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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent treatment of subject � minor flaws forgivable, August 5, 2003
This review is from: The Gay Baby Boom: The Psychology of Gay Parenthood (Paperback)
Johnson and OConnor are to be congratulated on providing such an accessible summary of the psychological research on gay and lesbian parenting. Included is both a reasonably reliable summary of the work done by their predecessors, but more importantly, they provide a report on their own recent research, The National Study of Gay and Lesbian Parents. Readers not familiar with the psychological literature on gay and lesbian parenting may not realize the magnitude of Johnson and OConnors work. Gay and lesbian parents have ample social incentive to remain hidden. In order to come out, they must be willing to endure the social criticism that is inevitable in our society, and they must be willing to expose their children to this same criticism. They are a twice-hidden population. For Johnson and OConnor to collect data from a sample of 415 gay and lesbian parents is without precedent. The participants represented 256 families with 56% of the gay and 57% of the lesbian families originating within a gay or lesbian context. Over half of the book provides the written responses of the gay and lesbian parents to open ended questions. One cannot help but be impressed at the intentionality of the decision to become a parent. The communication, soul-searching, and commitment reflected in this decision are a far cry from the post-wedding hots that produced my first child! This pattern of intentionality does not seem to be incidental. The social climate has yet to become fully accepting of gays and lesbians, and these parents express great concern to protect their children from the worst of these social storms. While few parents capriciously select a pediatrician, day care, or public school, these gay and lesbians parents report a degree of thoughtfulness in the parenting role that is easy to admire. In a sense, these parents are charting a new course. The assumption of heterosexual roles in the family simply does not apply, and they have an opportunity to create a more egalitarian homelife. In addition to the directions for future research discussed by the authors, I would suggest that new patterns of parenting may emerge from the gay and lesbian population that could prove useful in evaluating new ways of being and becoming family. As noted by other reviewers, there are a few minor errors in the book. For the best discussion of gay and lesbian demographics, I refer readers to an article by Black, Gates, Sanders, and Taylor in Demography (2000, vol. 37, issue 2, pp. 137-154). They conclude from their careful analysis of available data sources that there are 2 million gay men and 1.2 million lesbians in the United States. Children are living in 14% of the gay households, and in 28% of the lesbian households. While this is significantly less than the 6 to 14 million children suggested by Johnson and OConnor, Black et al. provide solid evidence to conclude that there are more than 300,000 households with children and gay or lesbian parents in the United States. It certainly sounds booming to me. Another minor error is the conclusion that scientists have not found any sign that such children are more likely to be gay or lesbian than are children of heterosexual parents (p. 50). Stacy and Bibliarz in the American Sociological Review (2001, vol. 66, pp. 159-183) discuss this issue at length and tend to disagree with the view expressed by Johnson and OConnor. The striking down of the Texas sodomy statute has recently focused national attention on gay and lesbian rights. This book is an excellent summary of what we do know about families headed by gays and lesbians. Read this book, especially if you do not currently support full civil rights for gays and lesbians. Listen to what these parents have to say for themselves. I doubt that you will find anything to fear.
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13 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
OK except for the Big Lie on page one and the Title., July 13, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gay Baby Boom: The Psychology of Gay Parenthood (Paperback)
Psychologists Susanne Johnson and Elizabeth O'Conner, a lesbian couple with parenting experience, provide an easy-to-read, supportive book to promote good parenting by those gays and lesbians who find themselves to be parents or who wish to be parents. The book's major drawback is that page one states, "Estimates are that between six and 14 million children in the United States are being raised by at least one parent who is gay or lesbian." The US 2000 Census shows only 72 million children (i.e., under age 18) in the United States. What knowledgeable person with integrity could support, believe, or report that 14 million US kids, one of every five US kids, are being raised by a gay or lesbian? The more I sought support for the statement, the more I came to realize that it was absurd and unsupportable and that even an estimate of 3 million was unreasonably high. Cutting the numbers by 90% to a range of 600,000 to 1.4 million is not unreasonable. The cut would be consistent with the 2000 US Census and the authors' "largest ever" study of gay parenting that consisted of 256 G/L families of which over 200 were same-sex couples including 172 lesbian couples. It would be consistent with the authors' finding of no prior studies of children raised by gay fathers because, per the authors, such households are relatively rare. A 2003 Census report shows just under 170,000 "same-sex couples with personal relationships" raising