STUDIES SHOW

Here is a new study that confirms my opinion: people who must overcome barriers to have children are better parents. This includes parents who adopt and gay families.

"SUMMARY: New university research challenges arguments that have been used to oppose gay adoption and says same-sex families invest heavily in their kids.
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Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children than biological parents, according to a new national study challenging arguments that have been used to oppose same-sex marriage and gay adoption.

The study, published in the new issue of the American Sociological Review, found that couples who adopt spend more money on their children and invest more time on such activities as reading to them, eating together and talking with them about their problems.

"One of the reasons adoptive parents invest more is that they really want children, and they go to extraordinary means to have them," Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, one of the study's three co-authors, said in a telephone interview Monday.

"Adoptive parents face a culture where, to many other people, adoption is not real parenthood," Powell said. "What they're trying to do is compensate. . . . They recognize the barriers they face, and it sets the stage for them to be better parents."

Powell and his colleagues examined data from 13,000 households with first-graders in the family. The data was part of a detailed survey called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Education and other agencies.

The researchers said 161 families in the survey were headed by two adoptive parents, and they rated better overall than families with biological parents on an array of criteria -- including helping with homework, parental involvement in school, exposure to cultural activities and family attendance at religious services. The only category in which adoptive parents fared worse was the frequency of talking with parents of other children.

The researchers noted that adoptive couples, in general, were older and wealthier than biological parents, but said the adoptive parents still had an advantage -- albeit smaller -- when the data was reanalyzed to account for income inequality.

In particular, the researchers said, adoptive parents had a pronounced edge over single-parent and stepparent families.

The researchers said their findings call into question the long-standing argument that children are best off with their biological parents. Such arguments were included in state Supreme Court rulings last year in New York and Washington that upheld laws against same-sex marriage.

The researchers said gay and lesbian parents may react to discrimination by taking extra, compensatory steps to promote their children's welfare.

"Ironically, the same social context that creates struggles for these alternative families may also set the stage for them to excel in some measures of parenting," the study concluded.

The study was funded by the
National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the American Educational Research Association. Powell's co-authors were Laura Hamilton, a doctoral student at Indiana University, and Simon Cheng, a sociology professor at the University of Connecticut.

The study is on the Web at www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Feb07ASRAdoption.pdf. (David Crary, AP)"

INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN

Are you familiar with the International Museum of Women? They just contacted me. They want me to be part of an exhibit they are doing on motherhood:

"While researching motherhood blog sites online I stumbled upon Babies On Ice :IFV & Embryo Donation. I found your archives and perused a few articles. Your articles were a refreshing and honest retreat from the many analogous mother sites I have been leafing through daily. After reading your articles I decided it was important to email you about submitting an excerpt of your work for the Imagining Ourselves exhibit.

From March to May 2007, the focus of the exhibit will be on Motherhood and the challenges that this generation faces. We want to reach out to young women to amplify their voices, talk about issues they face and focus on the issue from different perspectives-- but really looking at personal stories. We would like to explore their views on maternal health, pregnancy, parenting, single motherhood, adoption, relationships, work and family and much more.

I feel that you so fluently broadcast a view of motherhood that is not seen by many. Most interesting is that you are a mother who is on a journey to find the perfect mothers for your eggs! It would be an honor to have you submit an essay for consideration to the Motherhood exhibit. Your work is honorable, but it is also important and relevant, and should be shared in order to catalyze a new wave of honest and emotive mothers and women like yourself."

It's nice to get some feedback on the blog. I do have a rather intricate reproductive history. If you do as well you might want to check out the exhibit or even contribute to it. And if you know anything about this organization, please let me know.