Barriers and Stigma Experienced by Gay Fathers and Their Children.

BACKGROUND: Gay men have become fathers in the context of a heterosexual relationship, by adoption, by donating sperm to 1 or 2 lesbian women and subsequently sharing parenting responsibilities, and/or by engaging the services of a surrogate pregnancy carrier. Despite legal, medical, and social advances, gay fathers and their children continue to experience stigma and avoid situations because of fear of stigma. Increasing evidence reveals that stigma is associated with reduced well-being of children and adults, including psychiatric symptoms and suicidality. METHODS: Men throughout the United States who identified as gay and fathers completed an online survey. Dissemination of the survey was enhanced via a "snowball" method, yielding 732 complete responses from 47 states. The survey asked how the respondent had become a father, whether he had encountered barriers, and whether he and his child(ren) had experienced stigma in various social contexts. RESULTS: Gay men are increasingly becoming fathers via adoption and with assistance of an unrelated pregnancy carrier. Their pathways to fatherhood vary with socioeconomic class and the extent of legal protections in their state. Respondents reported barriers to becoming a father and stigma associated with fatherhood in multiple social contexts, most often in religious institutions. Fewer barriers and less stigma were experienced by fathers living in states with more legal protections. CONCLUSIONS: Despite growing acceptance of parenting by same-gender adults, barriers and stigma persist. States' legal and social protections for lesbian and gay individuals and families appear to be effective in reducing experiences of stigma for gay fathers.

Longitudinal Relations Among Parental Monitoring Strategies, Knowledge, and Adolescent Delinquency in a Racially Diverse At-Risk Sample.

Parents raising youth in high-risk communities at times rely on active, involved monitoring strategies in order to increase both knowledge about youth activities and the likelihood that adolescents will abstain from problem behavior. Key monitoring literature suggests that some of these active monitoring strategies predict increases in adolescent problem behavior rather than protect against it. However, this literature has studied racially homogenous, low-risk samples, raising questions about generalizability. With a diverse sample of youth (N = 753; 58% male; 46% Black) and families living in high-risk neighborhoods, bidirectional longitudinal relations were examined among three aspects of monitoring (parental discussions of daily activities, parental curfew rules, and adolescent communication with parents), parental knowledge, and youth delinquency. Parental discussion of daily activities was the strongest predictor of parental knowledge, which negatively predicted delinquency. However, these aspects of monitoring did not predict later delinquency. Findings were consistent across gender and race/urbanicity. Results highlight the importance of active and involved parental monitoring strategies in contexts where they are most needed.

Experiences of Children With Gay Fathers.

An online survey was distributed via snowball sampling and resulted in responses from 61 gay fathers raising children in 2 states. Fathers reported on the barriers they experienced and the pathways they took to becoming parents. They reported also on experiences of stigma directed at them and their children, especially from family members, friends, and people in religious institutions. Despite these difficulties they reported that they engaged actively in parenting activities and that their child(ren)'s well-being was consistent with national samples.

Solving problems using matrix, network, and hierarchy diagrams: the consequences of violating construction conventions.

In order for a diagram to be useful for solving a problem, it must be constructed so that its perceptual features facilitate inferences relevant to that problem. In Experiment 1, we established the construction conventions, which relate to how information is assigned to different parts of the diagram, for three spatial representations-networks, hierarchies, and matrices. In Experiment 2, participants solved problems using diagrams that either followed or violated these conventions. As hypothesized, participants took longer to draw inferences from convention-violating matrix and network diagrams than from their convention-following counterparts, and these inferences were less accurate. Convention adherence did not affect reasoning time or accuracy for hierarchy diagrams. The authors concluded that the construction conventions are related to perceptual features that facilitate certain types of inferences for matrix and network diagrams, and they discussed why this might not have been the case for the hierarchy.