Studying Our Children, from Birth to Adulthood

Dr. Nanette Gartrell is the principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS). “Longitudinal lesbians?” you may ask. Parse it differently, however, and it’s a multi-year, repeated study of a group of lesbian moms and their children, the longest-running and largest investigation of its kind. Dr. Gartrell was kind enough to take time from her work as an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco, her upcoming book launch, and her research, to speak with me about the NLLFS.

Gartrell began the study in 1986, with the goal of following the first wave of lesbian families begun through donor insemination. “We started it at a time when there was no possibility of obtaining any funding, because there were no funding sources then,” Gartrell recalls. “Even now, it’s only possible to get small grants.” She and her small team remained committed, however, to providing information about these families from conception until the children grew up. “Our goals were to describe the experiences of the moms in raising their kids and to report on the effects of choosing to raise children on the moms’ lives, relationships, careers, and activism as lesbians—and of course to report on the growth and development and mental health of the children. It’s already been well established that children raised by lesbian mothers are happy, healthy, and high functioning, but we want to report on our population as well, and then, very importantly, to document the effects of homophobia on these families. Some of the stereotypes are that kids are going to be significantly disadvantaged by growing up in lesbian families, and that’s not the case.”

Gartrell speaks with the information to back these claims. “We had originally 84 families—70 couples, 14 single moms—that produced 85 children we’re following, including one set of twins. Twenty-two years into the study, we still have 78 families participating, which is an unheard of retention rate. If you look at longitudinal studies anywhere else, you’ll find the retention rate buried within very tiny type, and it usually looks more like 37 percent, or 29 percent for a study of this length. It represents both the commitment of the participating families and our efforts to keep track of everyone, which is a challenge on a national study, when people are moving and contacting us might not be the first thing they think of.”

One obvious gap in the study is a look at adoptive families. Gartrell explains “In a longitudinal study there are so many variables that come into play over time. We wanted to start with one basic focus. Also, again, it was an unfunded study, so there’s only a certain amount of resources I can garner along with people who volunteered as researchers to help. You have only a limited amount of time and no money—you do what you can.”

She also expresses regret that they didn’t have a greater racial diversity in the study. “We were limited by who volunteered. When we were soliciting for participants, this was in the era of flyers, and bulletin boards, just a little past mimeograph. It’s practically door-to-door, showing up at events and bookstores and stuff to solicit participants. No, we’re not happy with the diversity. We wish the population were more diverse. 93 percent of the mothers are white and 89% of the children are, and we wished we had greater diversity. We made a lot of efforts to do that, but we carry on with the folks we have.”

The children in the study are now between the ages of 15 and 20. Gartrell’s team first interviewed the moms when they were inseminating or pregnant, and then when the children were a year and a half to two years, five, and ten. When the children turned ten, they began interviewing them directly, along with the moms. Now they are interviewing the children as they turn 17, a process that will take three more years.

Gartrell thinks the children will be honest in their answers, even during the sometimes rebellious teen years. “When we asked the moms if their children had experienced homophobia by the age of 10, something like 42% said the kids had, and actually 43% of the kids had. It’s really close, at least at this age. The kids are being very straightforward about what is going on. I mean, teenagers are always more secretive about everything, so I’m sure we’ll hear other things from them. They’re filling out a confidential online questionnaire without anybody looking over their shoulders, so we’re going to be hearing about everything from academic accomplishments, career aspirations, to substance use, to sexual exploration, to homophobia experiences. It’s really a broad spectrum of pretty much everything we’re interested in knowing about them. Eating issues, body image, quality of life, overall happiness with their lives.”

Although nearly half of the children had experienced homophobia by age 10, “We found these children are fabulously resilient in terms of coping with it,” Gartrell reports. “In looking at the psychological functioning of these kids, we see that those who have experienced homophobia demonstrate more distress, but their psychological profiles are completely healthy. They do quite fine. Also, they demonstrate a tremendous resilience and awareness of diversity issues and appreciation for tolerance that is really quite sophisticated for 10-year-old kids. We see even more of that in the 17-year-olds. One of the things that I find most exciting about the kids growing up, and the moms’ efforts in this regard, is that not only are the moms educating the kids about discrimination against this particular group, but it’s much broader. It’s about racism and sexism and antisemitism along with homophobia. It’s the whole spectrum. So you hear that kind of language and that kind of association in these kids. That’s a really promising and needed transformation in our culture and in future generations. I feel very excited to see that these kids will be bringing that to the world that is to come.”

One other interesting result is that many of the kids are going to college on the early side. “Very often, people who live where I live are keeping their kids back a year,” Gartrell says, “starting elementary school a year later, for all the reasons they give—offering academic advantages and developmental advantages to the kids. The kids in this study are heading off to college at 17.”

Last year, Gartrell teamed with Henny Bos, a research psychologist from the Netherlands who is now conducting a longitudinal study of Dutch lesbian families comparable to the NLLFS. The two are now submitting papers together based on the international comparisons, “looking at a country where there is a lot more discrimination against lesbian and gay people, i.e., the United States, and a country where there’s a lot less, i.e., the Netherlands, and the impact on the kids and how out the kids are, and how much homophobia they experience. Surprise, surprise, the kids in the Netherlands are more out, experience less homophobia, and consequently, less distress.” As far as adding other countries to the list, Gartrell says “Not yet, but who knows?” There are also teams in Canada, Italy, and France studying lesbian families, and Gartrell says “Anything’s possible.”

Gartrell also wants to make the results available beyond the medical and academic audiences. “Not everybody can go to conferences; not too many parents have a whole heck of a lot of time,” she acknowledges. “More often people are looking things up on the Web late at night when the kids are in bed. I really try to make our information as user-friendly as possible.” Many of the study’s results are available through the NLLFS Web site.

Gartrell herself is not a mother, though she is “an aunt of many.” In fact, she adds, “It’s a really good thing neither I nor Henny Bos are moms. These studies wouldn’t exist if we were. Every single person who’s volunteered to participate as a researcher on this project has had to drop out when she got pregnant and had kids, because she had no time, as much as she loved the project. My current research assistant is pregnant with twins and about to drop at any moment. We’ll see if she is the unique person in this whole thing.”

Gartrell juggles her work on the NLLFS with a number of other commitments to career and community. “I’m a psychiatrist. I do this research. I’ve written a book that’s about to come out [My Answer is No . . . If That’s Okay with You: How Women Can Say No and (Still) Feel Good About It], I’m on the faculty at UCSF. I used to be on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, I teach, write, do research. I basically like having diversity in my life, and so I like having a small, clinical practice. I like doing volunteer homeless work with chronically mentally ill people in downtown San Francisco. I like doing research and I just like having a lot of variation. When you’re taking care of chronically mentally ill, as I do with my homeless people, or distressed people as I do with my healthy, high-functioning, but nevertheless outpatient psychiatric practice, it’s sad work. It’s painful work, because people are suffering. This study is always new life, it’s always new energy, it’s always new enthusiasm. You really need that kind of balance if you’re a person who cares for the sad and the injured and the disheartened in the world.”

Looking back, she says, “I had no idea what 22 years would feel like when starting a study at the time I did. It’s a good thing naivité played a role, because it’s a huge amount of work—but very rewarding.”