Lesbians’ Perceived Readiness to Parent

Abstract

Women who self-identify as lesbian are choosing to be mothers; such pursuit is full of challenges. Still many lesbian women are making deliberate choices to pursue motherhood. Thus, they are negotiating that choice within a culture which is both heterocentric and homophobic. This article explores the ways women are prioritizing factors influencing their decision to pursue motherhood utilizing phenomenological methods. Findings suggest lesbian women feel perceived parenting readiness is the paramount indicator of parenting readiness. Further, readiness is characterized by emotional and financial readiness, relationship stability, and having adequate sources of support.

Keywords

lesbian motherhood reproductive decision-making parenting readiness

There is little exploration of women’s desire to have children within scientific literature. Perhaps this is because until 20 years ago there was little question that women wanted to have children, thus their reasons for doing so seemed irrelevant. As birthrates declined and the rate of women choosing to delay parenthood increased (Weingarten & Daniels, 1982), some researchers began to attempt to understand reproductive paths of women. Still, most research about the reproductive decision making has looked at heterosexual women wishing to overcome infertility as an obstacle in their quest to become mothers, the parenting readiness, or quality of parenting among adolescents (Sommer, Whitman, Borkowski, Maxwell, & Keogh, 1993; O’Callaghan, Borkowski, Whitman, Maxwell, & Keogh, 1999), parenting stresses among parents of children with specific disorders (Theule, Wiener, Rogers, & Marton, 2011) or reproductive choices and family planning when genetic diseases are present such as cancer (Werner-Lin, Rubin, Doyle, Stern, Savin, Hurley, & Sagi, 2012). While some of this work utilized a feminist perspective embracing a woman’s choice to parent, rather than a social expectation that all women parent, the vast majority of research focuses exclusively on the plight of heterosexual women; leaving the voices of homosexual women navigating the choice to parent largely absent.

Literature Review

Desire to Parent

Becoming a parent is a central aspect of American culture. The majority of women in the United States has, or plan to have, at least one child in their lifetime (Chandra, Martinez, Mosher, Abma, & Jones, 2005). Accurate estimates of lesbian women, or gay men, who are parenting are difficult to ascertain. Moreover, such estimates of lesbian women and gay men are often flawed when available due to a number of circumstances (Gates, Badgett, Macomber, & Chambers, 2007). Using data from the 2000 Census report suggest that about 27% of same-sex couples had at least one child in their home (Gates et al., 2007), but such data offer no variables useful in measuring desire, or plan, to parent based on sexual orientation.

The desire to parent is common among women, and lesbian women are no different. Gates, Badgett, Macomber, and Chambers (2007) found that 41% of nonparenting lesbian women acknowledged a desire to parent and 46% of lesbian women had considered adoption. Lesbian youth also envisioned their futures with children at rates that are comparable to heterosexual youth (Chandra et al., 2005). A recent study of lesbian and gay youth also showed a strong intent to parent, with 91% of lesbian youth indicating a plan to pursue motherhood during their lifetime. These results indicate that it is likely more children will be born in the context of out, same-sex couples, intentionally pursuing parenthood.

Rising rates of lesbian women and youth planning to pursue motherhood demonstrate the choice to parent is one that lesbian women face at various developmental points in their lives. Recent research has addressed the gap in knowledge about the impact of sexual orientation and parenthood in some ways. Specifically, including gay men and lesbian during the pursuit of understanding intention and active pursuit of parenthood lessens the gap in knowledge about lesbian women and gay men’s parenting plans. However, understanding how the ultimate decision to parent, or not, is relatively untouched in the literature and has been identified as a gap by researchers (Patterson & Riskind, 2010). This gap in knowledge is addressed in the present study.

Pursuing Motherhood

Predicting the action any human will take, given unlimited variable, is much more complicated than describing plans or current intentions. However, among heterosexual men and women the intent to parent is largely associated with actions toward becoming parents (Schoen, Astone, Kim, Nathanson, & Fields, 1999). This is not the case among lesbian women. Lesbian women seem less swayed by the intent to parent that their heterosexual counterparts (Riskind & Patterson, 2010). That is, lesbian women may voice desire to pursue motherhood, yet not match that desire with action. More relevant in understanding lesbian women’s movement toward, or away from motherhood, was a desire to parent over the intent to parent.

