By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience

A new study claiming to find disadvantages for children raised by same-sex parents is attracting criticism from social scientists, who say that the research does not actually address how well gay and lesbians parent.

The research surveyed almost 3,000 18- to 39-year-olds. Most were raised by heterosexual parents, but 175 had mothers who at one point had same-sex relationships and another 73 of whom had dads once in same-sex relationships. The results suggested that children of these parents are more likely than kids in other family structures to be on public assistance, unemployed or in therapy as adults, among other negative outcomes.

The study found "that the scholarly and popular consensus that there are no notable differences between the children who grew up with a mother or father in a same-sex relationship and those whose (heterosexual) mother and father were and are still married is a fiction," study researcher Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas, told LiveScience.

Related: Why Gay Parents May Be the Best Parents

Strong criticism
But other scientists say the research is deeply flawed, and does not measure the effect of same-sex parenting at all. The study defined same-sex parenting by asking participants if their parents had ever had same-sex relationships, and whether they had lived with the parent at that time. That led to a "hodgepodge" group of people who Regnerus then compared with kids in stable, married homes, said Judith Stacey, a sociologist at New York University who was not involved in the research. 

"He doesn't have an actual category of gay parents in the project that you can isolate and say the most important thing in this kid's childhood is that they were raised by gay parents," Stacey told LiveScience. "These are kids whose parents, maybe they divorced, maybe they separated, maybe they had a scandalous affair, we just don't know."

Related: 5 Myths About Gay People 

In contrast, a fair comparison would have matched up children of same-sex parents with children of heterosexual parents who looked otherwise similar — no extra divorces, no extra separations, no extra time in foster care for the kids, said Gary Gates, a researcher at the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation policy think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Instead, Regnerus categorized all people who said their parents were once in a same-sex relationship in the same group, even if those people had also experienced major childhood upheavals. About half of the people whose parents had ever been in gay or lesbian relationships also said their parents had once been in a heterosexual marriage, suggesting that a great many of these children were the products of a heterosexual relationship in which one parent later came out as gay or bisexual. Fifty-eight percent of those raised by moms who'd indicated a lesbian experience said their mother once left the household during their youth, and 14 percent said they'd spent time in foster care. 

"All he found is that family instability is bad for children and that's hardly groundbreaking or new," Gates, who was not involved in the research, told LiveScience.

"What I find most frustrating is that from what I could tell, he could have used his data to test the way I'm suggesting the test, and he chose not to," Gates added. "He intentionally chose a methodology that is absolutely primed to find bad outcomes in those kids." 

Regnerus said he plans to look more closely at the experiences of the same-sex parented kids in an upcoming article. 

"A detailed exploration of who lived with whom, when, for how long, etc., was not the point of this study," he said. 

Where same-sex parenting stands
Regnerus detailed his findings Sunday in the journal Social Science Research, alongside several commentaries on the work. The study was funded by two conservative-leaning foundations, Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation, though the funders had no control over the study design, interpretation or conclusions, Regnerus wrote. 

Only two of the 1.7 percent of respondents who reported a parental same-sex relationship reported living with that couple as parents for their entire childhood, meaning that the study has little to say about gay couples who deliberately chose to parent children through donor insemination, surrogacy or other means. 

Researchers are increasingly studying these parents, Stacey said, and research both in the U.S. and abroad consistently shows that the kids are just fine. 

"We know that when we compare same-sex couples who are parenting by choice with heterosexual couples who are biological parents, the lesbian couples do really, really well," Stacey said. (Fewer studies have been done on gay men who become parents.) 

Many of the studies on gay parenting have limitations, such as focusing more on moms than dads, Gates said. But the fact that they overwhelmingly conclude that kids of gay parents turn out fine on the whole is "persuasive," he said. 

In a commentary published alongside Regnerus' paper, Pennsylvania State University sociologist Paul Amato put it another way. 

"If growing up with gay or lesbian parents were catastrophic for children, even studies based on small convenience samples would have shown this by now," Amato said. 

Political fallout
Regnerus himself told LiveScience that he doesn't believe his study speaks to the politics of same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, the research has been cast in that light, showing up in a New York Times op-ed piece by Ross Douthat suggesting that the article is a case for caution in legalizing gay unions. By the same token, Slate writer William Saletan argued that the research makes a case for gay marriage in order to promote stable same-sex relationships for the sake of the children. 

Scientists, however, say that both uses of the research reach too far, given the fuzzy definition of same-sex parenting in the survey.   

