Married lesbians aren't raising delinquents
What "father absence" really means
Father absence is a frequent topic in heterodox spaces, for good reason. It’s important to push back on narratives like “masculinity is toxic” and “oppression explains all bad outcomes.”
Unfortunately, this complex problem often gets simplified as “not having a male parent in the home,” on the theory that fathers have a unique ability to keep their children out of trouble.
It’s thought that boys, in particular, need a strong man to tell them, “No, you can’t rob a liquor store. Do your homework.”
Mothers can’t provide effective discipline on their own, for reasons that aren’t totally clear to me. (We’re too nice? Our voices aren’t deep enough? We can’t lead by example unless our body parts match?)
From there it’s easy to conclude that lesbian parents should not raise children. After all, our families don’t include a man.
So that’s another L for wokeness. Good stuff. Like and subscribe.
However…..
In reality, the reasons for father absence matter tremendously. Consider some of the most common scenarios:
Unplanned pregnancy
Breakup / divorce
Abuse
Incarceration
Death
Most of these scenarios are traumatic for children. When the father splits before the child is born, or isn’t known in the first place, the child doesn’t go through a painful transition—but often, single mothers are poor and struggling, a situation with its own set of consequences for children. In all of these scenarios, children may have to cope with their mother’s new boyfriend or husband, which causes further disruption.1
So it’s unsurprising that children who lose their fathers, in one way or another, are more likely to get into all sorts of trouble.
Planned lesbian families are different. While divorce is always a possibility, most of us are raising are children in stable, two-parent homes. Our children don’t experience the trauma of losing a caregiver or economic deprivation. In fact, we tend to be more affluent than straight parents (because it costs money for us to reproduce, and accidental pregnancies aren’t a thing). As a result, outcomes are good.
“All children need fathers” is a perfectly valid position. As a lesbian mom, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to give my son access to male family members and role models, including his donor (biological father) who has become part of our extended family. I will never say that it makes no difference.
If you could control for every possible confounder, and the effects of family transitions, there might be some remaining effect of not having a male role model in the home. But the lesbian example proves it’s far less than what conservatives like to assume. Most kids without fathers are experiencing instability, dysfunction, and trauma, not just “the absence of a man.”
Regardless of your views on gay parenting, generalizing the consequences of unplanned father absence to planned lesbian families is simply incorrect. The children of affluent, married lesbians aren’t succumbing to delinquency. They’re attending private school and getting (arguably too much) help with their homework.2 There is no lack of supervision, no struggle to keep them off the street.
Again, it’s fine to think lesbians shouldn’t have children. But I get frustrated when the alleged harms are exaggerated because of dysfunction that has nothing to do with us.
Even when lesbians aren’t explicitly brought into the conversation, reducing the harms of broken families to “kids need a man” causes people to make assumptions about our families that are simply false. Whether you like it or not, our kids are thriving.
Like everyone else on Substack, I’m reading Rob Henderson’s book about his childhood in foster care. It’s striking how closely his behavioral problems correlated with instability in his home life—including the loss of his adoptive father after his adoptive mother came out as a lesbian. His mother’s girlfriend was a positive figure in his life for many years, but the relationship eventually fell apart too, which caused him further distress.
While Rob has talked about fatherlessness on his podcast tour, it’s so clear that what he needed more than anything was a secure, stable home. It’s possible that his biological father could have provided such a home. He never met his father, so it’s hard to say—but for years he didn’t have anyone who was a permanent, safe adult.
My son has a secure home, one he has taken for granted since birth. It’s not perfect, but any conservative who thinks we’re the problem is ignoring the catastrophe in the background. For so many kids, our home would be paradise.
There is a fascinating passage in Rob Henderson’s new book where his friend says he’s lucky that his mom is a lesbian, because she won’t bring guys around. New girlfriends can be hard for kids, but it’s just not the same.
My son is lucky (??) to have two parents with terminal degrees (MD and PhD) so we are ready for English, History, and STEM.
Yeah — I think there are a few differences at play. One could simply be the characteristics of people who become pregnant accidentally versus those who go out of their way to obtain fertility assistance. On average, you might expect the latter group to be less chaotic and better at planning than the former. I think this probably results in a better environment for the kid (wealthier, more stable), but may also involve parents passing on better “marshmallow test” genes.
I also wonder if “absent fathers” is actually a phenomenon that acts at the population level as much as or more than at the individual level — in other words, when the number of adult males on an area drops below a certain level, does that actually in and of itself trigger different survival strategies in adolescent males, including greater aggression and risk-taking and, perhaps, less willingness to obey mothers?
And in that kind of environment, I would believe that a parent with a deeper voice, who is less nice, and who brings a certain amount of his own male aggression and size into the conversation, could indeed have a meaningful effect.
So, no, I don’t think lesbian moms are a big social problem. But I do think when boys have been shaped by a variety of factors to be aggressive risk-takers, male influence may sometimes be critical. But that particular need probably doesn’t come up as much in the population of kids descended from and raised by lesbians (and probably straight parents, too!) who planned their pregnancies and obtained fertility assistance.
Having grown up as a latchkey kid of divorced parents, it's interesting to me that we focus on gender here at all. I think having only one parent around, regardless of gender, puts families at greater risk. If you've got a single parent with a full-time job, or multiple jobs, no family to help out, and not enough cash to enroll the kid(s) in a series of supervised activities, it doesn't matter if their voice is low and their genitalia match -- there's just not enough oversight to meditate all bad influences and safeguard mental health. It's far less common for kids to live with just a father, but I'd bet kids from those households have their fair share of behavioral struggles. Raising kids is a huge job for 2 people, let alone 1.
I'm not suggesting all single-parent families are unstable obviously, or that male role models aren't important, just that it seems unlikely to me that fathers are some magic bullet. Their absence may be correlated to worse outcomes, but that doesn't necessarily indicate direct causation tied to the lack of some essential male energy. More probably that second income, physical presence and (hopefully) extra emotional support are vital.