One of the favorite mantras of the Christianists is that gays cannot properly parent children. Indeed, we hear incessantly about how children must have "a mother and a father" and that depriving children of this borders on child abuse. Never mind that many heterosexual parents of countless children are incompetent, alcoholics, abusive and in general worthless. All that matters to the Christianists is that one of the parent have a penis and that the other a vagina. Literally, nothing else matters. Now, a reader in Canada sent me a link to a story carried in MacLeans, a Canadian periodical, that reports that a new study has found that gay parents are not only good parents, but the guys are good at "mothering." Once again we see fact versus the Christianist hate based storyline. Here are highlights from the MacLeans story:*
On the day that Ronan was born, Paul and Rob, who have been married for 11 years, were both in the delivery room. . . . Since that heady event 20 months ago, the family has settled into a comfortable way of life in Port Credit, Ont. “If you’re looking for the gay couple that lives in the suburbs in a five-bedroom house with a pool—kind of the gay version of the white picket fence,” says Paul, “that’d be us.”
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It’s a family unit that is becoming increasingly common as more homosexual men in committed, long-term relationships pursue fatherhood. “You used to hear about the lesbian baby boom,” says Rachel Epstein, coordinator of the LGBTQ parenting network at the Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto. “Now they’re talking about the ‘gay-by boom.’
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“parenting is parenting,” says Epstein, and “worrying about money, school, sleeping, traditional labour and discipline” is universal. But evidence does not examine the specific experience of gay men as they transition into parenthood. A groundbreaking paper recently published in the Journal of GLBT Family Studies interviewed 40 gay men—mostly white and affluent with a median age of 40.8—to find out what changes had occurred in their career, lifestyle, relationships and self-worth since having a child via gestational surrogacy.
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The findings reveal a fascinating portrait of these new gay dads. After having a baby, they experienced higher self-esteem, and more closeness to their extended families. They began to identify more with heterosexual couples who are parents than single gay men or childless gay couples. But unlike straight two-parent homes in which housework and child care still falls more to the woman than the man—StatCan says that in 2005, moms put in 3.4 hours a day with kids under age five and another 2.4 hours on chores, compared to dads’ 1.6 hours and 1.4 hours, respectively)— both gay dads reported scaling back their careers to be more involved at home—and the division of child care and housework between them was equal.
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Paul and Rob have significantly adjusted their careers as consultants so that they no longer have to travel. While a nanny cares for Ronan during the day (typical of the gay dads studied, given their higher socio-economic standing), “we’re both home each night for supper and story time,” says Paul, and when it comes to child rearing and housework, “It’s very much 50-50.”
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And yet, the prevailing problem most gay dads say they encounter is the perception that they are second-rate parents. Epstein says that previous research has revealed a sense of “invisibility” among them. Most parenting books are written as if the reader is female, says Paul, and those intended for fathers provide “advice at the idiot level.”
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The other irony, of course is the fact that there are million's of gay fathers who misguidedly tried the path of heterosexual marriage before it all fell apart. Locally, I know several gay dads who with their partners have day to day custody of their children because they afford a more stable and nurturing home than the heterosexual mothers. As is the norm, the Christianists lie and rant against gay parenting, while objective fact shows their screeds to be untrue.
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