Children of gay parents are…

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, July 22nd, 2013 - 99 comments
Categories: families, human rights, identity - Tags: , ,

This research – which really puts the fact cat amongst the conservative prejudice pigeons – needs the widest publicity it can get (bravo Simon Day):

Children with gay parents ‘happier’ – research

Children with gay parents are happier and healthier than kids from the average family, new research shows.

The preliminary findings from the Australian study contradict stereotypes that a family without an obvious dad or mum would harm the children, said lead researcher Dr Simon Crouch. …

Crouch, who is himself a gay man with four-year-old twin boys, ran the world’s largest study on homosexual families at the University of Melbourne.

The Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families collected data on the physical, mental and social well being of 500 children aged 5 to 17, from 315 gay, lesbian and bisexual parents. Eighty per cent of the parents who completed the questionnaire on child health were women.

The interim results found that children from same sex couples showed no statistical difference to the rest of the population in physical and mental health, their interaction with others, and their relationship with their parents.

But children from same sex couples scored significantly higher than the national average on measures of general health and family cohesion.

99 comments on “Children of gay parents are… ”

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  1. Tracey 1
    22 July 2013 at 10:38 am

    “Crouch, who is himself a gay man with four-year-old twin boys, ran the world’s largest study on homosexual families at the University of Melbourne.”

    He would have lied and made things up though because he is a homosexual man. Whereas the heterosexual researchers used by Family First never make things up or lie because, well, heterosexuals, can’t.

    I hope that puts this nonsense to bed for everyone?

  2. Tamati 2
    22 July 2013 at 11:13 am

    Well duh,

    Hasn’t anyone seen Modern Family?

    I’d trade Cam and Mitchell for my parents anyday!

  3. Psycho Milt 3
    22 July 2013 at 12:37 pm

    I have a sneaking suspicion that what this study actually shows is that children in white, middle-class families averaging 1-2 children each are happier and healthier than the population average. Whether the “parents” have a matching set of genitalia or not may well be irrelevant.

    • vto 3.1
      22 July 2013 at 12:42 pm

      Yep, not confident about its cred or what it actually is measuring.

    • weka 3.2
      22 July 2013 at 4:19 pm

      Maybe Milt, but here is the selection criteria.

      Initial recruitment will involve convenience sampling and snowball recruitment techniques that have been successful in other survey-based Australian studies of same-sex attracted populations including the Work, Love, Play Study and the Lesbian and Gay Families Study [59,60]. This will include advertisements and media releases in gay and lesbian press, flyers at gay and lesbian social and support groups, and investigator attendance at gay and lesbian community events. Discussion pieces and interviews with mainstream media outlets will help target families not engaged with the gay and lesbian community, as well as rural and remote families. Primarily recruitment will be through emails posted on gay and lesbian community email lists aimed at same-sex parenting. This will include, but not be limited to, Gay Dads Australia and the Rainbow Families Council of Victoria. Any parent over the age of 18 years, who self-identifies as being same-sex attracted, lives in Australia, and has children under 18 years of age will be eligible to participate in the study. Children aged ten years or over will also be asked to complete a questionnaire.

      https://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/646

      We would need to know the demographics of those sources of participants, before any judgement could be made on ethnicity/class.

      • Murray Olsen 3.2.1
        22 July 2013 at 6:25 pm

        There was something on tv about it over here. The parents were certainly not all white middle class couples. The researchers did recognise that they were open to criticism for their sampling methods, but they needed to advertise in the appropriate communities rather than pick people at random. They actually needed gay couples and couldn’t work out any other efficient method to find them.

      • karol 3.2.2
        22 July 2013 at 6:35 pm

        My experience of lesbian communities and networks is that there are lesbian parents of diverse backgrounds and socio-economic groups. I don’t understand why anyone think the vast majority of gay and lesbian couples are middleclass and white.

