bristol palin needs educating.

So, over on my G+, I decided to give her a hand. I'm copying it here because I feel like it.


First, the article I'm referencing: Bristol Palin Blasts President Obama For Supporting Gay Marriage, Says His Daughters Watch Too Much Glee


In which she is quoted as saying (my emphasis added):

While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads. In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that – as great as her friends may be – we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.

In this situation, it was the other way around. I guess we can be glad that Malia and Sasha aren’t younger, or perhaps today’s press conference might have been about appointing Dora the Explorer as Attorney General because of her success in stopping Swiper the Fox.

Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking. In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.

To which I have to say, Oh hey there bristol palin, I think you missed a whole big chunk of actually relevant academia on this topic (since you say that "we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home"), let me help you out:

"The author's study found that adult-aged daughters of lesbian mothers did not significantly differ from adult daughters of heterosexual mothers on gender identity, gender role, sexual orientation, and social adjustment."

Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents
Julie Schwartz Gottman PhD
pages 177-196

Marriage & Family Review
Volume 14, Issue 3-4, 1989

"Children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers did not systematically differ from other children on any of the outcomes. The studies indicate that children raised by lesbian women do not experience adverse outcomes compared with other children. The same holds for children raised by gay men, but more studies should be done."

Outcomes for children with lesbian or gay parents. A review of studies from 1978 to 2000
Norman Anderssen, Christine Amlie, Erling André Ytterøy

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
Volume 43, Issue 4, pages 335–351, September 2002

"More than two decades of research has failed to reveal important differences in the adjustment or development of children or adolescents reared by same-sex couples compared to those reared by other-sex couples. Results of the research suggest that qualities of family relationships are more tightly linked with child outcomes than is parental sexual orientation."

Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents
Charlotte J. Patterson, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 400400, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Current Directions in Psychological Science
October 2006 vol. 15 no. 5 241-244

"This article provides an overview of the current legal terrain for lesbian and gay parents and their children in the United States today, an overview of relevant social science research, and some commentary on the interface between the two. It is concluded that research findings on lesbian and gay parents and their children provide no warrant for legal discrimination against these families."

Children of lesbian and gay parents: Psychology, law, and policy.
Patterson, Charlotte J.
American Psychologist, Vol 64(8), Nov 2009, 727-736.


I'm gonna give you the entire abstract for this one, just because i feel like it:

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to document the psychological adjustment of adolescents who were conceived through donor insemination by lesbian mothers who enrolled before these offspring were born in the largest, longest running, prospective, longitudinal study of same-sex–parented families.

METHODS: Between 1986 and 1992, 154 prospective lesbian mothers volunteered for a study that was designed to follow planned lesbian families from the index children's conception until they reached adulthood. Data for the current report were gathered through interviews and questionnaires that were completed by 78 index offspring when they were 10 and 17 years old and through interviews and Child Behavior Checklists that were completed by their mothers at corresponding times. The study is ongoing, with a 93% retention rate to date.

RESULTS: According to their mothers' reports, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach's normative sample of American youth. Within the lesbian family sample, no Child Behavior Checklist differences were found among adolescent offspring who were conceived by known, as-yet-unknown, and permanently unknown donors or between offspring whose mothers were still together and offspring whose mothers had separated.

CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents who have been reared in lesbian-mother families since birth demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment. These findings have implications for the clinical care of adolescents and for pediatricians who are consulted on matters that pertain to same-sex parenting.

US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents
Nanette Gartrell, MD, Henny Bos, PhD

PEDIATRICS Vol. 126 No. 1 July 1, 2010
pp. 28 -36

Keep your uneducated ass out of my politics, my bedroom, and my future.