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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and Molly, So Molly. We hear a lot

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Speaker 1: when it comes to parenting, when it comes to even welfare,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to the UH Proposition eight and gay

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Speaker 1: marriage and gay adoption, all these kinds of big policy issues.

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Speaker 1: Hear a lot about the necessity of both a mother

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Speaker 1: and a father for child welfare. Yes, um, we hear

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Speaker 1: a lot from UH politicians. UM. Even you know, even

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Speaker 1: Barack Obama has um has emphasized the need for father's UM.

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Speaker 1: The government has poured tons of resources into really trying

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Speaker 1: to re educate men about fatherhood and UM bring more

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Speaker 1: dad's home and as an active part of their children's lives.

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Speaker 1: But there was an interesting study that recently came out.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of a re analysis of a number

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Speaker 1: of studies. Actually I called a super study and super

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Speaker 1: study if you will, that was published UM this month

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Speaker 1: January in the Journal of Marriage and Family that question

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Speaker 1: this idea of whether or not gender really matters when

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Speaker 1: it comes to parenting, whether or not children receive different

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Speaker 1: and yet complementary um benefits from a man and a

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Speaker 1: woman that are necessary for positive child development. Right, So

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Speaker 1: there's this thinking that there are unique gifts that you

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Speaker 1: can only get from parents of certain genders that you know,

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Speaker 1: let's take the father, because they're the ones that you know,

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Speaker 1: the president, like you just said, has been talking about that.

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Speaker 1: You know, boys need father to learn how to become

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Speaker 1: good men. And it gives a daughter a chance to

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Speaker 1: kind of like figure out her femininity and relation in

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Speaker 1: a safe relationship with kind of another man. Um And

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Speaker 1: you know, the mother's the nurturer, the father's the disciplinary,

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Speaker 1: and they're just these stereotypes go on and on, and

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Speaker 1: people think that if you bring up a child without

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Speaker 1: both of these role models that somehow they will be

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Speaker 1: inherently flawed or you know, not as good. Right, and um,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the research to people will site say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, children raised in single parent homes are more

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Speaker 1: at risk for delinquency and low educational attainment and you

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Speaker 1: know all of these negative factors as well too. Once again,

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Speaker 1: like hammer home this point that married quote unquote intact

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Speaker 1: families i e. Households headed by a married mother and

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Speaker 1: a father are simply the best parenting scenario out there.

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Speaker 1: And so this this study, superstidy that we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: came from US sociologists Timothy bibl Arts from the University

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Speaker 1: of Southern California and you to Stacy at New York University,

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Speaker 1: where they reanalyzed eighty one different parenting studies. UM that

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Speaker 1: look at everything from you know, single parent homes, single mothers,

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Speaker 1: single dads, heterosexual married couples, homosexual married couples, and how

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Speaker 1: the children have turned out in all of these different

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Speaker 1: scenarios to really find out, you know, if that UM,

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Speaker 1: that model, that traditional model of mother, married mother and

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Speaker 1: father is actually the best and full disclosure, I did

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Speaker 1: report on this study entitled how does the gender parents Matter?

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Speaker 1: For Discovery News. Yeah, you have to talk to you

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Speaker 1: the Stacy. Yes, so maybe throughout the podcast he'll tell

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Speaker 1: us the cool thing. She said, Yes, but I do

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Speaker 1: think that you know, you mentioned UM battles every same

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Speaker 1: sex marriage. I feel like, over and over again we

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Speaker 1: hear that, you know, gay people shouldn't be allowed to

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Speaker 1: adopt or you know, these these couples shouldn't get married

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Speaker 1: because then they're gonna be bringing up their children to you,

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Speaker 1: you know, who knows what, and you'll always hear someone.

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Speaker 1: There will always be someone on the sideline saying studies

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Speaker 1: show that kids do best when there's a male father

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Speaker 1: and a female mother who are married. And this study

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Speaker 1: did a really good job of explaining to me how

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Speaker 1: people have taken that out of context. It's basically just

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Speaker 1: a bogus, bogus statement. Well because a lot of it.

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Speaker 1: When they went back and looked at the methodology of

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Speaker 1: all these parenting studies, they realized that in a lot

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Speaker 1: of cases were comparing apples and oranges, because a lot

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Speaker 1: of those um gender specific parenting skills that you reference,

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Speaker 1: such as the dad being the disciplinary and the mother

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Speaker 1: being the nurture, come out of studies that only look

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Speaker 1: at heterosexual married couples. It doesn't take into account um

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Speaker 1: instances such as um single adoptive parents, or children of

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Speaker 1: widowed parents, or um even uh, you know, gay married couples.

