Growing Up in a Lesbian Family: Effects on Child Development

by Fiona L. Tasker, Susan Golombok

Ongoing legal battles over same-sex marriage have drawn increasing public attention to the question of whether lesbian and gay families can raise happy, healthy children. Opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual unions have based their arguments in part on the premise that children brought up by parents of the same sex face significant social and psychological disadvantages. This pioneering volume provides an objective and long overdue look at the experiences of the children themselves. Presenting a unique longitudinal study of 25 children raised in lesbian mother families, and a comparison group raised by single heterosexual mothers, the book lays out the developmental effects of growing up in a same-sex household/m-/and confronts a range of myths and stereotypes along the way.

Winner--Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Award for Editorial and Design Excellence

194 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 1997

Reviews

[GracePackman]

for my dissertation

[Hannah]

As the hairstyles on the front suggest, this is a little outdated, and thankfully so--lots of discussion so far on the now-improved-but-not-perfect legal structures for protecting our families. I haven't gotten to the longitudinal study yet, but I'm glad there's one out there.