When lesbian mothers split up -- latest results from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study

The December 2011 peer-reviewed journal Family Relations reports the latest findings from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) on the well-being of children whose mothers split up before they were 17.  The NLLFS has been following 85 children of lesbians born through donor insemination beginnning in the 1980's.  Information about the study and its earlier published research is all located on the NLLFS website.

Of the 73 two-mother families in the study, 40 couples had split up by the time their child was 17 (over 90% of these occurred before the child was 13).  This is a higher rate of separation than the divorce rate for married heterosexuals.  71% of separated couples reported shared custody of the children, a number considerably higher than the rate of shared custody among divorced heterosexuals.  59% of the couples had completed second-parent adoptions, and parents in that group were more likely to share custody.  The children whose mothers had completed second parent adoptions were much more likely to report feeling close to both mothers.  In 10 families, the birth mother was primary custodial parent. The study reports no families in which there was one primary custodial parent and that parent was the nonbiological mother.

The study's key finding: there was no difference in psychological health or problem behavior between those children whose mothers had completed second parent adoptions and those who had not, or between those whose mothers shared custody and those who did not.  The authors note that this lack of association could reflect the small size of each subgroup.  (Previous research from the NLLFS, published in Pediatrics, reported no difference in the well-being of children whose moms split up and those whose moms were still together.)

The study includes the information that 80% of the separations occurred before same-sex couples could enter civil unions in Vermont (July 2000), the first status available to same-sex couples that conferred the state-level legal consequences of marriage.  Almost all occured before the couple could have entered marriage or its legal equivalent in the state where they lived.  The study repeats this fact several times.  In a footnote, the authors do note that marriage (or its legal equivalent) is neither necessary nor sufficient to confer legal parentage.  Perhaps repetition of the fact of the unavailability of relationship recognition is designed to suggest that there could be variable outcomes for children whose parents marry and those who do not.  While that is, of course, possible, if the data reported in this study holds it suggests otherwise.  It takes a lot more time, effort, and money to complete a second parent adoption than to marry.  A second parent adoption is also a strong statement of commitment to the child, as opposed to marriage which concerns the relationship of the women to each other.  So if the children of second parent adoptions are no healthier or better adjusted than the children whose moms did not complete second parent adoptions, my hypothesis would be that the couple's marriage would produce no difference either.

One thing for sure -- there will be lots to research over the coming years, and the data from the NLLFS study will be the point of comparison for all that work.

Remember this about Washington state law when the Governor signs Domestic Partnership bills on Monday

On Monday, May 18, Governor Gregoire will be signing the bills expanding domestic partnership in Washington state. Once the provisions go into effect (some --the ones that cost the state the most money-- are not effective until 2014!), registered domestic partners in Washington will have all the state-based consequences of marriage. The Washington approach mirrors that of California's domestic partnership laws.

This is a good time to note a way in which Washington state is unique in the US. Both married and unmarried couples (different-sex and same-sex) get the same rules of property division when they split up. By virtue of a number of state supreme court opinions, community property principles apply to the breakup of cohabiting couples even if they have not married.

The American Law Institute recommended almost a decade ago, in its Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, that the financial consequences of ending a domestic partnership and ending a marriage should be the same. They used Washington state as one of their models. (Australia has such rules as well).

To me, this is a no-brainer. The division of property always looks backwards at how the couple lived. A court can do that just as easily for an unmarried couple as for a married couple. The reason we don't apply general contracts and property law to divorces is that special rules are needed to prevent injustice; a spouse may act for the common good of the family or household, and without special rules (s)he could be left with nothing. Well the same holds true for unmarried partners, and they deserve justice as well.

Consider this fact, which continues to amaze me: In British Columbia, in 1972, the courts ruled that when an unmarried couple splits up one partner can be required when appropriate to provide some ongoing financial support to the other partner. More than thirty-five years later, not a single American state has such a rule. Even Washington state. But at least they have gone part of the distance towars recognizing that marriage (and now registration as domestic partners) shouldn't be the dividing line between relationships that count and those that don't.