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Speaker 1: So all those is basically they'll take a married couple

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Speaker 1: and compare that to like a single mother, right yes,

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Speaker 1: and not necessarily like to heterosexual people to do homosexual people.

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Speaker 1: That's the apples and artists are talking about right, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: they don't do a good job but actually isolating these

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Speaker 1: this gender variable because um Stacy and the Blard's point

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Speaker 1: out that there are five major variables to look at,

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Speaker 1: um when we are assessing uh, you know, all these

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Speaker 1: basic factors that go into parenting, such as the number

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Speaker 1: of parents, their gender, sexual identity, their marital status, and

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Speaker 1: their biogenetic relationship to the kids, i e. Whether or

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Speaker 1: not you know, we have step children, adoptive kids, um,

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Speaker 1: their biological kids, what have you. So it's apples aren't

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Speaker 1: just because they won't they won't isolate out these factors.

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Speaker 1: So basically the problem with a lot of these studies

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Speaker 1: was that they weren't able to hold constant these other

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Speaker 1: factors that are going into um, how these people might

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Speaker 1: be raising their children. For instance, if you really want

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Speaker 1: to isolate the impact of gender, you would do something

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Speaker 1: as specific as comparing you know, uh, the child outcomes

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Speaker 1: of single mothers who have adopted a child compared to

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Speaker 1: single fathers who have adopted a child, both of whom

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Speaker 1: would probably be you know, single heterosexual women or single

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Speaker 1: homosexual women versus the exact same. All of those different

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Speaker 1: variables would need to be the same for both the

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Speaker 1: women and the men to UM to actually look at

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Speaker 1: what role the gender is playing. Everything else held constant,

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Speaker 1: because if you just compare them to a two parent family,

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Speaker 1: then what I understand from you is that Dr Stacy

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Speaker 1: said that then the two parent family, yes, does have

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Speaker 1: more resources to give the child, and the gender kind

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Speaker 1: of doesn't shake out, whereas the single woman is a

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Speaker 1: little bit more disadvante in terms of resources. But the

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Speaker 1: gender should not affect the child, right, that the lack

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Speaker 1: of resources affected the child exactly. That they don't turn

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Speaker 1: out with any you know, gender hang ups. They aren't

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Speaker 1: more likely to, let's say, become pregnant, which they're saying

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Speaker 1: that girls who are raised by fathers might be more

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Speaker 1: less likely become pregnant. That would not have to do

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Speaker 1: with the fact that they have a mail around so

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Speaker 1: much as they have extra resources around. Right. Yeah, and UM,

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Speaker 1: and I think that it is important to note that, UM,

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Speaker 1: the study and a lot of child development UM studies

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Speaker 1: that you'll look at will conclude that on average, children

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Speaker 1: who are raised in two parent homes non. No, you know,

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Speaker 1: whether those are two men, two women, a man and

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Speaker 1: a woman, two parent homes UM do better than children

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Speaker 1: who are raised in single parent homes. But that also

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Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily imply that children who are raised by single

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Speaker 1: parents are you know, inherently at risk for disaster, right,

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Speaker 1: because if you're going into it and let's say making

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Speaker 1: it a choice versus UM, you know, getting dumped on

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Speaker 1: the side of the road with a child, then yes,

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Speaker 1: you still have the resources to give the child as

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Speaker 1: opposed to someone who might you know, have just gotten

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Speaker 1: kicked out of a home a boyfriend. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they are a little bit of a disadvantage. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I think that a lot of this too UM. From

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Speaker 1: talking to Dr Stacy and to another UM source, dcor

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Speaker 1: UM Jean Hilton at the University of Nevada, Reno, both

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Speaker 1: of them continually came back to the point of resource investment,

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Speaker 1: as you know, the major predictor of UM positive child

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Speaker 1: development UM. For instance, UH. A lot of these studies

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Speaker 1: on UH lesbian couples who have raised children have found

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Speaker 1: that the children do just as well as kids raised

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Speaker 1: UM by heterosexual couples, and they might even do better

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Speaker 1: on some psychosocial scores such as their self esteem and

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Speaker 1: UM they're just general openness to other people because they're

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Speaker 1: probably raised in a more diverse setting. And one reason

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Speaker 1: why they might do so well is because they are

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Speaker 1: because of the social and legal um barriers that are