        • Psycho Milt 3.2.2.1
          22 July 2013 at 7:04 pm

          Couples aren’t the issue. And it doesn’t need to be a vast majority for statistical significance. And of the 20% of survey respondents who are male homosexuals with the resources to arrange themselves a kid or two, what do you reckon that demographic looks like? I’m picking that Muslim immigrants trying to raise six kids on minimum wage (for example) would be somewhat sparsely represented…

          • karol 3.2.2.1.1
            23 July 2013 at 9:35 am

            When in the UK, I knew a lesbian beneficiary, from a Mulsim background, who had two kids – and other lesbians from working class backgrounds with kids, plus other lesbian/bi women from Mulsim backgrounds, and others from working class Afro-Caribbean backgrounds – and in NZ from diverse backgrounds.

            You speak from your assumptions. I write with the awareness of people I know or have known within my networks.

            • Psycho Milt 3.2.2.1.1.1
              23 July 2013 at 11:33 am

              The question was “Of the 20% of survey respondents who are male homosexuals with the resources to arrange themselves a kid or two, what do you reckon that demographic looks like?” What that demographic looks like is indeed an assumption on my part, but lesbians you have met aren’t relevant to answering it.

              • McFlock …
                23 July 2013 at 12:01 pm

                so are you “picking that” Muslim men aren’t gay, or just that they don’t have kids?

                Or are you merely suggesting that wealth in Australasia tends to be accrued by people with lower melanin levels (probably true, but somewhat irrelevant to the sexual orientation of parents)?

                You “picked” a certain result, what do you think are the contributing factors to that result?

                • Psycho Milt …
                  23 July 2013 at 1:45 pm

                  so are you “picking that” Muslim men aren’t gay, or just that they don’t have kids?

                  Neither. Is it the word demographic you don’t understand, or the concept of probability, or both? Or are you merely being deliberately and disingenuously obtuse?

                  Or are you merely suggesting that wealth in Australasia tends to be accrued by people with lower melanin levels…

                  That’s certainly one of the assumptions involved, yes, but don’t leave class out.

                  You “picked” a certain result, what do you think are the contributing factors to that result?

                  I’m torn, because actually answering that question means implying that you’re borderline retarded – but you did ask:

                  Contributing factors to that result:
                  1. The expense and bureaucratic hoop-jumping involved for same-sex couples wanting both partners to be classed as parents/guardians.
                  2. The fact that some ethnicities, religions and social classes are gay-family-friendlier than others.
                  3. The fact that gay couples tend to have few children because they aren’t physically suited to engaging in a breeding programme.

                  I’d expect those factors to skew the sample (at least to the low level of statistical significance found in this study) in favour of people who are well-off, well-educated and have few children, ie the kind of parents whose kids always show up in studies as healthier etc. It’s an assumption, but it’s a reasonable one.

                  • McFlock …
                    23 July 2013 at 2:00 pm

                    Ah, okay. So you really did just have a sneaking suspicion that the researchers did a population study while forgetting to control for other demographic factors (after vto’s plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it, it pays to make sure).

                    Anyway, in Weka’s link the section covering previous research did cover that issue: Representing the population:

                    It is often assumed that in developed countries same-sex parent families are well educated and fall into higher socioeconomic status groupings. This assumption is supported by much of the literature that has recruited families using convenience sampling techniques. The few studies that have been able to employ a more representative sampling method, identifying same-sex parent families from broader population surveys, have found no difference in income, SES and years of education when comparing the same-sex parent families to the heterosexual parent families [34,52-54]. One study even suggests that same-sex parent families may have lower income, SES and fewer years of education [55]. It is these factors, set in a broader social context, that require further study to elicit the effect of the lived environment on the health and wellbeing of children with same-sex attracted parents. In the Australian setting this would involve seeking participation from ethnic minority and rural same-sex attracted parents, and those from low socioeconomic groups.

                    So it’s not like one of the researchers happening past this discussion would be all “[facepalm] oh shit we didn’t even think of that”.