Valuing Motherhood

Another factor associated with women actively pursuing parenting is seeing value in child rearing. The value of child rearing, or parenthood, is operationalized to include the perceived benefits of parenting (loving relationship, someone to care for, contributing to family cycle, etc.), which are then compared to the perceived sacrifices to parenting (loss of freedom, loss of independence, lack of financial security, etc.). When compared to their heterosexual counterparts, lesbian women have demonstrated equally strong values toward motherhood (Badgett, 2001).

Barriers to Motherhood

Barriers to motherhood abound for lesbian women and impact their maternal decision-making process. Perhaps most significantly is the issue of the financing motherhood. Reproductive technologies are expensive and may not be covered by insurance companies. Adoption is also expensive, and often not easily navigated by lesbian women. Financing motherhood is a barrier that many heterosexual couples are not faced with.

Another barrier that is encountered by lesbian women navigating the choice to parent, or not, is the social implications of parenting as a lesbian women. Interfacing with health care providers, educational systems, legal systems, and other socially mandatory systems has proven difficult for lesbian women. Mercier and Harold (2003) report lesbian women typically have positive relationships with their children’s schools, but building that positive relationship took considerable work.

Lesbian Relationships

Information about lesbian relationship and the functioning in lesbian-headed families is steadily growing. Thus, a full review of such is far beyond the current scope. Relationship satisfaction in lesbian relationships is generally comparable to that of heterosexual relationship satisfaction (Kurdek, 2004). Not unlike within heterosexual couples, the transition to parenthood can generate stress as roles and relationships are redefined (Rholes, Simpson, Campbell, & Grich, 2001). Relationship quality often decreases during the transition to parenthood among heterosexual couples (Cowan & Cowan, 2000) and lesbian couples (Goldberg & Sayer, 2006).

Social Support

The effects of living life within a heteronormative culture likely generate stress in same-sex relationships. Often lesbian women navigate their relationships without support of their families of origin and remain closeted from friends due to the real threat of harm if sexual orientation is disclosed. Thus, same-sex relationships may be under more daily stress than heterosexual men and women in relationships and may rely too heavily on their partners during times of unusual stress or crisis (Totenhagen, Butler, & Ridley, 2012). Participants in the present study support such research.

Theoretical Framework

Qualitative methods offer researchers the unique opportunity to delve into the experiences of people in a way that traditional survey data cannot and are especially appropriate when doing exploratory research (Creswell, 2004; Paddgett, 2008; Thyer, 2012). As no single study aimed at understanding the perceived parenting readiness among lesbian women, qualitative methodologies are particularly well suited. Further, qualitative methods are applicable when one seeks to build theory (Paddgett, 2008; Thyer, 2012). Theories about perceived parenting readiness are scarce, but theories pertaining to the perceived parenting readiness among lesbian women are largely missing, thus using qualitative methods for this project yields rich data about the lived experiences of the participants which be analyzed for commonalities, themes, and discrepancies leading to the development of informed theory about the correlates of perceived parenting readiness among lesbian women. One of the most commonly applied qualitative paradigms associated with social science research is a phenomenological stance where the researcher utilizes first-hand narratives to uncover the essence of the lived experience among a certain population, in this case lesbian women.

Phenomenological Approach

Phenomenologists seek the nature of experience, asserting that experience itself is the key to humans attaching significance to said experience. Thus, phenomenologists seek to understand how people make sense of their experiences (Creswell, 2004; Padgett, 2008) and that it is worthwhile to understand the lived experiences of individuals as a means to organizing our experiences and consciousness. To that end, first-hand narratives from lesbian women navigating reproductive choices are utilized to understand the lived experience of individuals in the same group. Voices of those women who are choosing to parent, as well as those who have chosen not to parent, are considered essential to understanding the decision-making process through which lesbian women ultimately choose to, or not to, pursue motherhood. Thus, the voices of both are presented.

