Psychological and social adjustment in teens with same-sex parents

Current debates about marriage of same-sex couples often lead to discussions regarding the health and well-being of any children involved in such relationships. Although considerable research on young children of same-sex couples finds they fare as well as their peers with opposite-sex parents, there have been fewer studies of adolescents.

We examined romantic relationships, school adjustment, and psychological well-being among 44 adolescents whose mothers had same-sex romantic partners, comparing them to 44 adolescents whose mothers had opposite-sex partners.

Our study also examined the association between the quality of parental/adolescent relationships and school achievement and psychological well-being.

We drew information for our study from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, in which researchers conducted interviews with and collected information from thousands of American adolescents and their parents. The two groups we studied had several similar characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, level of parental education, and family income. There was an equal number of girls and boys, and an overall average age of 15.

We found that adolescents whose parents had same-sex romantic partners were developing in positive ways. We found no significant differences in their school achievement or psychological well-being when compared to their peers with male/female parents

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