FamilyLife Culture Watch

Does Sexual Orientation Affect Parenting Quality?

By Bob Lepine

An article published recently in the Journal of Marriage and Family claims a review of research shows that children of same-sex couples do as well as those raised by traditional couples, and that sexual preference has no bearing on the quality of a person's parenting. As was reported in USA Today:

Sociologists Stacey and Timothy Biblarz of the University of Southern California, spent five years reviewing 81 studies of one- and two-parent families, including gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples. "No research supports the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for child well-being," they conclude.

"Children being raised by same-gender parents, on most all of the measures that we care about, self- esteem, school performance, social adjustment and so on, seem to be doing just fine and, in most cases, are statistically indistinguishable from kids raised by married moms and dads on these measures," Biblarz says.

So you could catch the subtle jockeying of the language in the last paragraph, I included italics.

Gender and roles today seem to be like choices in cafeteria line where you grab what fits your current tastes. That is not at the heart of the research, and definitely not in the media’s reporting of the study.

What the study doesn’t measure is gender confusion in the life of a child raised in a same sex parent setting. Of course, the study doesn’t acknowledge homosexual desire as gender confusion, so that’s not a factor to those doing the study nor those reporting it. It also doesn’t measure how little girls who grow up with two daddies function as wives and mothers in a marriage years later. Or little boys who grow up with two mommies and how they function as husbands and dads. Absent a model, where do they get their pattern? Inherent in their thinking is that husband/wife roles are gender neutral. Undiscerning Egalitarian thinking is not challenged at all.

I’d want to see a longitudinal study that looks at depression rates, substance abuse rates, whether kids who grow up in same sex parent homes are more likely to experience same sex attraction than children who grow up in the general population to be.

The State of Marriage

Since 1970, marriage has been on the decline. The number of people marrying each year has decreased by 50 percent as a portion of the population. While a lot of the decrease is because people aren't marrying at all, other factors are feeding the decline, like couples delaying marriage until their late 20s, the increase in cohabitation, and a slight decrease in the remarriage rate of divorcees.

Cohabitation has increased more than 12 times what it was in 1960. It's rapidly becoming the living arrangement of choice among those who haven't seen a good example of biblical marriage. Included are those who:

• Have been divorced
• Were raised in a divorce, fatherless, or discordant home
• Have lower educational levels
• Have lower income levels
• Are less religious than their peers

An interesting trend that is developing divides Americans into the haves and have-nots when it comes to marriage and family stability. College-age women are actually marrying in higher numbers than ever before, and their divorce numbers continue to drop. They're also more likely than any other group to consider their marriages "very happy." Add to that the fact that among women who delay marriage past age 30, college-educated women are the only group more likely to have children after marriage rather than before.

Now, the have-nots. Women without a college education are experiencing a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing. One study finds that more than half of these women are having children outside marriage. That compares with just seven percent of college-educated women. Not only that, they're much more likely to cohabit than their more educated peers.

If the marriage example is likely to repeat itself in the next generation, this fork in the marriage road looks to widen quickly over the coming years. Already, more than one-fourth of all children are raised in single-parent homes, and more than 40 percent of cohabiting homes contain children.

Pixar: Studio of the Decade

by Dave Boehi

I love movies, and I love lists. So naturally I love the "Best Movies" lists in newspapers and magazines each December. And last month provided a double dip, with "Best Movies" lists for 2009 and for the decade of 2000-2009.

Naturally, these lists are often widely divergent, reflecting the individual preferences of film critics. But as I read through the lists of favorite movies for the decade, I noticed something interesting: Many listed at least one film from Pixar, the studio that has seemingly perfected the art of storytelling through computer animation.

Finding Nemo, for example, was rated the top film of the decade by a critic at the Washington Post. Entertainment Weekly listed Wall-E at number five, and the Daily Mail in Great Britain had The Incredibles at number four. Ratatouille was ranked number two by one of the critics at atthemovies.com.

I guess this would make Pixar the Studio of the Decade. It certainly is my favorite. I can't think of another group that has put together a string of movies with more quality and creativity during the last ten years. As Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News, who rated Wall-E at number two for the decade, writes, "no one makes movies with more heart, wit and staggeringly perfect execution than the Pixar gang."