Researcher Contextual Experience

Several tenants of phenomenological research apply to the current research framework. Phenomenological research requires researchers be rooted in autobiographical meanings in order to understand the rich contextual experiences (Creswell, 2004) of participants and conversely explore their own perceptions about the phenomenon and to consciously work to “bracket” or set aside their assumptions during data collection and analysis (Padgett, 2008). The following is a brief account of the personal experiences of the researcher that may have shaped the structure and analysis of the data and strategies utilized to set aside bias.

The author of this work is an adult woman, who self identifies as lesbian. At the time the data were gathered, and research study designed, she was partnered for almost 10 years in a monogamous relationship, without children, with no concrete plans to have children. Parenting and family planning conversations began following the development of the questionnaire, and she became the mother of three children via foster care and adoption at the conclusion of data collection. She remains the adoptive mother of the same three children. In keeping with phenomenological research tenants, these thoughts were articulated prior to data collection and set aside during data analysis. A graduate research assistant was also used to check, double check, and triple check interpretations of data. The graduate assistant identifies as a closeted bisexual woman, with no children, but states that she is eager to have children within the context of a relationship. Attempts to “bracket” personal experiences were done through member checking (using multiple persons to check and recheck coding and themes), personal journaling, and discussion sessions among researchers, colleagues, and one graduate assistant.

Method

Data Collection and Sampling

A purposive, snowball sampling method was utilized and all data were collected via the Internet. Snowball sampling is appropriate for use with populations that are hidden, especially sexual minorities. One of the primary benefits of using qualitative methods with lesbian women and gay men include providing access to rich descriptions of highly complex phenomenon (LaSala, 2005) such as lesbian women negotiating the decision to, or not to, parent. Additionally, using the Internet to collect data allows for less social desirability in responses (Mustanski, 2001).

Initially, the author conducted a Google search of “gay and lesbian friendly organizations.” Using the results from the previously mentioned Google search, electronic invitations to complete an online questionnaire were sent to the contact person listed for the resulting organizations. The invitation included a link to the Surveymonkey questionnaire and encouraged participants to forward the request for participation to anyone they thought would be interested. Because of the sampling method utilized an accurate completion rate cannot be calculated.

Research Design

All qualitative research designs aim to provide rich, thick descriptions of complex processes among analogous individuals (Thyer, 2012). Often initially planning involves crafting one or two far-reaching questions, which will provide lush imagery of lived experiences (Moustakas, 1994). In keeping with the spirit of this approach, participants are asked one broad question, “what is the most important thing for a lesbian women considering parenthood?” and were given an unlimited text field within which to provide their answers.

Data Analysis

Two researchers independently read all responses and provided initial coding suggestions. Discussion between researchers occurred and a coding template was created and modified various times during the process, and data collection was complete when no new data were obtained. Once significant statements were identified, the researchers worked to develop a textual description of participant’s experiences. The textual descriptions were then used to develop structural imagery and themes, which broadens appreciation of the textual descriptions through weaving in the contextual pieces of the experience (Moustakas, 1994; Padgett, 2008). Because data were so voluminous, each response was cataloged into a series of coding matrices using Atlas TI.

Findings

Demographic Data

Three hundred ninety-seven women entered narrative responses to the open-ended question “what is the most important thing for a lesbian considering motherhood?” Respondents hailed from all over the world and ranged in age from 20 to 69, with a mean age of 39.35 (SD = 9.710 years). Just under half of the sample currently had or was coparenting children (42.6%). The majority of participants were partnered (62.2%). About 20% of women had been previously married to a man, and 14.2% had children from a previous heterosexual relationship. Just over half (58.9%) planned to have children at some point in their life, while 31.6% did not ever plan to have children. Respondents were highly educated with about 34% having completed a college degree. Racially, the sample consisted of 82.3% Caucasian, 9.9% African American, 4% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 4.7% Latino/Hispanic, 1.7% Biracial, and .3% Native American. The researcher underestimated the reach of the Internet, thus racial and ethnic categories were designed through a western view.

