Challenges In Lesbian Parenting: What You Need To Know

In the increasingly progressive world of today, lesbians are more likely than ever to want to start families, but the process is harder for them than it is for heterosexual couples. The idea that children raised in lesbian homes have greater rates of psychopathology or trouble adjusting has been disproven by extensive studies. 

Despite this, lesbians who want to have children continue to experience overt and covert prejudice in society at large and in the healthcare industry in particular. They have to make more complex decisions, deal with more difficult logistical challenges and bear higher financial costs. This chapter outlines the special needs and experiences of lesbians who become parents, identifies care-related obstacles, and highlights solutions.

Lesbian parents vs. Heterosexual parents

It's crucial to understand that nuclear families with lesbian or gay parents typically look very different from those with heterosexual parents. The traditional definition of a parenting family includes a number of assumptions: that there will be two parents, one of each gender, that they are romantic partners, that they live together, that they are both biologically related to the children they are raising, and that they are legally recognized as a family. This mom-and-dad nuclear family is not just the norm in our culture from which all other models deviate; most people also believe that it is the best structure for a child's growth and that all other constellations have flaws that must be fixed. 

Some points to keep in mind:

Lesbian parents

• Receive less parental leave than heterosexual parents
• Have more difficulty getting pregnant than heterosexual couples
• Have a higher risk of mental illness, substance abuse and domestic violence than heterosexual couples.

Heterosexual Parents

• They are more likely to marry (and stay married) than lesbian or gay couples.
• They are more likely to have traditional gender roles where the male is the primary breadwinner, and the female is a caregiver.
• They are more likely to receive social and governmental support for their families.

Common difficulties and challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community

Non-biological parents face a variety of difficulties, including feeling out of place, being ignored and made invisible by health service providers, not being recognized as a "real" mother, and lacking the language or legal or social responsibilities that properly reflect playing a parenting role in one's child's life. Some of these problems are:

• Family and friends' refusal to accept and rejection of the parents' homosexual orientation. 

• A family that decides to identify itself openly as a homosexual or lesbian parented family may subject itself to the dangers of homophobic taunts, losing support from extended family, losing employment or homes, and even experiencing violence. These are unsettling possibilities that demand extremely challenging choices.

• The idea that there is societal and community support for lesbian families is still not by any means widespread. The inadequacy of social support can exasperate living situations and make it hard for parents to fully provide the care and attention their children need.

• For families, the lack of legal recognition is a significant cause of worry, disappointment, loss, and rage. Many same-sex parents feel acutely conscious of their lack of political and social recognition.

• For secretive or introverted parents, the difficulties associated with the "coming-out" process are numerous and varied, including the perceived burden of having to maintain complete secrecy and conceal one's sexuality, the annoyance of constantly explaining one's situation to others, and dealing with "the constant process" of coming-out and "dropping the lesbian bombshell."

• Some couples may feel that they are under "additional" strain despite the fact that the difficulties of parenting are universal, and "new parenting" might have a negative impact on the relationship between the pair.

Social challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community

Children who experience bullying as a result of interacting with society may struggle with bad views toward their parents. Children from LGBT families and their parents may face a variety of hazards and difficulties in North America, including those relating to their personal lives, their families, and their communities and educational institutions.

Some kids may suffer across all or a number of domains as a result of hegemonic societal norms. Religious groups, extracurricular activities, and social interactions at school can all foster children's development of unfavorable gender- and sexuality-based views about their parents and themselves. Parents and students can frequently experience bias, stereotypes, microaggressions, injury, and violence as a consequence of identifying outside of social normative, cis-gender, heterosexual culture or as a result of having their identification exploited against them.

How to overcome the challenges of lesbian parenting

The pleasure that lesbian-led families had in having raised happy, well-adjusted children despite the limitations and difficulties of surviving in a homophobic environment was the main strength they cited. Participants characterized their families as being well-planned, welcoming of diversity, flexible with regard to gender roles, and having engaging, encouraging, extended family networks that featured a variety of good role models for kids. There are some ways to overcome the challenges of lesbian parenting. They are : 

• Families without a heterosexual foundation often have no problems coming out to the kids. The children in households that have gay men and lesbians who become parents through donor insemination, surrogacy, or adoption tend to grow up with a natural and comfortable understanding of their parents' affectionate lives. 

Additionally, these families have a tendency to be more outspoken in their neighborhoods and schools instead of being somewhat secretive because of concern about losing their homes or employment.

• Young kids aren't perplexed by much as long as they're being told freely and honestly who their caring parents are and who made them. The younger they are, the easier it is for them to understand and accept. Of course, we see that in many cultures other than our own, children are frequently nurtured in a variety of family arrangements by persons other than the parents who gave birth to them. 

The children see it as natural as long as it is encouraged by their culture. Our gay and lesbian parenting groups appear to be creating the type of accepting counterculture that enables these kids to feel at ease in such a range of family settings more and more, it seems.

• According to some single lesbian moms, being a single mother was just as important to their parenting as being a lesbian. Additionally, unmarried lesbian parents' social and economic conditions led to even more marginalization. Lesbian adoptive parents face a difficult route in the healthcare industry and occasionally feel they must educate professionals about their situation.

• It is important to study and understand laws regarding gay and lesbian parenting. It takes careful planning and the assistance of an experienced attorney to know how to arrange things so that a child does not tragically lose a parent.
  
   
• The ability of lesbian and gay parents to support their children's social and emotional well-being in the same ways as heterosexual parents have now been frequently demonstrated in the academic literature. Children raised by gay and lesbian parents were found to be identical to children reared by straight parents in more than two dozen studies.  

We must now completely abandon the Mom-and-Dad nuclear paradigm as a benchmark. We must accept the assumption that what is best for children's healthy growth is determined by the quality of care, not by the make-up of the family.

• Some LGBTQ people rely on social media and mobile applications to meet others since they are frequently discouraged from being upfront about their sexual orientation and gender identity. Numerous social media sites and applications provide LGBTQ adolescents with a welcoming environment where they may interact with friends and allies.
   

System support for the LGBTQ+ community

Children of LGBT parents and LGBT pupils may have higher levels of stress, anxiety, and self-esteem problems due to the increased risk of damage they may experience. Children and parents who encounter transphobia and homophobia in the community, school, and family are supported by a number of legal and social safeguards.

Schools can help create safe spaces for students and parents by practicing and developing supportive networks and resilience skills. Direct methods to combat homophobia and transphobia aimed at these children and their families include social assistance, ally building, and good school settings.

Gay-Straight Alliance Network (GSA), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) are a few organizations that can help create friendly learning environments in schools. Personal support networks for LGBT children and parents may be developed with the help of community services like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), The Trevor Project, and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the variety and complexity of challenges experienced by lesbian parents highlight the wide range of non-mainstream as well as innovative and effective parenting practices that families can use to deal with and overcome the difficulties of raising children in heteronormative, heterosexist, and occasionally homophobic social and familial contexts. Visit Gaycommunity.com to learn more about same-sex parenting.