Has there been any longitudinal studies carried out as to the psychological effect (+ve, -ve or neutral) on children who have 2 same-sex parents?
Has anything similar been done on children who have only ever had one parent, whether male of female(ie not children who have been through the trauma of parental divorce or the death of one of the parents)?
If there has been, do the two outcomes match in any way?
Yes, there have.
There's this one on same-sex parents and their lack of any discernible affect on children's well-being compared to mixed-sex parents.
http://qz.com/438469/the-science-is-clear-children-raised-by-same-sex-parents-are-at-no-disadvantage/This one -
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11113-014-9329-6 "Differences that exist in child well-being are largely due to socioeconomic circumstances and family stability."
This one -
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15504280802177615 "Extensive data available from more than 30 years of research reveal that children raised by gay and lesbian parents have demonstrated resilience with regard to social, psychological, and sexual health despite economic and legal disparities and social stigma. Many studies have demonstrated that children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents. Lack of opportunity for same-gender couples to marry adds to families’ stress, which affects the health and welfare of all household members"
This one particularly about lesbian parents -
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/1/28.abstract "The 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts… Within the lesbian family sample, no Child Behavior Checklist differences were found among adolescent offspring who were conceived by known, as-yet-unknown, and permanently unknown donors or between offspring whose mothers were still together and offspring whose mothers had separated… Adolescents who have been reared in lesbian-mother families since birth demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment."
This one which shows how much better it is for children to be adopted into same-sex homes than it is for them to be left in state care -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20879687 "Children of same-sex couples are as likely to make normal progress through school as the children of most other family structures… the advantage of heterosexual married couples is mostly due to their higher socioeconomic status. Children of all family types (including children of same-sex couples) are far more likely to make normal progress through school than are children living in group quarters (such as orphanages and shelters)"
This one, with slight support for the idea that gay parents might produce a slightly higher incident of gay/gender-fluid children (interesting for those of us, and I include myself in this group, who think our sexuality is not a conscious choice) -
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J461v03n02_05 Children in lesbian families felt less parental pressure to conform to gender stereotypes, were less likely to experience their own gender as superior and were more likely to be uncertain about future heterosexual romantic involvement. No differences were found on psychosocial adjustment. Gender typicality, gender contentedness and anticipated future heterosexual romantic involvement were significant predictors of psychosocial adjustment in both family types
And then the 2008 metastudy which reviews most of the available quality literature -
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/18/peds.2013-0377 "Analyses revealed statistically significant effect size differences between groups for one of the six outcomes: parent-child relationship. Results confirm previous studies in this current body of literature, suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents fare equally well to children raised by heterosexual parents"
The only piece I could find refuting the notion that children of same-sex couples suffered no apparent ill-effects was published on the Family Research Council's site and (in their words) 'Tops All Previous Research' without quite explaining why -
http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-previous-research. Their intepretation is far more damning than the abstract of the paper -
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610 - which merely shows children from single-sex families show a broader spread of behaviours as young adults, but not that they are particularly worse off.
Most frequently referenced UK news article on single parent families I could find -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8064435/Children-in-single-parent-families-worse-behaved.htmlBroad ranging comment piece that cites many studies -
http://family.jrank.org/pages/1577/Single-Parent-Families-Effects-on-Children.htmlAcademic effects of single-parent homes for children (clue, it's not good) -
http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=hilltopreviewIntergenerational effects of single-parent families -
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc113c.pdfhttp://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-previous-researchGeneral consensus (both my personal interpretation, and that of the major meta-analysis cited) is that having children raised by two parents is significantly better than by one, that the gender balance of those parents makes little to no difference, and that any sort of home parenting is better than being left in state care.
O.