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Speaker 1: they're still around. For gay couples having and raising children,

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Speaker 1: they have to be more committed and more motivated to

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Speaker 1: make it work. Therefore, they are going to have deeper

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Speaker 1: resource investment in these children. So that's the thinking that

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Speaker 1: if they do more studies on same sex couples raising children,

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Speaker 1: they think that's what they'll find. Right, Well, that's already

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Speaker 1: been established in a number of studies specifically on children

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Speaker 1: raised um by lesbian parents, But to some degree the

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Speaker 1: jury is still out on those scenarios for um gay

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Speaker 1: mail couples because their research hasn't simply hasn't caught up

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Speaker 1: to child outcomes for those scenarios. But Dr Stacy, when

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Speaker 1: I was talking to are predicted that once there is

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Speaker 1: more research that's been done on child outcomes under with

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Speaker 1: gay mail couples, it's going to turn out that to you,

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Speaker 1: men raising children are going to be possibly the best

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Speaker 1: parents because there are more barriers for them having and

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Speaker 1: raising children than any other household structure you know, in society,

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Speaker 1: right now. Therefore, they are going to be deeply motivated

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Speaker 1: and deeply committed and probably have to invest even more

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Speaker 1: resources than any other any other type of family. Right

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Speaker 1: And you know we're engaging a little bit in generalizations here,

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Speaker 1: but I mean every family is different. That's sort of

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Speaker 1: what some of these people on the forefront do as well.

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Speaker 1: So basically it sounds like what this doctor is saying

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Speaker 1: is that gender itself and the fact the kind of

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Speaker 1: values you would instill in your child are not considered

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Speaker 1: resources that you know, having a mother who nurtures you

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Speaker 1: is not some sort of resource investment that you can

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Speaker 1: get that you can't get by having a lack of

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Speaker 1: a mother and a two parent family, right. And I

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Speaker 1: mean part of this study is also pointing out the

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Speaker 1: difficulty of analyzing and comparing different types of parenting models,

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Speaker 1: just because there are so many variables that go into parenting.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, when I was talking to Dr Stacy,

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Speaker 1: you know, she she mentioned how, um, you know, some

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Speaker 1: children just in general are easier to parent than others.

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Speaker 1: I was probably a dream to parent. I'd like to

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Speaker 1: think I'm share you were, Um, And I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: just so many different scenarios, Um that can you know,

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Speaker 1: lead up to people having children in the circumstances surrounding

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Speaker 1: that that to quote the study, UM, she says, you know,

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Speaker 1: we predict that even ideal research designs will find instead

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Speaker 1: that ideal parenting comes in many different genres and genders.

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Speaker 1: And so the conclusion of this super study, if you will,

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Speaker 1: is that there is no optimal parenting structure. It's all

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Speaker 1: about whether you are gay, straight, male or female. It's

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Speaker 1: all about this resource investment and what you are dedicating

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Speaker 1: dedicating yourself to invest in your children. But let's take

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Speaker 1: another side of the argument, which is, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you allow two gay men to adopt a child, what

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Speaker 1: will the child sort of internalize by watching these two

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Speaker 1: men try to parent him? And I thought you sent

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Speaker 1: me a really interesting UM National Post article about how

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Speaker 1: within any relationship, any parenting relationship, people take on sort

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Speaker 1: of stereotypical gender roles and um, like, let's take let's

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Speaker 1: take sort of an obvious one. UM, in a heterosexual couple,

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Speaker 1: the woman, let's say, his charge more with housework, shall

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Speaker 1: be with the child more. Um, the father will be

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Speaker 1: less invested in the child. I mean not personally, but

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Speaker 1: just he has to go out and work, so he

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Speaker 1: sees the child less. UM. It was about how you know,

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Speaker 1: even people who grow up sort of in our generation

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Speaker 1: are determined to be as equal as possible in terms

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Speaker 1: of parenting and sharing chores. Uh, sort of fall into

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Speaker 1: these old roles, whereas they're saying that these couples UM

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Speaker 1: of two women and two men are less likely to

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Speaker 1: fall into those roles. To understand that correctly, Yeah, these

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Speaker 1: studies have found that UM homosexual couples do a better

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Speaker 1: job of sharing UM childcare tasks equally. But even in

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Speaker 1: these studies of UM lesbian couples, there are still kind

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Speaker 1: of these UM traditional heteronormative gender roles, if you will,

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Speaker 1: that do emerge a lot of times, not as strongly

