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"Is Childrearing by Lesbian-mothers Healthy?: Empirical Studies in Developmental Psychology and Disputes about the Children of Lesbian-mothers in America & Europe"

ARITA Keiko

last update: 20151224


Is Childrearing by Lesbian-mothers Healthy?: Empirical Studies in Developmental Psychology and Disputes about the Children of Lesbian-mothers in America & Europe

ARITA Keiko
Abstract:
In the last half of the 70's in America, lesbians who were married and had children began to come out. When they waged custody battles against ex-husbands, they lost cases, one after another, as a result of their sexuality. In 80's, courts began to employ a criteria of judgment named 'nexus test.' A nexus test prohibits to depriving lesbian-mothers of custody merely because they are lesbians, as long as children are not harmed by them. So authorities of developmental psychology were asked to examine the psychological adjustment of the children of lesbian-mothers. In the main part of the paper, the author reviews these experimental studies. The author introduces studies for examples, by Golombok,S., Patterson,C.J., and Brewaeys,A. Golombok established the Family and Child Psychology Research Center in 1989 to conduct research on parent-child relations and the psychological development of children raised in non-traditional families. She is famous for her longitudinal follow-up study of the children of lesbian-mothers in the U.K. Patterson has been an expert witness in the court cases of lesbian-mothers. Brewaeys is a professor of the Department of Obstetrics and Reproductive Medicine, University Hospital, Leiden, The Netherlands. In the latter part of the paper, the author poses questions about the general preconceptions within the developmental psychology itself.


Key Words: Lesbian-mother, Nontraditional rearing, Artificial insemination, Golombok,S., Patterson,C.J.,

REV: 20151224
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