There are so many things I like about Pixar films: the incredible visuals, the focus on quality storytelling, the edgy cultural references, the consistent appeal to adults just as much (if not more) as to children, and the commitment to bringing a sense of wonder into their movies. Time and again I would read articles speculating that the next Pixar movie would be a bomb. How could they make a good film about monsters ... or a family of superheroes ... or French cooking ... or a robot on a planet full of trash ... or a lonely and crotchety old man ... and make it appeal to both kids and parents? But the same critics raved when they saw the final films, and each movie was a hit.

Recently I rewatched all of the Pixar films released in the last decade, and in the process I spotted another secret of the studio's success: 

The Superior Wife Syndrome

EDITOR'S NOTE: In this post is from Culture Watch's little sister blog, FamilyLife MomBlog, Barbara Rainey gets honest about how recent cultural messages have overfed the pride of many women, including herself. In fact, apparently about 2/3 of all women consider themselves the superior spouse when it comes to everyday family living, says the psychologist and author who wrote the book, The Superior Wife Syndrome.

by Barbara Rainey

On a recent Monday morning, I had turned on the Today show to catch our local news and weather on the half hour. As I listened from the kitchen I heard one of the hosts introduce an author with new research on wives. The title of her book is The Superior Wife Syndrome. When I heard the intro I grabbed my notepad and sat down to hear about the latest syndrome to afflict our population. I was ready to critique.

But as I listened I found myself agreeing with some of what she said, though I wouldn't go so far as to label it a syndrome. The author, Carin Rubenstein, has discovered that millions of wives think they do everything better than their husbands. They feel they are more responsible, more capable, and in a word, more superior. Hmmm, I thought. Sounds a little more like pride to me.

There is truth to this discovery. Beginning in the 1970s, women have been instructed to do it all. We've been told we can work full time and raise kids at the same time, all with great success. Many have gone so far as to say we don't need men. Women's drive to achieve equality in the work place has resulted in this attitude of superiority, I believe. 

This temptation to exalt ourselves over our men is as old as the earth. I find myself dealing with this attitude more than I'd care to admit. I load the dishwasher more efficiently than he, I fold the clothes better than he, and I pack the car much more neatly than his haphazard preference of just throwing it all in and slamming the door to keep it from falling out.  And when I focus on how much better I am in certain tasks and responsibilities I can quickly move to feeling superior. In addition I'm learning this is much more of a temptation in the empty nest. When we had kids my corrective measures were directed at them and less at my husband. Now he is the sole focus of my rehabilitation and retraining efforts. Poor man.

Author Carin Rubenstein gave three tips for this syndrome which are not new, but they are good to remember because they are timeless. First, ask for help. He can't read your mind.  Second, educate him with logic, not emotional outbursts. And third, be willing to settle for less. 

I would add a fourth tip: Let him be who he is. As my husband would say, and he is so right, there is more than one way to do a task. My way isn't always right and his isn't always wrong.  Most of our conflicts aren't about right and wrong anyway, but about personal preferences for how something is accomplished. In the end it's not a big deal anyway. Certainly not worth the damage to a marriage and your man that a superior attitude will cause.

The Inverse Power of Praise

By Scott Williams

Nurture Shockis a new book by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. The duo have compiled many of their New York magazine articles on the science of parenting under topical headings with provocative titles that strike at the heart of culturally popular parenting myths.

Right out of the blocks the book attacks the Golden Calf of parenting myths—that children should be praised for things like their intelligence, and as often as possible.  "According to a survey conducted by Columbia University," Bronson wrote in his original New York article, "85 percent of American parents think it's important to tell their kids that they're smart.  In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent.  Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short."

The problem is that studies suggest this type of praise is having the opposite effect.  "Giving kids the label of 'smart' does not prevent them from underperforming.  It might actually be causing it."

The praise fad owes it genesis to Nathaniel Branden's 1969 book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, which Bronson and Merryman contrast with the recent research of Carol Dweck that shows quite a different picture.