In 1972, Mike published Maternal Deprivation Reassessed. It was a slim volume, written in dry academic style, but it was a tour de force. In the book, he scrutinised John Bowlby’s attachment theory, especially the impact on children of separation from their mothers, with his characteristic precision, and he concluded that some aspects of the theory, such as the claim that only mothers could be attachment figures for young children, did not stand up. His interest in the topic may well have been grounded in his own separation from his parents when he was evacuated from England to the United States at the beginning of the second world war. What was remarkable about Mike’s book was his incisiveness in analysing the evidence for and against Bowlby’s views. This was emblematic of all of Mike’s work; a forensic examination of the empirical evidence was at the root of everything he did. Bowlby, of course, remained the leading figure in the field of attachment, but he did come to the same conclusions as Mike on some specific issues. Maternal Deprivation Reassessed, and the slightly later Helping Troubled Children, were the books that inspired me as a young undergraduate to become a developmental psychologist. Not only did they present the study of children’s development as a worthwhile pursuit, but they also provided insight into how greater understanding of children’s difficulties could lead to better solutions for their psychological problems. For many budding psychologists back then, these books felt like a call to arms.

I first met Mike in the autumn of 1976. Recently enrolled on a Master’s course in child development at the Institute of Education in London, I had just begun a study of children in lesbian mother families. It is hard to describe just how much animosity there was against lesbian mothers in these days. Divorced heterosexual mothers were subject to considerable prejudice and discrimination; lesbian mothers were beyond the pale. It was in this social climate that Mike was called to act as an expert witness in child custody cases involving lesbian mothers. With his ever-present eye on the evidence, or in this case, the lack of it, Mike argued that there was no good scientific reason to deny lesbian women custody of their children on the grounds of their sexual orientation. He also believed that there was a need for sound empirical data on what actually happened to children with lesbian mothers, so when he heard about my fledgling study of children in lesbian mother families, I was summoned to meet him. There began a body of research that changed the way in which lesbian mothers were treated and perceived. Most child psychiatrists in these days wouldn’t have touched this controversial topic with a barge pole. For Mike, the issue was an empirical one. He did all he could to support research on whether the outcomes for children with lesbian mothers were, as he put it, ‘good, bad, or indifferent’, and to ensure that this research was carried out to the highest possible standards. Mike was an iconoclast through and through.

I can’t pretend it was always easy working with Mike. He was an exacting supervisor, and we had disagreements based on generational differences, such as whether the word gay should, or should not, have inverted commas. Mike supported the former. This was one of the few arguments that I won! But I learned more from him than anyone else I have ever met in academic life. He was extremely generous with his time, sending 10-page memos that will be familiar to those who have ever worked with him. Their arrival used to incur in me a sense of dread, but I also knew that the contents would make the research very much better. The last of such memos was waiting for me when I returned to my office following the third Covid lockdown; it was a handwritten note with his thoughts on my most recent book.

I came to realise that Mike relished a good argument. When I learned to stand up for myself, there would be a twinkle in his eye, and our conversations became much more fun. Mike’s interest in lesbian mothers is a little-known part of his vast array of accomplishments, but this work would not have been taken nearly so seriously without his weight behind it. Mike has always been committed to social justice and to the proper use of research, not only in improving people’s lives, but also in changing social attitudes. He was a man before his time in supporting lesbian mothers in courts of law in the mid-1970s. More than 40 years later, in 2019, we were both tickled to see that our early, and somewhat obscure, article on children in lesbian mother families was included among the selection of his papers republished to celebrate the 60^th anniversary edition of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Others are better qualified than I am to honour Mike’s intellectual accomplishments and unparalleled contribution to research in the fields of child development, child psychiatry, and developmental psychopathology, for which he has been awarded many honours. His work on the aetiology of child psychiatric disorder, the intergenerational transmission of psychiatric disorder, autism, risk and resilience in childhood, social influences on child adjustment, and the interplay between genes and the environment – to name just some of areas that he influenced – was transformative, and it had a pivotal influence on policy and practice worldwide. He had a capacity to identify the most important questions, and to be unrelenting in his search for the answers. For Mike, identifying the mechanisms was always key.