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Speaker 1: as they do in heterosexual couples. But you at some

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Speaker 1: point you still have one person who is UM has

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Speaker 1: a little more responsibility over childcare, and the other person

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Speaker 1: who has a little more responsibility of resource providing. But

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Speaker 1: if you're a small child trying to internalize, you know,

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Speaker 1: all this stuff, you would not necessarily feel that one

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Speaker 1: gender was limited to that, right exactly. That's kind of cool,

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Speaker 1: you know, You if you are growing up in like

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Speaker 1: you know, a mother and a father. You don't grow

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Speaker 1: up thinking, oh, you know, moms stay home with kids

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Speaker 1: and dads go to work. Whereas because you're in this

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Speaker 1: situation where you see two people the same gender figuring

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Speaker 1: out how to make it work and not saying, well,

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Speaker 1: just because you're this and this happen well, and I

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Speaker 1: think that. UM. It's also good to point out that,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the main arguments UM against gay

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Speaker 1: marriage is that these children are going to UM by

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Speaker 1: being raised by two people of the same gender, it's

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Speaker 1: going to skew their gender identity. You know, a boy

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Speaker 1: raised by two women will be too feminine and vice

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Speaker 1: versa for a girl raised by two men. But UM,

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Speaker 1: there was a really good comprehensive research summary from the

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Speaker 1: American Psychological Association on Lesbian and Gay Parenting research, and

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Speaker 1: this is from Dr Charlotte Patterson at u v A,

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Speaker 1: and she points out that, you know, there are three

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Speaker 1: major categories of concerned about children of gay parents, UM,

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Speaker 1: such as the gender identity issues that I just talked about,

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Speaker 1: and UM, greater propensity towards mental breakdown, and just basic

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Speaker 1: you know, social maladjustment because they're in these kind of

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Speaker 1: novel family structures, and all of the research to date

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Speaker 1: has debunked all of those major concerns. And even with

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Speaker 1: UM again, I keep going back to this research on

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Speaker 1: lesbian couples, and it's just because there's UH, there's more

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Speaker 1: more of these child outcome studies for lesbian couples, and

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Speaker 1: it's found that in terms of UM scores of masculinity

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Speaker 1: and femininity the children UM, there are no there are

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Speaker 1: no differences between children raised in UM by lesbian parents

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Speaker 1: and children raised by heterosexual parents. You know, boys scored

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Speaker 1: you know, the same amount on masculinity as they would

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Speaker 1: either way, and they are no more likely to be gay.

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Speaker 1: So really there's nothing that UM two parents of different

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Speaker 1: genders can still in a kid that's can be any

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Speaker 1: different than what two people the same gender can. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just kind of hammering home

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Speaker 1: this point that you know, the optimal structure is going

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Speaker 1: to be you know, people who are caring and committed

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Speaker 1: and you know, raising their children as best as they can.

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Speaker 1: And you can't boil that down to say that that

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Speaker 1: has to be a man, a married man, and a

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Speaker 1: married woman at home. Every day takes a village takes

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Speaker 1: a village. But lacking a village, it doesn't matter what

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Speaker 1: gender is in your village because it doesn't appear that

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Speaker 1: that gender instills any particular you know, it doesn't lower

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Speaker 1: your risk of going to jail. You know, that's sometimes

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Speaker 1: an argument they say for for boys who have male

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Speaker 1: figures around, they won't go to jail as often. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's all about the resource development, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and some people, you know, one question, um that this

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Speaker 1: research raised for me was, you know, does this mean

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Speaker 1: that you know, kids, you know particularly don't need fathers,

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Speaker 1: you know, or we just going way to overboard with

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Speaker 1: all of this this fatherhood stuff. And Dr Stacy was

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Speaker 1: quick to point out that, um, you know, that's that's

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Speaker 1: not the case at all. It has no thing to

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Speaker 1: do um with gender. Like a man can parent a

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Speaker 1: child on his own just as well as um, a

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Speaker 1: woman comparent a child. I mean, I think it just

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Speaker 1: happens a lot a lot more the women end up

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Speaker 1: being the caretakers because we have we physically have the babies. Um,

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Speaker 1: but one gender is not less able than the other

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Speaker 1: to be a good parent. Sounds good. Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: very interesting super study. Yeah, And jealous. You have to

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Speaker 1: talk to you the co author. Yeah, it was. It

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Speaker 1: was great talking to Dr Stacy. And again, the title

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Speaker 1: of the article is how does the gender of Parents Matter?