Thematic Findings

Emotional Readiness

Emotional readiness to parent includes being able to act altruistically, weigh the costs versus benefits of motherhood, accept dramatic changes in your lifestyle, commitment to a lifelong parent–child relationship, and being secure in your own identity as a lesbian woman. The idea of being “ready” to have children is something that lesbian women appear to give considerable thought, with 57% of respondents suggests this is the most paramount factor in their readiness to pursue motherhood.

Weighing the benefits and costs of motherhood was on the forefront of thought while participants were sorting out their reproductive plans. Many women discussed selflessness and self-sacrifice as costs of parenting that should be carefully weighted during reproductive planning. The following is a sampling of responses from women suggesting readiness to self-sacrifice is a cost and primary indicator of readiness to parent:

Whether or not you are ready to put another person’s needs before your own.

I have adopted three children who are now 19, 13, and 12. It was important for me to know myself and what I was willing to stop for the wealth and health of my children.

To give yourself entirely to your children—unconditionally and wholeheartedly devoted to the well-being and survival of a child/ren.

Another cost associated with motherhood is altering her lifestyle. The losses of freedom, changes in social life, financial sacrifices, and changes to the core of your own identity are things that are frequently regarded as fleeting luxuries when participants gauged their readiness to parent. The following offers a sample of respondents perceived costs of motherhood via lifestyle changes:

Whether you feel you can reframe your life and self-identity to being a parent, and for many years, let go of the lifestyle you might have previously associated with being a nonparent.

It will completely change your life in ways that you cannot predict or prepare for.

Be willing to alter your entire life’s course. No joke. Entire. Life’s. Course.

Barriers to Motherhood

Being financially stable enough to raise a child also appears to be a milestone signifying parenting readiness among respondents, but also poses a considerable barrier to lesbian women during reproductive planning. Sixteen percent of respondents in the present study indicated financial readiness is the most important indicator of readiness to parent. Below is a brief sample of responses indicating financial readiness is a paramount milestone in pursuing motherhood.

Above what I can provide for a child emotionally I must consider the economic responsibility of meeting the needs of a growing human in times of economic uncertainty.

You will know you are ready to have a child when you can properly care for the needs of a child, financially, emotionally, and physically—in that order!

Having a child is expensive for lesbian women and couples. Our doctor would not cover insemination for us because we were not deemed unable to get pregnant because we were not having unprotected sex with men. We still owe more than $60,000 in unsuccessful inseminations and have no child.

Legalize your commitment to support this child through the courts! In case one of you dies you have to pay any amount of money needed to ensure the child is able to stay with the surviving parent—especially if the surviving parent is the nonbiological or legal parent.

Relationships

The value of motherhood is especially relevant to participants as they began to discuss renegotiating roles within a coupled relationship given the addition of a child into a coupled relationship coined “relationship readiness” in this study. Relationship readiness was the primary factor indicating readiness to parent 15% of lesbian women respondents. Participants discussed the importance of having a firmly rooted relationship as a hallmark for parenting readiness, but were keenly aware of the stress of adding a child into their lives may cause on relationships. The following is a summary of responses from women:

I believe that children can enrich your life but they are a challenge as well, to each individual and definitely to the couple relationship.

Before you decide to be a mother—realize that you are tied forever, not just to the child or children, but also to the other parent (bio or legal) for the rest of your life.

The stability of the partnership is the paramount issue determining my decision to have children. I believe that children have the right to know and love all of their parents. This means that I have to choose a donor that will allow my children to know him.

Parenting will trigger all sorts of things inside of you that you did not see coming. It is important that within the context of a couple having children, each parent shares common values (like education, good citizenship, healthy lifestyle, etc.) so that when you are blindsided with unexpected parenting moments your partner can redirect you back to the big picture.

Support System

Having a sufficiently strong support system was a leading indicator of parenting readiness for 8% of women responding and was characterized by social and societal acceptance, partner/coparent support, and familial support (birth or chosen). Having a solid support system has been tied to successful parenting and reducing stress in parenting and respondent in the present study echoed those findings. While many heterosexual women find that their families will innately provide love and support for their child-rearing adventures, many lesbian women are faced with the fact that many families disown them because of their sexual orientation, society does not instinctively support or tolerate lesbians having children, and often lesbian circles of support are limited in their tolerance of child rearing. The following is a brief list of response, as lesbian women share the pain of losing her family of origin, interfacing within a society that is unsupportive, and how that impacts their reproductive paths:

My family stopped talking to me when I came out as 21. All of those wounds were opened again when they refused to have a relationship with my partner and our child.

