Psychological Health and Factors the Court Seeks to Control in Lesbian Mother Custody Trials

Abstract

The court has repeatedly ruled that a mother will lose custody of and visitation privileges with her children if she expresses her lesbianism through involvement or cohabitation with a female partner, being affiliated with a lesbian community, or disclosing her lesbianism to her children. Associations between expressions of lesbianism for 25 self-identified lesbian mothers and psychological health as measured by three scales on the California Psychological Inventory and by the Affectometer were therefore examined. Psychological health correlated positively with openness to employer, ex-husband, children, and a lesbian community, and with amount of feminist activism. There was no correlation between psychological health and openness to parents, possibly because of parental rejection.

Parenting in Planned Lesbian Families

“…The results show that there are no differences in psychological health between lesbian mothers and divorced heterosexual mothers in self-concept (Mucklow & Phelan, 1979;Rand, Graham, et al, 1982), happiness (Rand, Graham, & Rawlings, 1982) and overall adjustment and psychiatric status (Golombok, Spencer, & Rutter, 1983 ). Furthermore, Rand et al (1982) Miller, Jacobsen and Bigner (1981) investigated 34 lesbian and 47 heterosexual mothers, and reported that the former group was more child oriented in disciplinary techniques than the latter group was. Golombok et al (1983) compared the quality of the parent-child relationship measured using a standardized interview.…”

“…Main results 1982Lewin & Lyons, 1982Rand, Graham, & Rawlings, 1982Golombok, Spencer, & Rutter, 1983Harris & Turner, 1985Green, Mandel, Hotveld, Gray, & Smith, 1986 Children Table 2.1 Overview of empirical studies on lesbian families with children born in a previous heterosexual relationship…”

Adjustment among Mothers Reporting Same-Gender Sexual Partners: A Study of a Representative Population Sample from Quebec Province (Canada)

“…Most of the available evidence has been provided by research on self-identified lesbian mothers compared to control groups of heterosexual mothers. Generally, findings indicated that lesbian mothers did not differ from heterosexual mothers on several measures of psychological adjustment (Falk, 1989(Falk, , 1994Golombok, Spencer, & Rutter, 1983;Golombok, Tasker, & Murray, 1997;Mucklow & Phelan, 1979;Patterson, 1996;Rand, Graham, & Rawlings, 1982). Two studies found that lesbian mothers were better adjusted than heterosexual mothers (Bernhard & Applegate, 1999;Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray, & Smith, 1986), and only one study reported a higher proportion of lesbian mothers than heterosexual mothers having received psychiatric care at some time during their adult life (Golombok et al, 1983).…”

Lesbian families and family functioning: an overview

“…The results show that there are no differences in psychological health between lesbian mothers and divorced heterosexual mothers in self-concept [34,35], happiness [35] and overall adjustment and psychiatric status [19]. Furthermore, Rand et al [35] showed that lesbian mothers who are open about their sexual orientation to their employer, ex-husband and children have fewer psychological health problems than do those who are not open about their sexual orientation or lifestyle.…”