"I don't think it's the kind of study to lead you to any policy position, frankly," Stacey said. 

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By Karen Rowan
MyHealthNewsDaily

Most people who have their first child after the age of 40 think the best time to have kids is five to 10 years earlier, a small new study suggests.

The study participants maintained that older parenting has more advantages than disadvantages, but when they were asked about the "optimal age for parenting," 80 percent of the women and 70 percent of the men said it was in the 30s, and many of them indicated that it was only their circumstances that kept them from becoming parents then.

The University of California, San Francisco, study was limited to 107 people, most of them white, married and with above-average incomes. The authors said future research should include a more diverse group and should follow up on the older parents once their children reach the teens.

Advantages of being an older parent

Researchers interviewed 46 couples and 15 single women who had used in vitro fertilization to conceive their first child when the woman was 40 or older. People who used IVF were chosen for the study because they were likely at the very end of their reproductive capabilities, the researchers said. The participants were asked what they thought were the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a parent at this point in their lives.

"A majority of women and men in the study believed that childbearing later in life resulted in advantages for themselves and their families," the researchers wrote.

The chief advantage, according to the participants, was that they were more emotionally prepared for parenting — 72 percent of women and 57 percent of men said this was an advantage.

One father said, "I know that I’m way more self-aware than I was 20 years ago. I feel like I’m in a better position to communicate better with my child and help them more in life, and I understand how to be a supportive, encouraging parent."

A woman said, "I just have more confidence in myself than I did in my 20s, so I don’t get fazed by as much as I might have when I was younger." 

Other cited advantages included having more career success and flexibility in their work, greater financial security, and stronger relationships with their partners and families. [ Pregnant Women Over 50 'Do Pretty Well' Study Finds ]

Seven of the men had older children from previous relationships. They commonly said that as older parents, they had more time available for parenting than they did when they were younger.

The downside

Still, the women tended to say they would have wanted to have children earlier had they met their partner sooner.

"I think if I could have written out the story of my life, I would have met him younger, and I probably would have had children maybe at 35," one woman said.

Most of the participants said they could not have had children earlier because of their circumstances.

Nearly half the women said that the difficulties they had in conceiving, and the need to use IVF, were the primary disadvantages of trying to become a parent at a later age.

In fact, many of the women said that because of their ages, they were advised to "go straight to IVF" when they decided to get pregnant. Most were told at some point during the treatment that their odds were poor. As a result, many said they felt lucky and appreciative to have had a child. Half of them conceived and gave birth after only one cycle of IVF.

Participants also said they believed they would have had more energy for parenting if they were younger. More than a third of the women and a quarter of the men said a disadvantage was a lack of physical energy.

Other disadvantages cited were concerns about being healthy and living long enough to see their children become adults; having a smaller family than they'd wished; and feeling stigmatized for being older parents.

The disadvantages had enough of an effect on the participants' conception and parenting experience that most said the best time for having kids would be five to 10 years earlier in life, the researchers concluded.

"Parenting in their 30s was imagined to reflect a compromise" between the financial and emotional advantages of becoming a parent later and the lack of energy and other drawbacks, they wrote.

Their findings were published online Feb. 14 in the journal Human Reproduction.

What do you think is the best age to raise children? Tell us on Facebook

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Many low-income parents feel they must resort to “formula stretching,” to keep their infants fed, even with government food assistance programs, a new study shows.

The study found that 30 percent of parents who brought their infants to an inner city children’s clinic didn’t have enough food to make it through each month. And a full 15 percent, or about 1 in 8, made ends meet by watering down their babies’ formula or by feeding less frequently, according to the study which was published in Clinical Pediatrics.

“We knew this was a high-risk population,” said study co-author Andrew Beck, a fellow in general academic pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “But these numbers are still staggering.”

Up till now there has been little research on infants in families that don’t have enough food, Beck said. Studies of hunger and food shortages across the nation have found that 16 to 22 percent of American families come up short some months.

Beck and his colleagues surveyed 144 parents of infants who attended the hospital’s Pediatric Primary Care Center. The vast majority of families who come to the clinic are covered by Medicaid and receive food stamps as well as assistance getting infant formula through a program called WIC.

 The researchers asked about food availability and feeding behavior in a 37-question survey that also looked at sociodemographic characteristics such as patient age, race, parental age, education, ethnicity and source of insurance.