kids when the US averages 2 kids per married household, slightly less for unmarried households. There are reasons to believe the count is overstated or understated. In line with Census staff cautions, many of the 170,000 may be heterosexual couples due to a very small percentage of the millions of heterosexual married couples completing the forms improperly or a small percent being misread by the Census optical scanners. A report that read "married" and same sex was treated by the Census as an unmarried same-sex couple. Despite overwhelming media support today for G/L couples and pre-census efforts by GLT support groups to encourage G/L couples to report themselves as same-sex couples in the confidential census, there are anecdotal reports of G/L couples failing to do so. All things considered, and allowing for G/L parents not coupled or in the closet in a heterosexual marriage, I just can't reasonably justify an estimate of 3 million or more. The 6 to 14 range is so absurd that foisting it on the public is unethical and akin to Enron cooking its books. The range certainly damages the credibility of the book. Outrageous lies will not foster respect for the gay and lesbian community and may promote homophobia or at least "Hexophobia" which is the fear of homosexual "experts" deliberately lying to portray the gay/lesbian market and voting block to be bigger than they really are. The book does not cite a source for the statement, but a similar statement is found in a 1996 published paper, co-authored by psychologist, lesbian, and G/L parenting advocate Charlotte Patterson. The book, p. 49, calls Dr. Patterson "the leading authority in gay and lesbian parenting." The 1996 Patterson paper incorrectly cites as the estimates' source "Editors of the Harvard Law Review (1990)" which I did not find to mention or support a 14 million estimate and only weakly supporting a six million estimate by referring to a BNA report of an earlier ABA annual meeting in San Francisco. The source for 14 million appears to be an April 1984 issue of USA Today - hardly authoritative to be cited in a professional journal. (I could not confirm the source, as the major local library had the issue in a jammed, unopenable filing cabinet. Sorry.) A 1992 Patterson paper, which cited the USA Today 1984 issue, attempted to mathematically support six million by using the now-discredited Kinsey 10% and by overstating (inadvertently I hope) the US adult population by some 60 million. But at least she tried. As a rule, the professional papers, books, and media reports over the past ten years just keep giving the quote or a "one to nine" million range with no real mathematical support. There may be today a Gay Baby Boom but to see it we first have to acknowledge that the numbers of gay and lesbians parenting kids five and ten years ago were rather small to begin with and is still rather small for the US. But it beats Canada where the number of G/L couples with kids under age 18 is reported by the 2001 Canadian Census to be just under 3,000 in all of Canada. Regardless, if you are going to be a parent, be a good one no matter what. When life is tough, be tougher, kinder, and gentler.
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3 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Last review is not accurate, February 27, 2005
This review is from: The Gay Baby Boom: The Psychology of Gay Parenthood (Paperback)
Now to be fair I did not read the book The Gay Baby Boom, I have only read reviews both from this sight and from others. The review from Reader claimed that the statistic from The Gay Baby Boom book was bogus.
While I have only a BA in Psychology that I got in 1980, I have been following Homosexuality and the myths that are commonly perpetuated about it. In regards to the statistic of how many children are being raised by homosexual parent(s) I have heard a similar statistic from another source.
In May 4, 2004 my local newspaper The Idaho Statesman was covering a child custidy case that was going to the Idaho Supreme Court. Theron McGriff believed that he lost custody because he is gay and living with a male lover. In the paper was this estimate. "There are approximately 4 million gay and lesbian parents raising 8 million to 10 million children in the United States, according to the American Bar Association's Family Law Section. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that the number of children in gay households could be as high as 13 million."
While the Gay Baby Boom does not appear to get into it, there is another path that leads to homosexuals becoming parents. As reported in The Other Side of the Closet by Dr Amity Pierce Buxton 20% of homosexuals try to go straight and marry a member of the opposite sex. In these marriages they do have children and they have them the old fashion way, through heterosexual sex. These marriages often do not last long, averages about five years, they can last 20 or 30 years.
Some of these marriages end in divorce like McGriff and the homosexual returns to his old lifestyle. Others will go from one failed marriage and try again. An example of this is former New Jersey Governor McGreevey who was in his second marriage when he had to resign as Governor because he had an affair with another man. He choice to admit that he is gay rather then submit to blackmail.
I personally know someone who had a lesbian wife that resulted in three children. Most of the time the heterosexual spouse is clueless about the sexual orientation of the other spouse. Besides Buxton's book there are about a half dozen books on this subject like Is He Straight by Bonnie Kaye M Ed. or Husbands who like Men by Dr Jean Schaar Gochros.
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