At a time when mental health problems in childhood and adolescence are on the rise, Mike’s work is more important than ever. His contribution has been profound, not least for its rigour and integrity, and will continue inform solutions to children’s problems for decades to come.

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Many want schools to challenge prejudice against new family forms and want parents to provide more information about donors, half-siblings, and surrogates, according to a new book, We Are Family.

People concerned about children growing up in new forms of families (e.g., LBGTQ families, families created by donor eggs) have worried unnecessarily. In the face of dire warnings about such families, studies consistently show that their children turn out just as well as – and sometimes better than – kids from traditional families with two heterosexual parents. Findings have been remarkably similar, whether studies have focused on families with lesbian mothers, gay fathers, transgender parents, or single mothers by choice. Findings on families created by donations of eggs, sperm, or embryos, as well as by surrogacy, reflect the same pattern.

In studies of all these new forms of family, we, along with other research teams, have found that the quality of family relationships matters for children’s welfare far more than the number, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or biological relatedness of the parents.

It has taken nearly 50 years of studies, many following children across decades, to establish the empirical evidence. And there has been plenty of heartache along the way, starting with lesbian mothers who lost custody of their children back in the 1970s. In the half century since then, public and expert fears about new forms of family have underpinned various legal barriers to parenthood, discriminatory practices, and widespread stigmatization.

“My brother and I knew people in our school that had gay and lesbian parents and that did get bullied quite a lot, and that scared us from telling people.”

More new forms of family coming

However, even though research on children’s outcomes is clear, the story does not end there, for two reasons. First, the diversity of new family forms seems likely only to expand as science advances and people seek new paths to parenthood. Artificial wombs, eggs, and sperm are just over the horizon. At the University of Cambridge Centre for Family Research, we are already examining children’s outcomes in co-parenting families in which couples are not romantically involved, children are parented by single fathers by choice, and transgender people give birth after they have transitioned.

These developments pose fresh challenges to what has long been seen as the norm for children to flourish. Let’s hope people avoid repeating over-hasty judgments. We should await the evidence and be calmed by encouraging outcomes from other new forms of family.

Children are asking for change

Second, and perhaps more important, there is much more to say about children in these new forms of family, beyond simply logging their long-term outcomes. What is it like for them to grow up in such families? We should listen to their voices, and hear their thoughts and feelings. To that end, our team has conducted many studies gathering children’s stories.

Through our work, we have found that schools, parents, and the wider society still have much to learn about supporting children in non-traditional families through their experiences, which can be upsetting. The distress is not related to the type of family children have, but because of stigmatization, inadequate communication, and lack of understanding, mainly from those on the periphery of home.

So, for example, many children with LGBTQ parents have been stigmatized in school, by society, and sometimes by wider family. When we interviewed children of lesbian mothers born in the mid-1960s when they were young adults, almost half reported being teased or bullied as teenagers.

Stigmatization burdens children

“I wasn’t allowed to go to my friend’s house anymore,” said Anna. “Her mum and dad forbade me from going anywhere near, and that hurt me because she had been my best friend for a long, long time. I lost that friend. And then, of course, there was a chain reaction. Everybody found out. They said, ‘Don’t go near her, she’ll turn out like her mum.’”

John was bullied when schoolmates found out about his lesbian mom. “School was one big nightmare really, because I got picked on so much,” he explained. “I had cigarettes stubbed out on the back of my neck, and high-heeled shoes thrown at me, and a bit of hair cut off, and my head chucked down the loo, and that sort of thing.”

Children have felt the need to clam up about their families because of widespread prejudice. Stacey explained: “My brother and I knew some people in our school that had gay and lesbian parents and that did get bullied quite a lot, and that scared us from telling people. So, we never told anyone. It was hard keeping secrets.”

“Schools, parents, and wider society still have a lot to learn about supporting children through their experiences.”

