Some same sex parenting challenges

Gay and lesbian parents are heading families with one, two, three, or even four parents. Sometimes there are no men among the parents, sometimes there are no women. Sometimes there are men and women but they are not romantic partners of each other. Some families intentionally comprise more than one household. Sometimes both biological parents are included in the family and sometimes not. Often there is a biological parent who is not a family member at all. Usually there is at least one parent who has no biological relation to the child. And perhaps most important, there is almost always a parent-child relationship that the law does not recognise or protect. 

At the outset, it is important to understand that family constellations among lesbian and gay-parented families are largely quite different from the heterosexually-parented nuclear family. "Our conventional notion of a parenting family contains many presumptions-that there will be two parents, that they will be one of each gender, that they will be romantic partners of one another, they will live under one roof, that they will both be biologically related to the children they raise, and that they will be recognized legally as a family. This 'Mom-and-Dad' nuclear family is not merely the baseline model in our culture against which all other models are deviant, but it is also assumed by most to be an optimal structure for child development, compared to which all other constellations are viewed as having deficiencies which must be overcome," says Nivedita Acharya, a civil lawyer based in Delhi.

Satyashree Nair, a Bangalore based activist who works for gender rights, rues this straitjacketed definition. In her words, "This is a model, however, which applies to no lesbian and gay parented families. Gay and lesbian parents are heading families with one, two, three, or even four parents. Sometimes there are no men among the parents, sometimes there are no women. Sometimes there are men and women but they are not romantic partners of each other. Some families intentionally comprise more than one household. Sometimes both biological parents are included in the family and sometimes not. Often there is a biological parent who is not a family member at all. Usually there is at least one parent who has no biological relation to the child. And perhaps most important, there is almost always a parent-child relationship that the law does not recognise or protect."

By this time, the ability of lesbian and gay parents to provide just as adequately as heterosexual parents for the social and emotional health of their children has been documented repeatedly in several research literature. Several studies have found that children raised by gay and lesbian parents were indistinguishable from children raised by heterosexuals. However, despite this fact gay and lesbian parents invariably contend with a set of unique issues/tensions whenever they present themselves to the legal system, the educational system, religious organisations, the medical system/professionals or the insurance industry - to name just a few. Satyashree explains, "The issues that arise in lesbian and gay-parented families are a function of two things. One is the rich variety of family constellations they comprise and the other is the fact that they are living in a society which does not yet value rich variety. Needles to say the tension created by this situation generates unique needs for the gay and lesbian parents whenever they present themselves to various institutions."

Satyashree states quite radically, "In order to interface effectively with these families and to truly meet their needs we have to go beyond mere tolerance (for the alternative format). We need instead to radically discard the Mom-and-Dad nuclear model as any kind of standard. We must accept the premise that it is quality of care and not family constellation, which determines 'what' is optimal for children's healthy development. We must further learn to identify who actually is and isn't a family member based on the loving bonds of responsibility that have been both intended and fulfilled, and not on any biological, legal, or conventional definitions of what is a family."

Moreover, a section of sociologists believe that when we consciously identify a family based on who performs the functions, takes on the responsibilities, has the bonds of the heart and was intended to be a parent, we discover that most of the time the family that we usually define will also fail to meet the legal and social definitions of family.

Needlees to say there are other major stresses of same sex parents. "A family that chooses to identify itself openly as a gay or lesbian parented family may expose itself to risks of homophobic insults, to loss of support from extended family, to loss of jobs or housing and even to violence. For many families, openness about a parent's homosexual orientation might also result in loss of custody or visitation with the child. Whether or not these dangers are real for a given family, the expectation that they could happen creates considerable anxiety. These are frightening prospects and require very difficult decisions," observes Satyashree.

Gay and lesbian parented families in hiding about who they are can be presumed to be everywhere. Satyashree says, "They may look like heterosexual nuclear families, with no one outside the family knowing that one or both parents are gay. More often, one sees what looks like a single mother, perhaps. The fact that she has a committed life partnership may be hidden from everyone in her life- her employer, her community and even her child. I have seen committed long term couples where the mother's partner is known to all only as a friend. They never live together, never show affection openly, never appear together at social functions, have no interaction with each other's extended families and expect to continue to live that way until the child is grown. This creates phenomenal stress (as the same sex parents have to deny so many personal needs) and deprives the child too. After all the child is deprived of the knowledge that his mother is in a loving partnership and is deprived of another adult parent who could be caring for her/him."

Whether or not a family is open about being headed by gay or lesbian parents, the lack of legal recognition for a non-biological parent has a profound impact both on internal family dynamics and on the way the family is integrated into their community and extended families. The anxiety may be enormous for a parent who invests his heart and soul in a child with the ever present danger that this child could be taken from him in an instant if the legal parent died. Grandparents may not want to get deeply involved with a child to whom they have no legal ties. Employers may not offer family leave or recognize family emergencies. Insurance will not cover the child of a non-legal parent.

"The situation is especially serious when a gay or lesbian couple with children separates. Their lack of legal recognition as a family creates real danger that the custody and access arrangements that are made will not be in the child's best interests. The biological mother, for example, in a crisis of anger and hurt, may resort to legal privilege and view the child as solely her's, thereby ignoring the child's need for emotional continuity with his other mother. Family and friends, who are understandably protective of her and feel adversarial to her partner, may pressure her to redefine the family relationships along heterosexist lines. Meanwhile, a non-biological mother knows that she has virtually no chance of succeeding in a court challenge, and so may just get pushed out of the child's life. The professionals who get involved at this juncture have tremendous power to either exacerbate the problem, or to turn it around and support the family to continue co-parenting together after separating, despite a complete lack of legal and societal support for doing so," concludes Nivedita.

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