                    • vto …
                      23 July 2013 at 2:05 pm

                      Ha ha, silly egg.

                      Nothing very cunning involved in exposing bigotry. That was easy.

                      The cunning comes in getting the perpetrator to see it. Clearly I lack the cunning as you don’t appear to have seen it…

                    • Psycho Milt …
                      23 July 2013 at 3:20 pm

                      So you really did just have a sneaking suspicion…

                      Yes, which is why I wrote that I have a sneaking suspicion.

                      …that the researchers did a population study while forgetting to control for other demographic factors…

                      Of course they didn’t forget to control for other demographic factors, and of course they did it completely successfully. I’ve never met a social science researcher yet who doesn’t perfectly and infallibly control for all possible confounding factors every time, despite the unkind inferences the rest of us might draw from the fact that their research findings somehow never fail to endorse their own agenda.

      • karol 3.2.3
        23 July 2013 at 2:41 pm

        weka: We would need to know the demographics of those sources of participants, before any judgement could be made on ethnicity/class.

        Exactly. Interesting how some are quick to pronounce the study flawed, and the findings invalid based on their own assumptions. So far we have an interim report on the study.

        But, clearly the study design aimed to get as diverse a sample as possible for the study. Presumably they will also look closely at the demographics of the sample in the final analysis of the data. If not, it will weaken their findings.

        The interim report says,

        Previous work has been limited by a focus on lesbian parents and small sample sizes, and the relevance to the Australia context is uncertain.
        […]
        ACHESS collected data on 500 children aged 0-17 year from 315 index parents
        […]

        The children come from all states and territories in Australia, with the exception of the Northern Territory.

        Fifteen per cent of children were born overseas and 11% speak a language other than English at home.

        I await the final report with interest.

  4. vto 4
    22 July 2013 at 12:43 pm

    Children of gay parents are………

    better at choosing wallpaper

  5. King Kong 5
    22 July 2013 at 12:50 pm

    So it’s official then.

    Someone should have told this to the son of a shirt lifter who went to school with me. Utterly miserable he was.

    • felix 5.1
      22 July 2013 at 2:23 pm

      It’s OK KK, I went to school with a miserable bastard who’s parents were straight.

      So I guess that’s your anecdote cancelled out.

      • weka 5.1.1
        22 July 2013 at 4:37 pm

        I went to school with a number of miserable bastards whose parents where straight (as far as I could tell). So that put’s KK’s anecdote in the negative.

      • Murray Olsen 5.1.2
        22 July 2013 at 6:29 pm

        There was a guy like KKK at my school. He made a lot of people utterly miserable. I have no idea about his parents.

  6. vto 6
    22 July 2013 at 12:56 pm

    Do children of gay parents miss having a mum and a dad? Does anyone know? Has anyone asked them? Is this question permissible?

    • McFlock 6.1
      22 July 2013 at 1:19 pm

      No more than some kids might miss having parents that weren’t bigots.

      • vto 6.1.1
        22 July 2013 at 1:30 pm

        so, not permissible

        quelle surprise

        are we allowed to ask questions about jewish and muslim means of animal slaughter? Or is that bigotry too?

        what about questions about heterosexual marriage? I suspect that is a permitted area.

        and further from those questions – where is the bigotry in the initial post?

        it is no wonder the left struggles to gain traction with so many issues – it is incomprehensible at times

        • McFlock 6.1.1.1
          22 July 2013 at 7:59 pm

          Nope, not “not permissible”. Just meaningless. Maybe sometimes kids/teens occasionally want parents who are exactly the same as what they perceive their friends’ parents to be. But does that mean they love (or are loved by) their parents any less? Does that mean that they are worse off than their friends? And what about when their friends wish that their own parents were as cool as the parents of the kids you mention?

          • vto 6.1.1.1.1
            22 July 2013 at 8:18 pm

            about as meaningless as which kids are happier

            the meaningless I posted has been met with the typical vacuous “BIGOT” chants from the shallow sidelines, so thanks for exposing the bigotry of the author of this thread mcflock. Oh, and yourself of course.