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Speaker 1: And it is in the Journal of Marriage and Family

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Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. I don't think

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Speaker 1: the full articles online, but you can check out the abstract.

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Speaker 1: And there are all sorts of UM related studies as well.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, this covered eighty one different parenting studies.

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Speaker 1: That's why it's a super study. That's why it's a

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Speaker 1: super study. And there are all still a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of questions. I mean, Dr Stacy said that

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Speaker 1: it was such a tedious process having to go back

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Speaker 1: and try to UM unravel all of these different variables

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Speaker 1: any when other researchers hadn't tried to unravel them at

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Speaker 1: all and come all on one study and there are still,

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Speaker 1: you know, questions left to answer. And UM even Dr

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Speaker 1: Hilton from University of Nevada, who UM who I talked

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Speaker 1: to as well, said that, you know, this is a

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Speaker 1: great first step, but it doesn't necessarily, you know, like

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Speaker 1: answer all of our questions about gender. But I think that, UM,

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Speaker 1: I think that it might be high time for us

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Speaker 1: to kind of stop with this knee jerk. Um. You

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Speaker 1: need a statement, yeah, that you need that. You absolutely

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Speaker 1: need a mom and a dad and that's the only

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Speaker 1: way that it's gonna work, that you're gonna have successful children.

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Speaker 1: All right, So, but we want to hear what you

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Speaker 1: guys think about this family structure. Is what particular gender

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Speaker 1: gifts a mother or a father give if they're necessary,

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Speaker 1: they're not, So email us mom stuff at stuffworks dot com,

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Speaker 1: and I think we have time for one or two

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Speaker 1: people who have already emailed to set mom stuff at

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Speaker 1: house stuffworks dot com. Got one here from Aaron about deodorant,

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Speaker 1: and she said, I think you missed one important part

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Speaker 1: in your podcast about deodorance, antiperspirants. Body odor was not

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Speaker 1: a problem till the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Women's

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Speaker 1: magazines began to market these new products as a way

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Speaker 1: to not offend guests. You may be entertaining, essentially telling

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Speaker 1: women that they had to be offending guests with their

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Speaker 1: female odor. I find it fascinating that the problem quote

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Speaker 1: unquote is one that was created in order to sell products.

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Speaker 1: Some modern examples of this are wrinkle creams, teeth whiteners

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Speaker 1: and female razor blades. Okay, and Jeanette, our next writer,

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Speaker 1: kind of picks up on that sort of same theme. Um,

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Speaker 1: she thinks that the US may have more of a

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Speaker 1: dependence on deodorant than other parts of the world. I'm American.

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Speaker 1: I've been living in Japan for a few years now.

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Speaker 1: The pharmacies here sell more of a selection of women's

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Speaker 1: deodorant than men's, but it's not that big, and of

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Speaker 1: that only one or two are also anti purseprant, and

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Speaker 1: the ones that include anti persport are usually American brands.

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Speaker 1: It seems like de odorant here is more of a

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Speaker 1: girly thing. I also say that because a few months

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Speaker 1: after I started doing my Japanese boyfriend, I noticed that

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Speaker 1: he does not use deodorant at all, as kind of

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Speaker 1: shocked as I thought men required it so they wouldn't

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Speaker 1: stink up every room they entered. But he doesn't smell

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Speaker 1: bad or have what spots under his arms, I would say,

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Speaker 1: not using deodorants typical of Japanese men. And maybe I

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Speaker 1: was attracted to my boyfriend because his diverse DNA scent

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Speaker 1: wasn't being masked by old spice and for men that

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Speaker 1: come to Japan have told me that they have trouble

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Speaker 1: finding deodorant the works for them. This made me think

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Speaker 1: that maybe we get hooked on tour during puberty and

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Speaker 1: our body gets accustomed to it. So when we skip

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Speaker 1: a day, we really noticed the smell and moisture. But

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Speaker 1: perhaps once our hormones level out, we don't need to

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Speaker 1: be sticking chemicals under our arms at all. All right, So,

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Speaker 1: if you have anything that you would like to send

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Speaker 1: our way, thoughts, feelings, impressions, email us, pictures, pictures, tasteful pictures.

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Speaker 1: Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is the

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Speaker 1: email address, and dear in the week. Keep up with

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Speaker 1: what Molly and I are thinking about at our blog

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Speaker 1: how to stuff, and you can find it and a

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Speaker 1: whole host of interesting articles for you're reading pleasure at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on

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Speaker 1: the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to

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