Queer Parenting

Nancy D. Polikoff looks at the fundamental desire of queer women to have children. With that, a queer couple or individual women can have children through various forms such as adoption. According to Polikoff, queer women are not immune to a culture of obligatory motherhood. She goes on to state that “we are girls before we were aware lesbians, and we were raised by families that expected us to be mothers. We read the same books and saw the same movies as our heterosexual sisters. And today we live in the same world, one which purports to value motherhood above anything else a woman can do” (Polikoff, 2007, p. 195). In other words, just because these women are lesbians, that does not mean they are any different from heterosexual women. They
In the past there have been numerous lesbians that have lost custody of their children for simply being lesbian. Not only that, but some queer women still have the fear of losing their jobs due to their sexuality, alongside the fear of not having family support. An overlapping concept discussed by many authors is the importance of queer women seeing the value in queer mothering. In today’s society, it has largely been accepted by queer mothers that there is no need to be better than patriarchal mothers, since they are trying to get away from the way patriarchal mothers raise their children. According to various experts, there is a common understanding that lesbian mothers may be raising their children better than patriarchal
They are passing their knowledge and the lessons learned from their hardship down to their children. According to The Huffington Post, “gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don’t” (Pappas, 2012). Queer parents tend to be more motivated and more committed than straight parents, simply because they chose to be parents. Queer couples rarely become parents by accident, especially when compared with the approximately 50 percent accident pregnancy rate among patriarchal couples. According to psychologist Abbie Goldberg, “that translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement” (Pappas, 2012). This perfectly links back to the things that empowered mothers believe or do – one of them being putting their own needs first and be happy with their life before worry about their children (O’Reilly, 2008). Since there is little to no chance of accidently pregnancy, queer mothers have children when they are ready to do so. They have time to fulfill their need and go through as many experiences as possible to gain a better understanding of empowered mothering, before choosing to have a child. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, research has shown that children of queer couples, both adopted and biological, perform no worse than the kids from patriarchal couples when looking at mental health, social functioning, school performance, and numerous other life-success