The traditional family is the best place to raise children

A recent study, titled New Family Structures Study, NFSS, done by professor Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas supports the idea that children raised in a traditional family, with a related biological mother and father, do better in terms of social, emotional and economic outcomes. The study was published in Social Science Research. Those who advocate that same-sex couples have the right to adopt children will no doubt challenge the results of this study and will probably not be convinced by the new evidence, scientific or otherwise. The findings, collected from adult children, should dispel the myth that there are no measureable differences between children raised in a traditional family and those from same-sex couples.

Regnerus studied 3,000 adult children with eight different family structures and measured them based on 40 social and emotional variables. The findings are that children who come from traditional families have a better education, are mentally and physically in better health, are involved in less crime and drug abuse, and are generally happier than those growing up in same-sex couples. In post-modern societies such as Canada and the United States, that have chosen to socially and politically redefine the meaning of self, of human sexuality and of family, the study's results will no doubt be very controversial.  

Regnerus finds that children are most negatively impacted when raised by lesbian mothers. These children have higher rates of sexual assault, are more prone to depression, faired poorly on physical and mental well being, have higher rates of drug abuse and greater unemployment. As well, the study strongly contradicts the 2005 American Psychological Association's, APA, findings that there are no significant differences between children raised in a traditional family and those coming from lesbian and gay parents. The APA research has often been cited to defend and promote the rights of same-sex couples to adopt children in Canada, the United States and Europe.

However, here’s what Regnerus states in his conclusion: “Do children need a married mother and father to turn out well as adults? No, if we observe the many anecdotal accounts with which all Americans (and we can add Canadian) are familiar. Moreover, there are many cases in the NFSS where respondents have proven resilient and prevailed as adults in spite of numerous transitions, be they death, divorce, additional or diverse romantic partners, or remarriage."

And finally, "But the NFSS also clearly reveals that children appear most apt to succeed well as adults—on multiple counts and across a variety of domains—when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day. Insofar as the share of intact, biological mother/father families continues to shrink in the United States (and Canada), as it has, this portends growing challenges within families, but also heightened dependence on public health organizations, federal and state public assistance, psychotherapeutic resources, substance use programs, and the criminal justice system.”

In Canada, we are currently in denial when it comes to any kind of natural law or biological truth defining the family and the human person. We want what we want when we want it. So we have socially constructed with political correctness changes to the traditional family and have legally recognized a number of other arrangements. This is what the adults want, but we have never bothered to ask whether these new social family structures are best for the well- being of children. The Regnerus findings say they are not. More importantly, these new arrangements are also contrary to God's plan for the family: that a man and a woman come together in marriage for the good of the spouses and to procreate and educate their children. "In Christ the family becomes the domestic Church because it's a community of faith, of hope and of charity", Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2201-2205, 2249).