Found this article to be quite interesting.
Divided roles
Alison Motluk
DON'T BLAME SOCIETY. It's the kids who impose
stereotyped roles on the people who care for them, according to a
pioneering study of lesbian adoptive couples.
Claudia Ciano-Boyce and Lynn Shelley-Sireci of
Westfield State College in Massachusetts wanted to know if the
experience of adopting a child differed between homosexual and heterosexual
couples. Massachusetts is one of the few states where same-sex couples can
adopt.
The researchers asked 10 lesbian and 26
heterosexual couples who had adopted a child to fill out an extensive
20-page questionnaire. On most topics, heterosexual and homosexual couples
responded similarly. But lesbian parents reported significantly more
dissatisfaction with the division of childcare.
Despite their best efforts to be totally
egalitarian, they said that the child always seemed to insist on one parent
for "primary" needs--such as comfort, food and tucking in at
bedtime. Meanwhile the child treated the other parent almost exclusively as
a playmate. While heterosexual parents reported a similar division of roles,
with the mother usually performing primary tasks, they didn't consider it a
problem.
"The child chooses one parent over the other,"
says Ciano-Boyce, and the two roles appear to be mutually
exclusive. Since both parents in the lesbian families were interested
in being primary caregivers, and neither was the
biological mother, it's not clear what criteria the child uses
to pick its caregiver, Ciano-Boyce says.
From New Scientist, 4 September 1999
Jeff Nagelbush
Social Science Department
Ferris State Umiversity
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