Effective school challenges to prejudice

Schools must create a positive, supportive environment for such children. It pays off. Carol, 14, highlighted helpful action by her school: “Basically, they spread the word how it’s not very good to say, ‘Oh this is so gay’ or ‘that’s so gay,’ even though it’s used as a different meaning. They tell them that’s wrong and why you shouldn’t say that.” Mike, 17, recalled how a new English teacher, who was gay, made a difference: “He has one of the Stonewall ‘Some People Are Gay, Get Over It’ posters in his classroom. Just seeing the poster in his room is really cool.” As part of our research project, the UK campaign for equality of LGBTQ people, Stonewall, published 10 recommendations from children on how schools can support them and their same-sex parents.

Children of transgender parents have been bullied and teased in similar ways, and inclusive attitudes by schools can help them. Wendy explained: “I put my hand up and said, ‘I don’t have a dad because my dad’s transgender,’ and I got an award for it ‘cos it was actually really brave of me to say.”

Tell children what’s happening

Parents also should consider being more open about what is happening in their families. “It would have helped if he had explained things a bit better,” said Henry, 18, reflecting on when his father transitioned to being a woman. “It wasn’t so much him wearing dresses, but more him being a bit manic and doing strange things.” Chris, 18, advised other children in a similar situation: “Try to get them to communicate with you as much as possible because it’s worse if things are happening and you don’t know why.”

Children tend to accept, in a matter of fact way, their father’s or mother’s change of gender if it happened while they were little or a long time ago. “Chloe’s always been Chloe,” said Susanna, 14, who was a toddler when her father transitioned. “I don’t remember when it actually happened, so it’s basically been for as long as I remember.”

Experiencing transition can worry them

 But some children find it difficult when they experience a parent’s transition. They can have fears of loss, which typically pass, but which can be very real during gender transition. Jade, who was six when her father transitioned, was upset about losing her dad: “When she transitioned, I felt like there was a hole in my heart because I missed my dad and every time somebody talked about their dad, I got really upset.” But she grew more accepting. At age nine, Jade reflected: “When she transitioned, it made her a lot happier ‘cos, when she was a boy, she was really unhappy. Ever since she’s transitioned, she’s come home from work, hugged us, and been really happy. It’s changed a lot since she transitioned.”

Another upset can be rejection of parents by their wider family, so children lose contact with some relatives. Theresa, whose father transitioned when she was six, explained: “People on my mum’s side of the family really struggle with it. Her parents and brothers, and basically everyone over there, cut us off. It made me sad and kind of angry because it’s really no reason to be horrible.”

“When children found out later, as teenagers or adults, they felt more negatively about how they were conceived and their relationship with their parents.”

Children should not have to explain their families

Children may also feel responsible for explaining to the outside world issues such as gender transition. “My problem,” explained Susanna, “has been having to explain to other people constantly because no one really understands.” Josh reported: “Sometimes, random people ask me questions and I have to explain to them. That gets tiring for me.”

Our research has highlighted issues for children born through assisted reproductive technologies, such as egg, sperm, and embryo donation, or surrogacy. Some children as young as two or three years might ask of a single mother by choice: “Do I have a daddy? Where is he?” Some – but by no means all – especially as they get into their teens, are eager to fill a gap in knowledge about themselves by finding out more about their donor, surrogate, and any half-siblings born to the same donor or surrogate.

“It’s important to me now . . . I’m always thinking about what she looks like,” explained Sarah, 14, who was born through egg donation. Alex, 14, conceived by sperm donation, said: “I would like to know who he is . . . quite a lot . . . Recently a lot more than I used to.”

Tell children early about their origins

We have found that it is generally better to start talking to children early about how they were conceived and born. Children who find out later, as teenagers or adults, tend to feel more negatively about how they were conceived and in their relationships with their parents than children who have had the conversation about their beginnings early. Many parents hold off telling their children, fearing that the children will love them less. However, these fears are unfounded because children who are told early tend to be very accepting, often not particularly interested, and unshocked by learning more as they grow older.