            Actually, which kids are happier is more meaningless than what sort of parents kids would prefer.

            • McFlock 6.1.1.1.1.1
              22 July 2013 at 8:32 pm

              Actually, which kids are happier is more meaningless than what sort of parents kids would prefer.

              But that’s a slide right there. You asked whether the kids missed a parent of each gender, not whether they would have rather had that than the parents they ended up with. Quite frankly, if anyone genuinely thinks that they would have preferred to have other parents than the ones they ended up with, there are bigger issues at hand than the gender mix.

              I suspect that because same-sex parents usually need to make a conscious decision to be parents (and often have to fight quite strongly for the right rather than accidentally getting knocked up), that’s the sample bias that explains the research data right there. I could be wrong of course.

              • vto …
                22 July 2013 at 8:38 pm

                the aim of course was to tease out where the bigotry truly lies and as you and others have pointed out it lies with the author of this thread.

                • McFlock …
                  22 July 2013 at 9:37 pm

                  Ah, very zen: ask a meaningess question that revolves around sexuality, and if someone points out that it’s meaningless then they’re the bigot.

                  • vto …
                    22 July 2013 at 9:57 pm

                    pathetic

                  • weka …
                    22 July 2013 at 10:01 pm

                    Have to agree with McFlock there. The whole way you brought this up, vto, was a set up. And it’s not the only time you did this. It strikes me as disingenuous. Just say what you think instead.

                    • vto …
                      22 July 2013 at 10:08 pm

                      Don’t blame me if you cannot see clearly. You should have seen it when this bigoted author first put the post up. (hint: it’s in the first line, here “This research – which really puts the fact cat amongst the conservative prejudice pigeons – needs the widest publicity it can get (bravo Simon Day):”)

                      I said what I think. There are plenty of other side issues around the thread though, which others have commented on, so get your teeth into those if you’re looking for debate on those other related matters.

                      The bigotry was the one I was aiming at. Bullseye.

                    • McFlock …
                      22 July 2013 at 10:15 pm

                      I’m not sure you have any idea what the word “bigotry” means. And possibly “bullseye”.

                    • vto …
                      22 July 2013 at 10:20 pm

                      what?

                    • weka …
                      22 July 2013 at 10:29 pm

                      You’re still dancing around it vto. What is prejudiced about the post? I don’t know what you are talking about, and as i said, you do this a bit and it’s frustrating because it’s like you set up the conversation to fail.

                      You’re original question got lost because of the stuff you said afterwards about not being allowed to ask the question. So which is it you want to talk about? The subject, or your issues with how the left doesn’t tolerate such questions?

                    • McFlock …
                      22 July 2013 at 10:30 pm

                      Nah, can’t be bothered expressing it in smaller words.

            • weka 6.1.1.1.1.2
              22 July 2013 at 8:33 pm

              You think kids should be able to choose heterosexual parents even if that means they will be unhappier?

        • tricledrown 6.1.1.2
          23 July 2013 at 2:43 pm

          vto the university of Melbourne is ranked well inside the top 100 best performing universities in the world so i would imagine the wording of questions and the size and scope of their survey would be beyond reproach!

    • tracey 6.2
      22 July 2013 at 2:23 pm

      Have you read the study… you know to find your answers

    • weka 6.3
      22 July 2013 at 4:14 pm

      “Do children of gay parents miss having a mum and a dad? Does anyone know? Has anyone asked them? Is this question permissible?”

      vto, are you asking about genital shape and sex characteristics, or gender roles, or what? Serious question. Historically many people on the planet haven’t been raised in a nuclear family, so I’m not really sure where you are coming from.

    • Murray Olsen 6.4
      22 July 2013 at 6:32 pm

      Yes, I have seen that question asked. Most just seemed to think it was a stupid question. Some missed stuff. Some thought two mums or two dads were better. They all gave much more sensible answers than you deserve.

