insemination. The results showed no significant differences between children of lesbian mothers and children of heterosexual parents.

Thus, “the idea that only heterosexual parents can raise healthy children is certainly not supported by the present findings” (Chan and Raboy: 454). Other research also supports this conclusion.

Recent Australian research on same-sex attracted adolescents (Hillier et al. 1998) informs us that over half of these young people have been the victims of verbal or physical abuse because of their sexuality, with 70 per cent of this abuse taking place at school. The study found that information about gay and lesbian relationships was extremely difficult to access, with only 15 per cent of the 750 respondents in the study receiving information on gay and lesbian relationships from school. The study found that same-sex attracted young people either live life “in a shadowy world of silence and denial in which ‘passing as normal’ requires a constant monitoring of every word and deed . . . or . . .risking rejection and the potentially negative reactions of friends, family and the community” (p.8). The great majority of lesbian mothers and gay fathers conceived their children in a heterosexual relationship.

However, recently the percentage of children being conceived using donor insemination has increased dramatically (Golombok, Tasker, 2002). Gay men are rearing children, the men have mostly come from a relationship or marriage to the child’s mother. In a very small percentage of cases, gay men are fostering children or a surrogacy arrangement exists, and in other instances they are sharing the raising of a child for whom they were the donor. Research Strategies Research is based on literature review of books, articles, statistical information on raising children in homosexual families.

The problem for the research was the lack of information about the experiences of children who have gay parents. Given the findings of Hillier et al. (1998) regarding the homophobic abuse suffered by children who are themselves gay, lesbian or bisexual, I wished to determine whether children who had gay parents had similar experiences at school. Some researchers have suggested the beneficial role that support groups for children of gays and lesbians might have in dealing with issues that are specific to this group.

The strategy for literature review is sorting out the information about gay, lesbian and heterosexual families followed by careful reading and comparison of psychological effect in all three types of families and finally brining about results of the comparison in the literature review. Following the aims of this study, the sources of the paper has been of both recent and old publication. In this way, it has become possible to compare the past and present research on the subject. Definition of Terms The terms referenced throughout the critical literature review and proposed study are defined as in the following: Homosexual - term used to describe gays and lesbians; person whose desire is to and from the person of the same sex (http://www.highered.mcgraw-hill.

com/sites/0072986360/student_view0/chapter15/glossary.html, 2006) Heterosexual - a person who can desire somebody from the opposite sex (http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=X&start=2&oi=define&q=http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072986360/student_view0/chapter15/glossary.html&usg=__9k8Y4hUxjDD0b79Zt3_bdD41SOY, 2006) Theory Background Factors to Homosexuality There are three domains of man’s development noted from the research. The first one is the biosocial domain, which refers to the area of human development that includes: physical growth and development as well as the family, community and cultural factors, which in turn affect the growth and development (Berger, 2005).

The second domain is what is commonly called the cognitive domain. Cognitive domain development is one aspect of human development that includes all the mental processes. This includes how the individual thinks, learns, and communicates and includes the institutions involved with the process of learning and communicating (Berger, 2005). The last domain is the psychosocial domain, which is the area of human development that includes emotions, personality characteristics, and relationships with other people - family friends, lovers and strangers (Berger, 2005).