tien, je te facilite la vie
Method
Recruitment
Tbe gay fathers were recruited by emailing all people on the mailing list of a Dutch
interest group for gay and lesbian parents {Meer dan Gewenst). Inhere are about
1,000 email addresses on tbis list. The interest group, however, does not have any
socio-demographic information about the people on their list, such as gender,
whether they have children, the type of family construction, or age and number of
children. We therefore formulated four criteria for participation in our study,
namely that each participant must identify himself as a gay man, have one or more
children aged between four and twelve, be the biological father of the target child
(i.e., the child with respect to whom he will complete the questionnaire) and have
raised the target child from birth in tbe current same-sex relationsbip. We communicated
these criteria in the emails.
The heterosexual fathers were contacted through the schools of their children.
Each was sent a written invitation to participate in the study. The inclusion criteria
were that the father should be the biological father of the target child, who must
have been raised in the family of origin since birtb, and be aged between four and
twelve. The reply card also asked for information on socio-demographic variables.
This made it possible to match the heterosexual fathers with the gay fathers on
number of children, and age and gender of target child.
Response
Thirty-seven gay fathers stated that they were willing to complete the questionnaire.
The URL address of a protected website was sent to tbese fathers, where they could
access the questionnaire. All 37 fathers completed the questionnaire. It was established,
however, that one of the fathers did not meet the inclusion criteria (he was
not the biological father of the child, but had adopted the child). As this person was
excluded from the research, the analyses group comprised 36 gay fathers.
A total of 370 fathers in heterosexual families received a letter inviting them to
participate in this research: 130 (35%) of these fathers agreed to participate. From
this pool of fathers, 36 were selected using our matching criteria. These fathers were
also sent the URL of the protected website.
Participants
Both groups were successfully matched on age and gender of the target child and
the number of children in the family: the proportion of boys and girls in each
family type was exactly the same (19 and 17, respectively, in botb groups), and
tbere was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the mean age
of the target child. The number of children in each of the two family types did not
differ significantly (see Table 1).
Significant differences were established between gay fathers and heterosexual
fathers on the non-matched socio-demographic aspects (see Table 1): more of the
gay fathers lived in urban/suburban areas and they were significantly older than the
heterosexual fathers. They were also higher educated. The mean duration of the
partner relationship also differed: the gay fathers had been involved in their current
relationships significantly longer than the heterosexual fathers. There was a significant
difference between the gay fathers and the heterosexual fathers on the number
of hours they worked each week: gay fathers worked on average 33.23 {SD = 5.02)
hours per week (range: 20-40 hours per week), while the heterosexual fathers
worked on average 38.87 {SD = 12.75) hours per week (range: 15-96 hours per
week; see Table 1).
Measurements
The online questionnaire asked both groups of fathers questions about their social
demographic situations, their relationships with their children, their experiences of
parental stress and their children's wellbeing. The gay fathers were asked some extra
questions about theit specific situations: the paths they had chosen to become
fathers, experiences of rejection for being gay fathers by people in their environment,
feelings that they have to defend the quality of their parenting (parental justification),
whether their children spend most of theit time with them ot at their
mothers', and conflicts with the mothers of their children.
(...)
Children's psychological wellbeing. The psychological wellbeing of the children was
assessed by means of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ/ 4- to 16-
year-olds; Coodman, 2001; Dutch version of the SDQ: van Widenfelt, Coedhart,
Treffers & Goodman, 2003). Each fathet completed the questionnaire for the target
child (i.e., the child he had in mind while completing the questionnaite) by reflecting
his view on this child's behaviour on a 3-point Likert scale (1 = Not true, 2 =
Somewhat true, 3 = Certainly true). The parental-report version of the SDQ
comprises 25 items describing positive and negative characteristics of the child. The
questionnaire consists of five subscales of five items coveting emotional problems,
conduct problems, hyperactivity problems, peer problems and prosocial behaviour.
In the ptesent study, Cronbach's alpha for peer problems was low (.20). This scale
was therefore not used in the analyses. Cronbach's alphas for the remaining subscales
were .70 (emotional problems), .56 (conduct problems), .78 (hyperactivity
problems) and .60 (prosocial behaviour); these subscales were used in the analyses.