Even though the majority of parents were receiving help through foods stamps and WIC, many did not have enough food to feed their families. In fact, some 65 percent of families ran out of WIC-supplied infant formula most months. And the result, in many cases, was that parents diluted or cut back on formula for their infants.

This kind of formula stretching may have consequences for the infants, Beck said.

“There will be a subset of children who will have what is called ‘failure to thrive,’” Beck explained. “More often, though, the ramifications of this tend to be less visible -- problems with cognition and behavior. In some it may lead to obesity later in life.”

While some might point to breast feeding as a solution, not every mom is in the position to do this for her child. In some jobs it’s virtually impossible to express milk during the day when a mom is away from her baby.

“Clearly, we encourage and actively support breastfeeding,” Beck said. “The reality is that a relatively low percentage of our patients breastfeed by the time they reach us.  If they do, we continue to encourage it and have a breastfeeding clinic if they need it.  Although they likely wouldn't require formula, we need to do education and a nutritional assessment for mom.  Also, as the first year progresses, even fewer families continue to nurse.”

Many of these patients may be slipping through the cracks, Beck said. At his hospital, residents reported problems with food availability in only 2 percent of parents attending the clinic.

It was clear, Beck said, that residents didn’t know how to ferret out these kinds of issues. In a second study, published in Pediatrics, the researchers showed that the numbers shot up when doctors were given the right questions to ask of their patients.

Right now Beck and his colleagues are working on finding solutions for parents who don’t have enough to feed their kids. But those solutions will only work if doctors can figure out who needs help, Beck said.  

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By MyHealthNewsDaily

Mothers who have jobs are healthier than those who are not employed, at least when their children are very young, a new study finds.

Working mothers in the study were less depressed and reported better overall health than moms who stayed at home with their young children, though this benefit of working did not extend into children's school years.

There was no difference between the health of mothers who worked part time and those who worked full time, the researchers said.
Stay-at-home moms may be more socially isolated than working moms, which might increase their chances of being depressed, the researchers said. Stay-at-home moms might also be under more stress as a result of being at home with their children all day. This stress may be relieved somewhat when their children start school, which may explain why the link disappeared when children entered preschool.

The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology

The results are based on interviews, starting in 1991, with 1,364 mothers from Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Researchers interviewed women throughout their children's infancy, preschool years and into elementary school.

The researchers defined working part time as working one-to-32 hours per week. About 25 percent of mothers were employed part time during the study period, although mothers moved in and out of part-time work. Mothers reported whether they experienced symptoms of depression and rated their overall health as "poor," "fair," "good" or "excellent."

The mothers also answered questions about conflicts between their work and family lives, and how involved they were in their child's schooling.

Working moms reported fewer symptoms of depression and were more likely to rate their health "excellent," compared with nonemployed mothers, according to the study.

Mothers working part time tended to report less conflict between work and family than those working full time, the researchers said.

Mothers employed part time reported being just as involved in their child's schooling as stay-at-home moms, and more involved than moms who worked full time. In addition, mothers working part time provided more learning opportunities for their toddlers than stay-at-home moms and moms working full time, the researchers said.

Couples' emotional intimacy did not appear to be affected by the mothers' employment status: the level of emotional understanding between partners was similar for working moms and stay-at-home moms.

The findings in the study held even after the researchers took into account factors that could have influenced the results, including the mother's education and certain personality traits.

The researchers noted they examined the mother's well-being in relation to one child only, and additional siblings should be considered in future studies. 
 

Moms, how does this finding line up with your own experience? Tell us on Facebook.

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By Cory Hatch
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Sexting -- the phenomenon of teens using phones or computers to send each other sexual photographs -- is not as widespread as once thought, a new study suggests.

University of New Hampshire researchers conducted a telephone survey to ask 1,560 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 whether they'd made, sent or received sexual photographs in the past year.

Only about 1 percent of kids were sexting sexually explicit photographs.

"It's somewhat reassuring," said study author Kimberly Mitchell, an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire. "The media … has portrayed it as a big problem."

But chances are, your children are not sexting, Mitchell said.

Researchers asked questions such as "Have you ever taken nude or nearly nude pictures or videos of yourself?" and "Has anyone ever sent you nude or nearly nude pictures or videos of kids who were under the age of 18 that someone else took?"

A related study showed that law-enforcement agencies respond to about 1,750 cases of sexting each year in the United States.

Both studies were published today in the journal Pediatrics.

