LGBT Parenting Roundup

Just a few articles this week, but they’re juicy, so enjoy!

• Denise Balkissoon writes in Toronto’s Globe and Mail about “The seven habits of highly effective lesbian families.” “A series of studies in Canada and elsewhere over the past decade has found that the children of lesbians aren’t just well-adjusted—they excel.”It’s a good article for explaining some of the good parenting habits that have emerged from these studies—but I have to caution that we should not necessarily jump to the conclusion that lesbian parents are “better.” (Balkissoon doesn’t, but readers could easily conclude this from her piece.) Different? Perhaps. More likely to demonstrate the habits of good parenting in general? Perhaps, but we are not unique in that. As I’ve said before, we need to prove that we’re no better or worse than other parents, but saying we’re “better” sets up an unnecessary competition. In this journey of parenting, we must all be allies.

• Reporting Texas has a lengthy article on “The Economics of Same-Sex Parenting,” which covers, in addition to economics, the legal and social challenges that same-sex parents and our children face.
• The Baltimore Sun profiles the Baltimore City Circuit Court, “the favored jurisdiction among Maryland’s 24 circuit courts for same-sex adoption petitioners.”
• Benjamin Anastas writes with sometimes harsh honesty about growing up with lesbian moms in the early 1980s, in “O Pioneers” at the New York Times.