    • karol 6.5
      22 July 2013 at 6:45 pm

      Yes many have been asked. As in this study:

      More than 270,000 U.S. children were living in households headed by same-sex couples in 2005, according to Gartrell, and nearly twice that number had a single gay or lesbian parent.

      For the latest report, Gartrell and her colleague, Henny Bos, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, looked at 78 teens from 77 families; one family did not complete all the survey data.

      The teens, average age 17, completed questionnaires. The moms were interviewed and completed lengthy checklists about their children’s activities, social life, school and academic performance, and overall competence.

      The researchers compared the results of the participants with those from a comparison group of 93 teens, also average age of 17, from another research sample that included maternal reports on the same topics.

      What on earth makes you think no-one has thought to ask the children for their perspective?

      • Murray Olsen 6.5.1
        22 July 2013 at 6:54 pm

        Thanks for being more patient than I and adding some details, karol. I struggle to stay polite and give more than a two word answer to the sort of bad faith questions seen above. You are a better person than I.

        • vto 6.5.1.1
          22 July 2013 at 7:49 pm

          Good for you murray. Perhaps you can explain why you think it was asked in bad faith. I suspect that is more about your own assumptions.

          Me, I am rapidly giving up on the left and its approach to many such social issues. Try as I may and listening to so much of the arguments on all sorts of issues on here and giving things the benefit of the doubt, they just don’t gel.

          Stuck in the ruts of your own tracks, going around and around and around

          and around

          • Murray Olsen 6.5.1.1.1
            23 July 2013 at 2:26 am

            Bad faith? A couple or reasons.
            (i) You somehow seem to ask the same sort of questions that people ask when they want to say something is crap.
            (ii) 1.2 above gives links to the study. Can you actually read, or do you think of yourself as a CEO with us as your minions, here to read stuff and deliver a few bullet points for you?

            It doesn’t surprise me at all that you have trouble with an evidence based approach to social issues. It can be painful and difficult.

            • vto 6.5.1.1.1.1
              23 July 2013 at 7:57 am

              ” You somehow seem to ask the same sort of questions that people ask when they want to say something is crap”

              Oh, you mean like the bald headline and entire proposition of this thread Murray. Can you not see that? Try reading the first line of the thread with open eyes and see if your words can be applied there too. Sheesh.

              ” 1.2 above gives links to the study. Can you actually read, or do you think of yourself as a CEO with us as your minions, here to read stuff and deliver a few bullet points for you?”

              Murray, you will need to provide some evidence to support your view that there is just one manner of posting thoughts, ideas and other musings on this site.. Sheesh

    • QoT 6.6
      22 July 2013 at 10:04 pm

      Do children of heterosexuals who lose one or the other early in life miss having a mum and a dad? Should we forcibly take the children of single heterosexuals and give them to “proper” families just to make sure they’re not damaged by the experience?

      • vto 6.6.1
        22 July 2013 at 10:29 pm

        Q1 – in my too long experience, yes they do. I’m surprised you need to ask that.

        Q2 – what? on the assumption you are actually serious – people do in fact go about things at times to ensure there is such a balance in the life of a child in such circumstances. This is something that can be seen in history and in other societies. It is not forced though is it – it is something that people naturally tend to do.

        this will not fit into your paradigm

        • QoT 6.6.1.1
          22 July 2013 at 10:45 pm

          Here’s the problem. I’ll try to keep it simple. When you ask about whether the children of same-sex parents “miss” something, you’re implying that same-sex parenting is undesirable and should not be permitted/accepted as something equal to hetero parenting.

          Then you move the goalposts and act like what you’re really ~concerned~ about is that children get a “balance” in their life – which again assumes that a same-sex parenting situation cannot give the same variety of gendered role models as a hetero one.

          This ignores the sheer diversity of human relationships, and pretends that the child of a same-sex couple will only ever have interactions with their parents and no other adults ever. That’s the only way to explain your ~concerns~ about “balance”.

