Recent legal cases before the Supreme Court of the United States were challenging federal definitions of marriage created by the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s voter approved Proposition 8 which limited marriage to different-sex couples only. Social science literature regarding child well-being was being used within these cases, and the American Sociological Association sought to provide a concise evaluation of the literature through an amicus curiae brief. The authors were tasked in the assistance of this legal brief by reviewing literature regarding the well-being of children raised within same-sex parent families. This article includes our assessment of the literature, focusing on those studies, reviews and books published within the past decade. We conclude that there is a clear consensus in the social science literature indicating that American children living within same-sex parent households fare just, as well as those children residing within different-sex parent households over a wide array of well-being measures: academic performance, cognitive development, social development, psychological health, early sexual activity, and substance abuse. Our assessment of the literature is based on credible and methodologically sound studies that compare well-being outcomes of children residing within same-sex and different-sex parent families. Differences that exist in child well-being are largely due to socioeconomic circumstances and family stability. We discuss challenges and opportunities for new research on the well-being of children in same-sex parent families.

Objective:The authors examine the role of job characteristics in influencing variation in mothers' work-family conflict by childrearing stage. Background: Although researchers generally contend that having younger children is related to greater work-family conflict, examination of this association is limited. Method: Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 774), we conduct fixed effects models to examine variations in mothers' job characteristics across four waves when their children are 6 months old, 15 months old, third graders, and fifth graders and their links to variations in mothers' work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict across the same waves. Results: Mothers work fewer hours, but perceive more job pressure, fewer career opportunities, and less supervisor support when children are younger. Because of the countervailing patterns of variations by childrearing stage between work hours and job pressure, there is little difference in mothers' work-to-family conflict across the four waves. Mothers report more family-to-work conflict when children are younger, but this difference by childrearing stage disappears when perceived job pressure is controlled for. Conclusion: Life course dynamics of job demands and resources may shape variation in work-family conflict by childrearing stage.

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Using data from the 2011 National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States Refreshed Sample (N = 980), this paper examines how three types of spousal problems—poor physical health, poor mental health, and behavioral disorders—are related to respondents’ family-to-work conflict (FWC) among employed adults aged 25–61. Results suggest that all three types of their spouses’ problems were related to respondents’ higher FWC, with their spouses’ poor mental health having the strongest association. These associations were not significant after controlling for respondents’ role overload, financial strain, and relationship strain. There were few variations by respondents’ gender and parental status in these associations. Relationship strain played the primary role as a mediator, which was stronger for men than women. These findings support the idea of stress proliferation, suggesting that one’s problems can be linked to a series of other stressors including one’s spouse’s FWC.

Bullying among school-age children is a public health issue in the United States. Although research and policy recommendations emphasize parental responsibility for preventing and dealing with children's bullying involvement, either as victims or perpetrators, we know little about how parents' mental health is linked to children's bullying involvement. We examine three questions on the association between children's bullying involvement and maternal depressive symptoms: (a) Does children's bullying victimization or perpetration increase maternal depressive symptoms?; (b) Do maternal depressive symptoms increase the risk of children bullying or being bullied by other children?; and (c) Do both directions of the associations vary by maternal education level, a key indicator of parenting resources which may buffer the intergenerational stress proliferation? Using panel data from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 963), we conduct cross-lagged structural equation models to examine bidirectional associations between children's bullying involvement as victims or perpetrators and maternal depressive symptoms across three years when children were third, fifth, and sixth graders in 2001, 2003, and 2004, respectively. Controlling for concurrent associations among children's bullying victimization, perpetration, and maternal depressive symptoms, children's bullying victimization in third grade increases depressive symptoms for mothers without college degrees in fifth grade, whereas children's bullying perpetration in third grade increases depressive symptoms for mothers with college degrees in fifth grade. Regardless of maternal education levels, maternal depressive symptoms in children's third and fifth grade years increase the odds of children bullying, or being bullied by, other children in subsequent years. These findings underscore the need to take parents' mental health into account to prevent or solve issues concerning children's bullying involvement.