The risks of not disclosing this information to children have grown with the advent of ancestry sites offering DNA tests, which can suddenly lead unsuspecting children to discover half-siblings and relatives of whom they had no inkling. Children may find their identities destabilized, and learning about their beginnings in this way can undermine their trust in their parents.

The story of new forms of family is largely good news, of children flourishing, much as we might expect them to do in traditional families, and sometimes doing even better. The composition of their family does not upset them. It is other factors, such as people’s reactions to their family or the lack of information about their origins, that cause them distress. The solutions lie in better understanding, greater societal acceptance of diverse families, swift challenges to prejudice, and openness within families about where their much-wanted children came from.

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How do families support healthy psychological adjustment and gender development for their children? Is family structure the crucial factor – that is, parents’ gender, number, their sexual orientation and genetic connection to the children? What role is also played by family processes – the quality of relationships in the family, such as warmth, levels of interaction, openness of communication and methods of discipline?

For a long time, people believed that family structure enjoyed over-riding importance, the gold standard being the traditional two-parent family with married heterosexual mum and dad, biologically related to their children. So “non-traditional” variants of this family structure, be they, for example, single-parent families or stepfamilies, took second place, at best.

More recent variations, known as “new family forms”, involving same-sex parents and families created by assisted reproductive technologies, have also experienced stigma. However, research on these more modern variants not only supports their value but seriously questions the once accepted primacy of the traditional family structure.

“The evidence suggests that the presence of fathers in children’s lives is not ‘per se’ essential.  More controversially, children can, it seems, do fine without a mum.”

This research on new family forms gathered over the last 35 years has shown that children in these families do just as well as children raised in traditional families. The evidence also reveals that boys are no less masculine in terms of identity and behaviour, and girls are no less feminine, when they grow up with parents of a single or the same gender.

To some, these findings will hardly be surprising. Children in these new family forms are typically very wanted children with committed and involved parents. They are not born casually. These parents have often gone to great lengths to have children, requiring complicated fertility treatment or the surmounting of considerable prejudice. Many gay fathers have said they never dreamed that the day would come when they would be parents. Some studies find more positive relationships in these family forms even than in traditional families.

I am not saying that children in new family forms always flourish. The research simply shows that they are just as likely to do well or have problems as children in traditional families, depending on factors such as the quality of parenting, the children’s own personal characteristics and, importantly, the social environment in which they are raised. That includes society’s attitudes towards the family. So prejudice and stigmatisation can harm these children – even though there is actually nothing in their families per se that puts them at risk.

What about the number of parents? Is that significant in children’s psychological development? Take single-mother families as an example. Research on the psychological adjustment of children in such families shows that children are more at risk of psychological problems than are their counterparts from homes where the father is present. This is true of single-mother families formed by divorce as well as those headed by unmarried single mothers. However, this difference is largely accounted for by factors that often accompany single parenthood, such as economic hardship, maternal depression and lack of social support, as well as factors that came before the transition to a single-parent home, such as parental conflict. When we control for these factors, differences in psychological adjustment between children with and without fathers largely disappear.

The evidence suggests, therefore, that the presence of fathers in children’s lives is not essential per se. What about mothers? Our findings lead to the controversial conclusion that the presence of a female parent is not essential for children’s well-being or their development of sex-typed behaviour. What’s the evidence? Although only a small number of studies have been conducted, the available findings show no evidence of raised levels of child adjustment problems or atypical gender development between children with two-parent gay father families and children from either two-parent lesbian or two-parent heterosexual homes. Children can, it seems, do fine without a mum.

These findings challenge widely held theories of child development. They question the importance of the traditional family in providing boys with fathers and girls with mothers on whom to model their behaviour. Most controversially, perhaps, the emerging research on father-headed families challenges the centrality of the mother.

Research on new family forms contradicts conventional wisdoms and prejudice, confirming what many parents in those families have long known – the kids are typically doing fine.

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