          Then you act all wide-eyed and stunned when people accuse you of being a massively homophobic bigot.

          • vto 6.6.1.1.1
            23 July 2013 at 7:59 am

            ” When you ask about whether the children of same-sex parents “miss” something, you’re implying that same-sex parenting is undesirable and should not be permitted/accepted as something equal to hetero parenting.”

            No, that is not implied at all. That is your assumption and your problem with your world view. The rest of your comment flows from that and is thus worthless.

          • vto 6.6.1.1.2
            23 July 2013 at 8:04 am

            While you’re into implications QoT, why don’t you apply your same logic process to this entire thread? You know, where it says “children of gay parents are happier”.

            What does that imply, following your comment?

            That gay parents are better than hetero parents perhaps?

            Do you see that QoT? Do you?

            And how does that fit into the boring empty chants of bigot and homophobe?

            Does it mean the author is also a bigot?

            Does it mean the author is a straight-hater?

            Can you be honest?

            • QoT 6.6.1.1.2.1
              23 July 2013 at 9:12 pm

              Gosh, such projection, vto. Actually, I’d say a lot of the result has to do with factors Phil mentions. Although some same-sex parents will be raising children from previous hetero relationships, others will have had to take extra steps and prove themselves twice as much in order to adopt children.

              The only dishonest person here is you, continually pissing out bigoted flamebait questions then pretending to be affronted when no one takes you seriously.

              • vto …
                24 July 2013 at 7:43 am

                Whatever QoT. I’m giving up on you lot and your positions on many social positions. Too prejudiced, too much hating, too much blinker-wearing, you need to open your eyes and think more instead of looking out from inside your barricades.

                I also notice that you ignored my question above and haven’t applied the same logic to both my post and the author of this thread – wonder why that would be? Hypocrite. The author is a bigot using your own criteria.

                As for “continually pissing out bigoted flamebait questions” yes that’s right. To match up with the bigoted flamebait dogwhistle threads that get posted here. And this a classic example.

                A pathetic and weak arsed dogwhistle thread pandering to the prejudice and bigotry prevalent on this site…. “oooh, looky at that everybody somebody has done a study showing that gay parents are better at making children happy… let’s shove it in their faces and ramp it up” You belong on Kiwiblog.

                And personally, I don’t give a shit whether anyone takes me seriously. The only thing I take seriously from you and many others around here is the hate and crookedness that comes out.

                hater and wrecker

                and how about dropping the schoolgirl sarcasm, it’s weak too

  7. captain hook 7
    22 July 2013 at 1:19 pm

    where did they get them from?

  8. Phil 8
    22 July 2013 at 1:51 pm

    The big difference that doesn’t get mentioned is that, if you’re a same-sex couple, you have to want kids so much that you’re willing to go through the hoops of adoption, or surrogacy, or some other means of creating a life. Only couples who are most committed to raising a child will go through that process, be they same sex or not.

    On the other hand, there’s going to be quite a few kids bought up with a mum and dad that only got pregnant ‘by accident’ and didn’t really want the sprog. They’re going to be bring the averages down for team-hetero.

    • weka 8.1
      22 July 2013 at 4:44 pm

      “The big difference that doesn’t get mentioned is that, if you’re a same-sex couple, you have to want kids so much that you’re willing to go through the hoops of adoption, or surrogacy, or some other means of creating a life. Only couples who are most committed to raising a child will go through that process, be they same sex or not.”

      Lots of women have kids the biological way and then get into lesbian relationships. Not sure how common that is with blokes (different dynamics at play). Not saying there isn’t an issue here, but I think you need to understand what kinds of research this is. It’s not hard science, it’s social research designed to generate knowledge about a specific area of children’s health. Notice the use of the word ‘preliminary’ in the article. Hopefully they will go on to do further research that takes different variables into account.

    • felix 8.2
      22 July 2013 at 7:15 pm

      Phil.

