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a b s t r a c t The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a social-science data-collection project that fielded a survey to a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18–39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements. In this debut article of the NFSS, I compare how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types. The results reveal numerous, consistent differences, especially between the children of women who have had a lesbian...

Shortly after her move from New Hampshire to Newtown in 1998, Nancy Lanza had good news about her troubled son. "Adam is doing well here, and seems to be enjoying the new school," Lanza wrote to a friend back in Kingston, N.H., in a Feb. 9, 1999, email. But Adam, 6, then diagnosed with a condition that made it difficult for him to manage and respond to sights, touch and smell, eventually struggled in the first grade at his new school — Sandy Hook Elementary. His mother would respond, touching off a 10-year educational shuffle with moves in and out...

FULL TITLE: Company president, 60, 'slaps 19-month-old toddler in the face on a plane and tells his mother to ''shut that n****r baby up''' A man has been accused of racially abusing then physically assaulting a 19-month-old child on a flight to Atlanta last Friday. Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, allegedly demanded that the mother of the crying toddler 'shut that n****r baby up' before slapping the infant in the face on the Delta flight on February 8. According to The Smoking Gun, Hundley has been charged with simple assault after the incident with Jessica Bennett, 33, and her son Jonah....

As I walked through the Supermarket today, I passed through the isle that was full of children's toys of all kinds. Little racing cars, coloring books, transformers, Barbie dolls and baby dolls, stuffed bears, plastic airplanes, little ponies, bouncing balls, basketballs and something called slime. There were several children there, taking full advantage of the bounty as if it were provided for free. One opened a package of baubles that I could not identify while the other drooled on a basketball before throwing it in the general direction of the other child. And my old mind could not help but...

Giving more benefits to poor families will not address child poverty because too many irresponsible parents will spend it on alcohol or drugs, Iain Duncan Smith has warned. The Work and Pensions Secretary said parental addiction—not family income—had emerged as the main factor in determining a child’s life chances. He insisted that the last government’s strategy of spending more than £170 billion ($269 billion) in additional welfare payments had failed comprehensively. … Duncan Smith said Labour’s approach was a “vicious trap” and had left a “disturbing number” of people trapped in poverty. “There are around 100,000 people claiming sickness benefits...

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, OH (FOX19) - Police have arrested a Colerain man after he posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding his 1-year-old daughter and a BB gun. Domonic Gaines, 22, was arrested after the incident which occurred at his home on Suliner Drive Sunday. According to reports, police initially believed that Gaines was holding a handgun in the photo. However, police say the gun in question turned out to be a BB gun. The photo depicted Gaines holding his daughter, Paradise Gaines, along with the BB gun. Police say that the close proximity of the gun to the child...

Am I the only one who thinks it is immoral to bring children into the world if you don't have the means to support them? I must be one of the few. I rarely see anyone else make the point. Before anyone objects, let me concede up front that a lot of things in life are unpredictable. Women become pregnant despite their best efforts to avoid it. Women can lose their husbands from accidents, war and even homicide. Few of us have a tenured job. Few of us are safe from the economic reversal that would attend the loss of...

The NBC series "Parenthood"' has drawn raves from TV critics this season for a storyline about a 40-something mother fighting cancer. Then on Jan. 1, NBC asked viewers to tune in the following Tuesday for an "unforgettable" new episode. A teenager would get an abortion at Planned Parenthood. Such is NBC's definition of "parenthood." Drew, one of show's leading teenager characters, has an ex-girlfriend named Amy who comes back to tell him "I'm pregnant." The high school seniors go to the Planned Parenthood clinic, and the scene plays like a political commercial. The counselor says, "If you decide to continue...

<p>Many parents worry about their children's gaming habits and addictions these days. One father in China took it to the next level when he hired online gamers to 'kill' his son's avatars, according to local reports.</p> <p>A Chinese father, tired of his son playing video games instead of looking for a job, decided to hire some assassins. Their job: to kill his son's characters in his favorite online role-playing games, local reports said.</p>

A music theater student has won a stalking order against her parents who admitted they installed monitoring software on her computer and phone to ensure that she succeeded. David and Julie Ireland have been ordered to have no contact with their 21-year-old daughter - their only child - before September 23, 2013 and must keep 500 feet away from her at all times. The unusual case concerns Aubrey Ireland, a musical theater major who regularly fills lead roles at Cincinnati's prestigious College-Conservatory of Music and has made the Dean's List every quarter. Despite this success, her parents often drove 600...

