Letters to the Editor:
Gender Matters in Parenting
Toni Meyer, Sr. Research Analyst, NJ Family Policy Council

In response to (What’s gender got to do with good parenting? 9/26/07), the mutual complementary influence of a married mother and father has everything to do with good parenting.  Males and females each make distinct and unique contributions in shaping a healthy child.  We’ve already learned that “two loving adults” do not make up for a married mother and father from research on the effects of divorce.  Even children who grow up in single parent homes with another adult present, such as a grandparent, still face greater challenges than children who grow up in intact mother/father households.

Regarding same-sex homes, research from 21 studies published in 2001 in the American Sociology Review revealed that children raised in such homes were more likely to be confused about their own sexual identity, more likely to engage in homosexual relationships, and more likely to be promiscuous. The danger of that promiscuity is revealed in the newest Health Risk Survey for Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay Youth: they are three times as likely to face an unwanted pregnancy and two times as likely to report being diagnosed with HIV or an STD.

Additionally, a married heterosexual couple is much more likely to provide a stable home for children.  Data for same-sex unions in Scandinavia in 2006 shows that same-sex “marriages” are remarkably fragile – ending in divorce significantly more than heterosexuals: divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50 percent higher than for heterosexuals and the divorce risk for partnerships of women is about double that rate. Same sex couples have a right to live as they choose, but they do not have a right to redefine marriage for the rest of society.

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