Dr. Peggy Drexler: 'The Kids Are All Right: Gay Parents Raising Children'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Much of the concern for the children of two-mom families has centered specifically on boys. The thinking goes if one mom raising a boy is trouble, two moms must be double trouble. Unfortunately boys on average have seemed, especially in recent years, prey to confusion, resentment, and destructiveness -- something credited to the rising proportion of males being reared in fatherless homes. If only fathers were more fatherly, we are told, boys would learn to be good men, a subject I explored in my book Raising Boys Without Men. People want to know: How will boys learn to become men? Where will they find their role models? Will they grow up to be gay?

Here's the truth: "Boyness" is inherent. It doesn't have to be instilled, or taught. The boys I encountered in my work devised boyhoods using not just social cues, but what seemed like innate male-identity-building talents. They rode skateboards, they turned sticks into swords, toast into guns, they were leaders on sports teams. No one taught them to do these things. They just had it in them. And, in fact, all the research has reported children of gay parents feel less bound, less restricted, by gender stereotypes than those raised in straight households. They were freer to pursue a wide range of interests. There were no "boy things," no "girl things." Just kid things. That's key.'