Challenges of Social Science Research: Featuring The American Psychological Association Brief

      Families are so complex. There are families all around the world that are so different. There are families held together by parents who are young and old. There are parents who have big age gaps and small age gaps. Parents who have 10 children and parents who have 1 child. Parents of the same sex and opposite sex. Today we are even seeing throuples parents (It's interesting that google is saying throuple isn't a word). In science, we have the scientific method that allows us to study what works and what doesn't work. So how can we study and make a theory about strong, loving families? How do we know what families are the most successful in staying together versus families that are unsuccessful in being a family "unit"?

    Well, researchers go based off of limited experiments (because some experiments are unethical). They collect data and create surveys, but even then, these are surveys based off of imperfect, sinful humans. Some people lie on those surveys or have their own bias that could tweak a survey. A lot of the time, these surveys are convenient surveys; Surveys that aren't even taken from people that live in different areas around the world or even different states. These studies are done by friends of the researcher or the families of the friends of the researcher. It is such a tight circle that there is not a possibility to have a wide amount of data to represent people around the world.

    In 2005, the American Psychological Association created a brief on Lesbian and Gay parents including the statement, ‘‘Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents’’. In a shorter way of explaining, children of Homosexual parents have no disadvantage compared to children of heterosexual parents. From the studies that they had included, that statement is just simply false. Most of the studies were compared between homosexual parents and single mothers. Some of the studies were compared between homosexual parents and divorced heterosexual parents and what surprised me the most was that eighteen or more studies were compared between homosexual parents and nothing! No one! That is like being put in a race where you are the only competitor and saying you are the champion.... Well, of course you are the champion because no one else was part of the race!

    So if we are going off of what the APA brief studies are saying, that homosexual children aren't at a significant disadvantage to whatever they were being compared to, then they are saying that children have the same disadvantage as children of single mothers. That they have the same disadvantage as children of divorced parents. Did you know that in a global study, it showed that kids from heterosexual parents from around the world are almost one-fifth less likely to die compared to kids of single mothers? This is shocking to me! 

    We also see that in the studies that was being used for the APA Brief to defend how children of homosexual parents didn't have a disadvantage compared to other children of heterosexual parents, they weren't even focused on the children. The studies were focused on the parents relationships or what the parents believed and even then, there was such a small sample group that couldn't have possibly been used to represent all the homosexual couples around the world. 

    These studies were based off of mostly upperclass, white caucasion women. The reason why I bring up this case study is because it is just one of many social studies that has been twisted to make a group of people believe something that is not true. For all those people who think children aren't disadvantaged compared to other children of intact families, there is so much proof that they are at a disadvantage, you just have to get out of your little bubble and look for yourself instead of believing what is on social media.

    I know that everyone has there own opinion and bias about this topic. Even I have bias towards this topic, but that doesn't dismiss the facts. I believe that everyone has the opportunity to make their own decisions but I also believe that even when we do make our own choices, those choices affect others, just like the choices of homosexual parents are affecting their children.

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