Raising Children in an Age of Diversity-Advantages of Having a Lesbian Mother

Abstract

Summary Research into the influence of parental lesbianism on child development has not revealed any meaningful nor significant differences between the children of lesbian and heterosexual parents. While such research helps to disprove negative assumptions about lesbian mothers, the focus has been on the potential problems and disadvantages of this difference from the norm. In interviews with 17 British teenagers and adults who have lesbian mothers, respondents suggested distinct advantages for themselves which they attributed to their mother's sexuality. They spoke of the influence their mothers had on their moral development, particularly on their awareness of prejudice and their acceptance of diversity and of homosexuality. They felt they had benefited from the insights they gained into gender relations and from the broader, more inclusive definition of family they acquired through growing up in a different kind of family.