Children brought up by single parents, heterosexual partners or same-sex couples are all equally healthy and happy. The law needs to catch up with society

Topi Ylä-Mononen/Plainpicture

PEOPLE of a certain age may remember school sociology lessons debating the merits of the nuclear family – mother, father and their biological children – versus the extended family, a tight-knit local network of grandparents, parents, children, aunts, uncles and cousins.

That debate is rarely heard nowadays. The discussion – and angst – about the optimal family structure has changed. More than half the children in the UK and US are now being brought up outside a nuclear family, and not because of any great revival of the extended family. Thanks to the rise in reproductive technologies, egg and sperm donation and permissive social attitudes, couples or single people who couldn’t previously have started families now can. As our special report starting on page 30 explains, a giant social experiment is under way.

Special report: Modern families Today’s families are more diverse than ever. We explore what this means for our relationships and our children

To some people, any deviation from the norm is unacceptable – especially if it involves same-sex relationships. In the run up to Australia’s national survey on gay marriage, shocking posters appeared in Melbourne claiming that 92 per cent of children raised by same-sex parents are abused, 51 per cent have depression and 72 per cent are obese.

There will always be people prepared to spread fake news to further their agenda. But amid the bigotry, they do have one valid point: the welfare of children must always trump the desires of would-be parents.

So what does the evidence say? The stats on the poster do come from real studies, albeit ones that have been debunked. The scientific consensus is the exact opposite. The near-unanimous conclusion from a body of long-running studies on the emotional and psychological health of children brought up in non-traditional families of all kinds is that there is nothing to worry about, over and above regular concerns about child welfare within any family. Some studies even suggest that welfare is higher in families that have used IVF, simply because of the emotional investment made to start them.

“More than half the children in the UK and US are being brought up outside a traditional family”

There are other issues around identity and relatedness. Starting a family with the help of a donor raises all sorts of questions: what traits will my child inherit? How will our relationship develop if we know we are not genetically related (see “Does it matter if my child is not genetically related to me?”)? Here the research is a little less clear, but the emerging message is the same: there is no extra risk to children brought into the world in this way.

These findings are beginning to feed into legislation. In the UK, for example, same-sex parents can now be the joint parents of children born through assisted reproduction. But progress is slow. In France, IVF was legal only for married couples until 2013. And then, when gay marriage was introduced, the rules were rewritten to specify only married heterosexual couples.

In 30 years time, the debate over alternative family structures will appear as quaint as that over the nuclear and extended families. In the meantime, people who use the “think of the children” argument to promote the status quo ante should accept that we have thought about them, and the kids are doing just fine.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Whichever way works”