Defining sexting
Kids' answers during the interviews depended upon how the researchers defined sexting. When researchers asked if children had created or appeared in nude pictures or videos, 2.5 percent said yes. However, only 1 percent of children said the photos were sexually explicit, showing bare breasts, genitals or bottoms.

More than 7 percent of children said they had received nude or nearly nude photographs of others, while nearly 6 percent said they'd received sexually explicit photographs.

Children's answers included: "This boy had four pictures of a naked girl — he was showing everyone in the classroom," and "I was just dating a boy and he wanted a picture and I just sent him my picture."

Other studies debunked
The findings debunk other, less rigorous studies of teens and sexting, the researchers said. For instance, one study used an Internet panel and included 18-and-19-year-olds. Some studies also didn't distinguish between nearly nude photographs and sexually explicit photographs.

"Often times, [the photographs] weren't sexually explicit," Mitchell said. "We find, across the board, that kids are pretty smart about using technology."

When sexting was considered serious enough for legal action, two-thirds of the cases involved an aggravating circumstance such as an adult being involved, or nonconsensual or malicious behavior, according to the study of law-enforcement agencies. 

Story: Poll names 'sexting' most annoying tech word

Researchers mailed surveys to a sample of 2,712 law-enforcement agencies and found 3,477 cases involving sexting during 2007 and 2008.

About 36 percent of cases involved adults, and 19 percent involved criminal behavior beyond creation of the sexual image.

About a third of the cases were considered "experimental," meaning that the children involved were in a romantic relationship or were engaged in attention-seeking behavior.

Police made arrests in 62 percent of cases involving an adult, 36 percent of cases where a youth was engaged in aggravated behavior and 18 percent of experimental cases.

The study advances the current understanding of sexting by delving further into the details than any other research to date, said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center, in Washington, D.C.

Story: More kids 'cyberbaiting' teachers

"The researchers have been able to ask very specific questions to target a narrow definition of sexting …  as well as a more-detailed understanding of how the images were created, shared and received," Lenhart said. "Their research findings also closely match my most recent work on this topic, where we found 2 percent of teens 12 to 17 say they have sent a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude image of themselves to someone else, and 16 percent of all teens say they have received them."

Mitchell acknowledged that her study involved only children who use the Internet, while saying nothing about the small percentage (about 5 percent) of kids who don't. "To be involved with sexting you don't have to be an Internet user," she said. "I don't think we're missing many kids, but we could be missing some."

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Working moms multitask about 10 hours a week more than working dads, a new study finds. When women multitask, it often centers on taking care of the kids and doing housework, while men are more likely to multitask by socializing and doing self-care.

It's 7 p.m. You're e-mailing your boss, doing the dinner dishes, checking your 10-year-old's homework, and trying to calm your angry 3-year-old, who is screaming like a howler monkey. You'd like to scream, too. At your husband, who thinks everything is just fine.

According to a new study published in the December issue of the journal American Sociological Review, working moms not only multitask more frequently than working dads but also experience more negative emotions.

“The mother-nurture-care concept is part of our social unit,” says co-author and sociologist Barbara Schneider of Michigan State University. “That’s not a bad thing, but the pressures of everyday life have made it very difficult.”

The study participants were part of the 500 Family Study, which collected data from 1999 to 2000 in eight urban and suburban communities to find out how middle-class families balance family and work obligations.

The researchers found that working moms spend 48.3 hours per week, or about 40 percent of their waking hours, doing the multitask shuffle, compared to dads, who spend 38.9 per week doing two or more things at once.

Moms are more likely to get stuck with labor-intensive housework or childcare activities, while dads generally multitask by talking to several people at once or performing self-care. Dads are also more involved in kids' recreational activities.

While multitasking is generally a positive experience for dads, moms feel stressed and conflicted when they multitask at home as well as in public places, mostly due to the type of activities performed, which could leave them open to scrutiny and judgment.

To help ease the strain, the authors suggest sharing the load by getting dad more involved in the mundane aspects of home and child care.

“Simply doing things together as a family in the context of the home can go a long way,” says Schneider.

Although the study did not look at the current situation of these families, there’s no reason to think things have improved, says University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth Aura McClintock. For example, among dual-income married couples working 35 or more hours a week, men's median weekly housework hours increased in the 1970s to about 5 hours per week, but have not changed much since then.

Today’s economic climate is also likely taking a toll.

“Families are stressed,” says Schneider. “With resources it was tough; imagine what it’s like now when there are probably fewer resources due to layoffs and rising expenses.”

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