It is so hard to face teachers, nurses, doctors who adore our child but when they see our family as a whole (two successful lesbian women and a son) they often question the stability, love, and appropriateness of our family.

To be able to model comfort and pride with your own identity as a lesbian within a lesbian family so that your children do not see their family as being wrong.

You have to be completely and totally confident in being a lesbian because society will challenge you as a lesbian woman being unfit to raise a child.

There is a long-standing acceptance that when faced with limited support from biological families or origin, men and women turn to families of choice. However, as lesbian women begin to have children in the context of out, lesbian relationships, even chosen families are not certain sources of support. One woman’s response highlights the challenges of finding support within lesbian communities. She shares:

When I first came out—a hundred years ago—I worked hard to establish a circle of feminist, lesbian friends and family. When I decided to have a child with my partner, we endured many awkward social encounters full of uncertainty and even judgment about our choice to settle into traditional mothering roles with one stay at home parent and one who worked.

Limitations

The research design was selected to encourage persons from around the world to respond, allow persons fearful of ramifications of disclosing their identity to participate, and increase the size of the sample. However, this creates limitations such as data being collected at only one point in time about memories that may have been 20 years ago. Purposive snowball technique was utilized to connect with this largely hidden population. Despite the appropriateness of the chosen sampling method, it does create specific limitations including response set bias. For instance, lesbian women who are open to completing information about their sexual orientation may be significantly different than those lesbian women who avoid such surveys; thus making generalization difficult. Another limitation is the online data collection method, which made it impossible to probe participants to expand their responses. Additionally, the researcher did not anticipate global responses, thus the survey was created through a Western lens. Specifically, this limited view impacted racial and ethnic categories.

Discussion

Lesbians choosing motherhood are faced with creating their families in a society that does not support them. The current research highlights the process through which lesbian women make reproductive choices and may provide practitioners a useful structure when assessing family planning with lesbian women, and in turn be an essential first step in guiding clinicians as they develop of evidence-based practices.

Political implications of research with lesbians and lesbian-headed families highlight the importance of legitimizing same-sex relationships and advocating for second-parent adoption privileges and recognizing the need for formal support systems. Macro-level practitioners can work to expand adoption laws and policies to include second-parent adoption, or adoption by two same-sex parents. Having two legal parents provides legal security that is unavailable in any other way and may prevent the stress of negotiating the “real” parent among same-sex couples and protect couples and children in the event that the romantic relationship ends.

Micro-level practitioners should be aware of various forms lesbian-headed families take (private adoption, foster care, artificial insemination, etc.), and challenge assumptions based on traditional, two-parent heterosexual family structures for parents and children as they relate to the method the family has been created. Participants reported challenges with mundane tasks such as filling out forms that require “mother” and “father” information, rather than “parent” information, coming out to health care providers, school providers, among others; as well as complicated relationship issues such as shared goals, roles, and boundaries.

In addition to families that are already formed, practitioners and health care providers may be called upon to help lesbian women navigate reproductive decisions. Lack of social support has been documented among lesbian women, and linked to successful parenting, and should be a priority for practitioners working with lesbian-headed families.

Conclusion

Lesbian women receive conflicting messages from society regarding child rearing. Initially, all women are socialized to want to be mothers. However, once a woman begins to self-identify as a lesbian, she begins to sort through messages that as a lesbian she cannot and should not parent. Both messages discussed previously must be sorted out, so that she feels ready to pursue parenting. Research suggests that desire to parent is prevalent among lesbian women and increasing numbers of children being raised in lesbian-headed households suggest lesbian women are actively pursuing motherhood. The present research suggesting that the reproductive paths of lesbian women include weighing the costs and benefits of motherhood, navigating of barriers to motherhood that are unique and not often faced by heterosexual women during reproductive planning, considerable stress on relationships during reproductive planning and child rearing, and often limited access to social supports.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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