Study: Adoptive Parents Get High Marks

By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer

February 12, 2007, 3:01 PM EST

NEW YORK -- Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources
in their children than biological parents, according to a new
national study challenging arguments that have been used to oppose
same-sex marriage and gay adoption.

The study, published in the new issue of the American Sociological
Review, found that couples who adopt spend more money on their
children and invest more time on such activities as reading to them,
eating together and talking with them about their problems.

"One of the reasons adoptive parents invest more is that they really
want children, and they go to extraordinary means to have them,"
Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, one of the study's three
co-authors, said in a telephone interview Monday.

"Adoptive parents face a culture where, to many other people,
adoption is not real parenthood," Powell said. "What they're trying
to do is compensate. ... They recognize the barriers they face, and
it sets the stage for them to be better parents."

Powell and his colleagues examined data from 13,000 households with
first-graders in the family. The data was part of a detailed survey
called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Education and other agencies.

The researchers said 161 families in the survey were headed by two
adoptive parents, and they rated better overall than families with
biological parents on an array of criteria -- including helping with
homework, parental involvement in school, exposure to cultural
activities and family attendance at religious services. The only
category in which adoptive parents fared worse was the frequency of
talking with parents of other children.

The researchers noted that adoptive couples, in general, were older
and wealthier than biological parents, but said the adoptive parents
still had an advantage -- albeit smaller -- when the data was
reanalyzed to account for income inequality.

In particular, the researchers said, adoptive parents had a
pronounced edge over single-parent and stepparent families.

The researchers said their findings call into question the long-
standing argument that children are best off with their biological
parents. Such arguments were included in state Supreme Court rulings
last year in New York and Washington that upheld laws against same-
sex marriage.

The researchers said gay and lesbian parents may react to
discrimination by taking extra, compensatory steps to promote their
children's welfare.

"Ironically, the same social context that creates struggles for these
alternative families may also set the stage for them to excel in some
measures of parenting," the study concluded.

An opponent of same-sex marriage, Peter Sprigg of the conservative
Family Research Counsel, noted that the study focused on male/female
adoptive couples, not on same-sex couples, and he questioned whether
it shed any new light on adoptive parenting by gays.

Sprigg, the research council's vice president for policy, said he
warmly supports adoption, but believes it is best undertaken by
married, heterosexual couples.

Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption
Institute, welcomed the study's findings, but cautioned against
possibly exaggerated interpretations of it.

"It's an affirmation that there are all sorts of families that are
good for kids," he said. "Adoptive parents aren't less good or
better. They just bring different benefits to the table. In terms of
how families are formed, it should be a level playing field."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer
Foundation and the American Educational Research Association.
Powell's co-authors were Laura Hamilton, a doctoral student at
Indiana University, and Simon Cheng, a sociology professor at the
University of Connecticut.