Our children : lesbian mothers' perceptions

The purpose of the research discussed in the present study is to determine the impact a lesbian lifestyle has on lesbian mothers' biological children. I interviewed ten lesbians who experienced coming to terms with their lesbian orientation after spending a period of their life in a heterosexual marriage. I conducted an extensive review of the literature on changes in the relationship between the mother and her children as a result the mother coming out as a lesbian, the influences of homophobia on the children, the impact of the divorce on the children, the influence of living in a lesbian family on children's school experiences, and the children's adjustment to living in an alternative family. I used the qualitative research method of interviewing lesbian mothers, using open-ended study guide questions, to determine their perceptions on the topics found in the literature review. I contacted women from a broad cross-section through a networking process. The women ranged in age from thirty-six to fifty-three, with children ranging in ages from ten to thirty-two. Each participant has lived a lesbian lifestyle for a period of five to twenty years. I transcribed the audiotapes of the interviews and used those transcriptions to identify major themes that emerged from them. Through an inductive analysis of the data I found that children of lesbians who had lived in a heterosexual marriage before coming out experienced greater anxiety over the divorce of their parents than they did over the news of their mothers' lesbianism. In fact, they seem to be relieved that their mothers had found a measure of happiness within the lesbian lifestyle. Younger children appeared to accept their mothers' lesbianism more easily than adolescent children. In this study, more adolescent girls had difficulty with their mothers' sexuality then adolescent boys. Children whose fathers were critical of the mothers' sexuality had more trouble accepting it than children whose fathers were more tolerant. Most of the children had positive relationships with their mothers' lesbian partners. Only two children experienced harassment by homophobic schoolmates who suspected their mothers were lesbians. Lesbian mothers did not come out to their children's teachers and appeared to have positive relationships with those teachers. The results are significant in that they show the struggles and challenges faced by lesbians and their children in an environment that does not accept lesbian-headed households as appropriate family structures. The implications of the study revolve around the need for schools and other institutions to affirm the lesbian-headed household as an acceptable alternative family structure, and the need for schools to incorporate into their curricula content that addresses the validity of alternative family structures outside the paradigm found in the heterosexual nuclear family.