Growing up with a gay parent:Views of 101 gay fathers on their sons’ and daughters’ experiences

Within the context of a review of the literature on gay male parents and their children, preliminary findings are reported from a postal survey of gay parents recruited through advertisements for volunteers. One hundred and one gay and bisexual parents located in the United Kingdom and Eire provided information about their routes to parenting, partners’ involvement with parenting, successes in meeting common parenting challenges and their eldest sons’ and daughters’ responses to growing up with a gay parent. Results appear to confirm previous findings concerning the diversity of parenting circumstances of gay and bisexual men. Men with cohabiting male partners reported themselves as successfully meeting a variety of parenting challenges. While older children were more likely to know of their father’s sexual identity, few gender differences were reported in response to this knowledge. Issues for further exploration are identified.