The formula seems simple: parents pass down what they believe to their children. Atheist parents don’t believe in God or go to church, therefore…. Yet, a surprisingly large number of atheist scientists from elite universities raise their children in a religious community such as a church. Sociologists Elaine Ecklund (Rice University) and Kristen Lee (University of Buffalo, SUNY) found that these atheist scientists do so because they want to give their children religious choice, have a religious spouse, or think that religious communities will give their children moral bearings and community. Unfortunately, very little research has been done concerning how...

Back in the 1950s, "Little Joe Cartwright" starred in a movie called "I Was a Teenage Werewolf." That's right, after seeing a full moon, Michael Landon ran around a public high school foaming at the mouth and pretty much out of control. Since there was little difference between his behavior and that of the normal students, he got away with it for two semesters. As I watched the film, I remember thinking that it was going to be tough for Landon to get into college with that on his resume. But then the 1960s happened, so that was that. This...

'I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed': retired naval officer's email to children in full This is the full email that retired Royal Navy officer Nick Crews sent to his son and two daughters in February expressing his and his wife's disappointment in them. 2:31PM GMT 18 Nov 2012 Dear All Three With last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch. It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of...

It's come to this, you've been blessed with children. They're growing up. And now you've got a house full of kids. Feeling overwhelmed? Yes, of course. But have you ever considered applying economic principles to managing a large household? Here are some real lessons learned from two Ph.D. economists with five kids. The basic key is to reinforce simple old fashioned values with the right incentives. Rule 1: Limit Their Options We don't offer a weekly allowance. If our kids want anything beyond basics, they have to earn the money. Make sure to set firm limits on TV watching and...

What leads a child to grow up and vote for a Republican candidate like Mitt Romney or a Democrat such as Barack Obama? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that parenting style and childhood temperament plays a key role in determining a child’s future political mindset—as in, the bumper sticker your kid decides to slap on her car when she turns 18 might depend on how you reacted when she sneaked out of the house to meet her boyfriend. The study found that children of strict parents were more likely to turn conservative while those of lenient...

Ouch. Monday night was the first time I heard my daughter apply that label to herself, and the word didn't please me. She and six friends/coworkers were about to watch the final Obama-Romney debate on the large-screen TV in our suburban basement. These twenty-something kiddies were enjoying our hospitality because it was free. They're a company (founder, partners, contractors, trainee), part of the start-up trend whereby young persons hang out at coffee shops, staring into laptops, trying to start the next Foursquare or Fab and make a billion dollars. Until that happens, they can't afford things like airfare or hotels....

Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. I’ve had three kids across two marriages and I am undoubtedly the weak link. My 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son trust their step-mom more than they trust me, which proves that I married well but am still getting the hang of being a dad. Most of us are. That said, there are a few subtle nuances that I have picked up along the way as a dad that might come in handy for moms raising boys. Ladies, here...

Rhondall Feeles, founder of the Single Fathers Association of T&T, wants to help single fathers who would like more responsibility in their children’s lives. The group, which he started a month ago, hopes to meet with the incoming Justice Minister, Christlyn Moore, to discuss court orders which place children in the primary care of their mothers. Moore is to be sworn in as minister this week. Feeles said, “There are men who are willing to be part of their children’s lives and we are embarking on a recruitment drive for fellow supporters and single fathers.” However, he said the group...

Recently it was banned from a playground in England, the topic of a sex convict’s confession in New Zealand, the subject of a child’s funeral here in the United States and the reason for a 911 call in my own back yard. Can you guess what it is? Hide and Seek. Yes, hide and seek. In our era of parenting, there are two philosophies regarding children’s interactions with the world that have seemingly emerged. Philosophy one views the world as a mostly safe place that we need to allow our children to freely experience and explore, and philosophy two views...

They’re calling it the swat heard ‘round the world -- and its echo is still reverberating. On Monday night, the school board in Springtown, Texas, voted to allow students to be paddled by employees of the opposite gender if their parents give written permission. The board's previous policy permitted only same-gender paddling. No one really argued with the idea of corporal punishment; at issue was the question of who gets to administer it, specifically can an adult male swat young girls?