      Are you saying the results of the study don’t count because you’ve figured out one of the reasons behind them?

      • Phil 8.2.1
        23 July 2013 at 7:32 pm

        It was wrong of me to say “The big difference”. I should have used “One of the differences” because there are obviously lots of quite substantial differences in the dynamics of how the ‘average’ same sex couple end up with a child compared to the ‘average’ heterosexual couple.

        I wouldn’t say the results don’t count, but as a statistician by training/profession I am EXTREMELY wary of any study or survey (in particular for mental health and well being) that uses a self-completed survey as its source data, especially if asking for a qualitative assessment, rather than a quantitative figure that you can easily define. Everyone has a different interpretation of what might constitute “happiness” for a child, and if we’re all starting from a different point it’s very hard for the researcher to generate any result that’s statistically rigorous.

        • karol 8.2.1.1
          23 July 2013 at 7:42 pm

          Everyone has a different interpretation of what might constitute “happiness” for a child, and if we’re all starting from a different point it’s very hard for the researcher to generate any result that’s statistically rigorous.

          Um… Phil is that what the questionnaires were asking?

          Their pre-survey, planned methodology is explained thus:

          Health related quality of life (HRQOL) is considered to be a subdomain of the more global concept of Quality of Life (QOL). Although related to functional status, which asks what individuals can do, HRQOL is more interested in how respondents feel about what they can do [61]. In order to capture all aspects of the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing of children the ACHESS survey will incorporate components that determine HRQOL, health, functional status and health related behaviors that all combine to describe the overall wellbeing of participants. To ensure a robust methodology it is important to use psychometrically tested tools with Australian population norms wherever possible. For the ACHESS survey it is important to utilize an instrument that has both parent and child report forms. By drawing on these conceptual underpinnings and psychometric properties only the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ) has been found to be suitable for our needs [62-67]. To further support the use of the CHQ an additional, complimentary instrument, the Infant Toddler Quality of Life Questionnaire (ITQOL), is available to measure health and wellbeing in children aged 0–5 years [68].

          To supplement the CHQ/ITQOL questions a suitable instrument that focuses on psychosocial aspects of child health was sought. The SDQ is less than one quarter of the length of the CBCL and allows greater expediency in completion [69]. It has also been found to be comparable to, or better than, the CBCL when compared with standarised semi-structured interviews [70]. These factors have led to increasing popularity of the SDQ when compared with other similar instruments [58,71].

          • Phil 8.2.1.1.1
            25 July 2013 at 1:14 pm

            Hey Karol,

            Thanks for that – really useful stuff. Good to see they are using a solid methodology. That allays some of my concerns about the data.

        • felix 8.2.1.2
          24 July 2013 at 8:25 am

          Hi Phil. You don’t seem to have understood my question.

          I’m asking, with relation to your perfectly valid observation that gay parents may well be more likely to have really really really wanted to be parents…

          so what?

          If a survey that found that people who eat the most vegetables live the longest, would your response be ‘that doesn’t count because vegetables are really healthy.’?

          • Psycho Milt 8.2.1.2.1
            24 July 2013 at 10:49 am

            It matters if you care about what level of support there is for your conclusion.

            In this case we have a research result that children of parents in set A (gay couples) are more likely to be healthy/happy than children of parents in set B (population average).

            Phil’s pointed out that it’s possible the result stems from the parents in set A being more likely than those in set B to also fall into set C (parents who really, really wanted to be parents). So what caused the result? Belonging to set A, or belonging to set C? Can’t say.

          • Phil 8.2.1.2.2
            25 July 2013 at 1:32 pm

            It’s an issue of correlation vs causation. The so what isn’t related to whether or not gay parents make ‘better’ parents – it’s related to whether or not the data being presented gives us any valuable insight into underlying behaviours and causality.

            There’s lots of evidence that living longer is caused by, among other things, healthy eating.

