Archives › Child Development
Will ENDA Harm Children?
The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation and is one of the key pieces of LGBT-related legislation pending this year. ENDA applies broadly across the LGBT community, and isn’t specific to those of us with children (as are, say, adoption rights), but some [...]
Collateral Damage
(This ran as my newspaper column on March 16, 2010. A few of the details on the McMillen prom case are a tad out of date, but the bulk of the piece still holds.) The Lego castle was almost done. It was a complicated thing, one of the most intricate constructions my then-preschooler had ever [...]
New Gender Spectrum Web Site
Gender Spectrum, which “provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens,” has launched a beautiful new Web site with a ton of information and resources. Parents of transgender or gender-variant children will find the site (and organization) of particular interest, but other parents and [...]
“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 103
Helen and I celebrate our 17th anniversary this week and wonder how we made it. We also discuss a new way of thinking about kids and rules and try (perhaps in vain) to plan for when our child becomes a teen. Plus: a look at how parenthood changed Ricky Martin. Mombian: She Got Me Pregnant [...]
Wanted: Teens with LGBT Parents
Posting another academic study request, this time for research on teens with LGB parents. This one has a personal tone for me, not because I have teens (my son is six), but because I’ve interviewed the lead researcher, Abbie Goldberg, about her latest book on LGBT parents and on some earlier research about lesbian and [...]
Teen Sexuality: Hard Truths and Warm Love
I’m very pleased today to bring you a guest post by Lori Hahn, who has blogged at Hahn at Home for several years, and is now also a co-editor of the new GLBT blog Our Big Gayborhood. Lori writes below of teen sexuality—an area in which I have no expertise as a parent. I’m grateful [...]
Dazed and Confused
Amelie Gillette of The A.V. Club has a zinger of a post on the far-right and marriage equality. This qualifies as the quote of the week: Now they’re saying that we can’t have gay marriage because it would confuse the kids. But you know what else confuses kids? Everything: Time zones. Books without pictures. Cargo [...]
Who’s Your Daddy?
As promised, here is another in my series of quotes from Who’s Your Daddy? And Other Writings on Queer Parenting. I’ll be running them for a couple of weeks courtesy of the book’s editor, Rachel Epstein. I’m choosing the quotes I feel are most intriguing and thought provoking; I don’t always agree with the sentiments, [...]
No Surprises Here
From the “fun with scientific conclusions” department: A new study in the journal Child Development has found that babies who are the result of unplanned or mistimed pregnancies “had fewer resources [including parental support and learning materials] than intended siblings” and “Parents’ emotional resources to older children decreased after the birth of a mistimed sibling.” [...]
Kiddie Consumers
Thanks to Nina at Queercents for pointing out an article from Best Life magazine about kids and consumerism, subtitled: “How to thwart the $17 billion marketing effort to steal your kids’ dreams, hijack their imaginations, make them obese, and drive a wedge into their relationship with you.” Yikes. It’s enough to make one move to [...]
“Prayers for Bobby” and More on Lesbian and Gay Youth
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about new research showing the devastating impact of family rejection on lesbian and gay youth. Tonight, Lifetime television will air “Prayers for Bobby,” the true story of a religious suburban mother in the 1970′s who struggled to accept that her son Bobby was gay. It airs Saturday, [...]
Treating Families as Allies, Not Enemies
365gay.com has just posted a long piece of mine on new research about how parents’ reactions to their LGBT children can have long-term effects on their children’s health and well being. Seems obvious—and you may even have seen the news a few days ago when the first paper on this work came out. I’ve gone [...]
Children of Lesbian Families Happy and Healthy, Despite Homophobia
(Originally published in Bay Windows, August 20, 2008.) The 17-year-olds participating in the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) “demonstrate significantly higher social competence” and “significantly lower total problem behavior [than the standard population]. This is a very high indication of mental health,” asserts Dr. Nanette Gartrell, principal investigator of the NLLFS and Associate Clinical [...]
Four Heroes, One Villain
Four heroes in the news: Trans activist Jenn Burleton, founder and executive director of TransActive Education & Advocacy, a Portland, Oregon based organization that works with parents and schools to support transgender and gender-variant children. 18-year-old student Clyde Calloway, for helping to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school in rural Kentucky, despite threats [...]
The Importance of Play
Children need to play. Oh, that’s obvious, you say—but according to NPR’s Alix Spiegel, children today need more “freewheeling imaginative play,” as opposed to structured enrichment classes or play centered around single-purpose toys. I’ve long felt this; one of the many reasons my son has my 25-year-old Legos rather than today’s versions. (OK, there’s some [...]
How Academic Should Schools Be?
Continuing the theme of education from earlier this week: In the U.K., the Commons education committee has warned that creativity is a “second-order priority” in the country’s schools, but should be a fundamental part of learning, with adequate funding. “We believe that the best education has creativity at its very heart,” they say. I couldn’t [...]
Does Your Toddler Know the Mona Lisa?
This Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine had an exposé on the Better Baby Institute, which claims to have created a method for accelerating babies’ development. Physical therapist Glenn Doman founded the Institute to help brain-damaged children recover function, and he (along with daughter Janet) is now applying his findings to well infants and toddlers. “We are [...]
New Site for LGBT Parents to Share Autism-Spectrum Information
Lesbian mom April has just launched Rainbow Spectrum, a site for GLBTQ families to share information about autism spectrum disorders. It’s still in the early stages, but she’s hoping it will grow as word spreads. Here’s what she tells us: I started Rainbow Spectrum to address a need that our family has, namely to share [...]
Signs of Progress
There’s always a first time. I was with my son at his school playground last week, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to hang with the other parents and kids at the end of the day. My son wandered over to the sandbox, where another boy his age was playing. They introduced themselves in [...]
Middle School Reality
Another guest post today by Sara Whitman of Suburban Lesbian Housewife. I talk a lot about toddlers and preschool-age children, because that’s where my personal experience is. Sara reminds us, however, that the challenges of parenting change, but don’t ease, as our children grow older. My son Ben came home today and told me he [...]