            This survey shows that there is a correlation between gay parents and happy kids. What it doesn’t give any insight to (thus far, but maybe there is more research to be done with the data) is whether having gay parents contributes to happiness directly, or is simply a symptom of some other attributes (like resources, social networks, quality of housing, and so on) that we think do contribute to directly to the mental or physical health and happiness of children.

  9. infused 9
    22 July 2013 at 1:56 pm

    Just out of interest, wouldn’t the stats be quite skewed, since there are very few same sex parents?

    • tracey 9.1
      22 July 2013 at 2:23 pm

      Have you read the study… you know to find your answers

    • tracey 9.2
      22 July 2013 at 2:25 pm

      Did you look at the study to see the size of the sample group? Are you saying if there are only 100 children in same sex families we cant trust that they are happier than hetereo families? And on what basis?

  10. Tanz 10
    22 July 2013 at 5:52 pm

    So much for tolerance. Anyone with an opposing opinion gets called a bigot. Did anyone ask the children? Course not. The adults are more important.

  11. Tanz 11
    22 July 2013 at 9:53 pm

    but the children had no other experience to compare it with did they? And please can we not have swearing. There is much of it here these days.

    • weka 11.1
      22 July 2013 at 9:59 pm

      If you don’t want me to swear, then base your assertions on fact, not shit you made up/couldn’t be bothered to research (the links are near the top of the thread).

      Why don’t you just come out and say you think it’s bad for children to have gay parents? It would save us all a lot of time.

      Oh, and use the reply button to keep the conversation flow.

      • Arfamo 11.1.1
        22 July 2013 at 10:02 pm

        If you don’t want me to swear, then base your assertions on fact, not shit you made up

        Lol – correlation does not equal causation 🙂

      • vto 11.1.2
        22 July 2013 at 10:11 pm

        “Why don’t you just come out and say you think it’s bad for children to have gay parents? It would save us all a lot of time.”…

        … is the nub of the bigotry problem referred to further above weka

        • vto 11.1.2.1
          22 July 2013 at 10:18 pm

          You know weka, you have done this here, the author of this thread has done it as pointed out above, and you also did it on that other thread today where you said “… it doesn’t bode well given the plethora of white male faces…”.

          Really, this is showing a surfeit of prejudiced thought.

          • weka 11.1.2.1.1
            22 July 2013 at 10:52 pm

            vto, here is what Tanz said:

            So much for tolerance. Anyone with an opposing opinion gets called a bigot. Did anyone ask the children? Course not. The adults are more important.

            then

            but the children had no other experience to compare it with did they?

            To me, reading that, in the context of what has already been said in this thread, plus the original post, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Tanz thinks there is something wrong with gay parents. I’m open to being wrong about this, and would love to hear your own possible interpretations – because I honestly can’t see another way to understand what they said. In fact I’ve read the second bit a number of times and I still have absolutely no idea what the fuckk they are on about. It’s not that hard to explain what one thinks, and contrary to what you say, you don’t explain yourself well in situations like this. All I’m getting from you is that I’m bigotted. Have I called you bigotted? Or have I asked you to explain what you believe and think?

            ” and you also did it on that other thread today where you said “… it doesn’t bode well given the plethora of white male faces…”.

            Really, this is showing a surfeit of prejudiced thought.”

            How is that prejudiced?

    • McFlock 11.2
      22 July 2013 at 10:03 pm

      Seriously?

    • QoT 11.3
      22 July 2013 at 10:08 pm

      … as opposed to all the children of fucking heterosexual couples, who of course have experienced “normal” family life.

      Don’t whinge about getting sworn at if you’re going to talk fucking bigoted crap.

  12. Tanz 12
    22 July 2013 at 10:28 pm

    tolerance…yeah right. I ban myself from this site, too much intolerance by far, This was once an okay site for debate, but its been hijacked long ago. Agree with us, or else!! You lot preach tolerance like a mantra yet in your debate, you quickly resort to name calling and mud slinging when someone disagrees. Ta ra.

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