title: Children of the closet: a measurement of the anxiety and self-esteem of children raised by a non-disclosed homosexual or bisexual parent.
abstract: This research examined whether a parent's non-disclosure of his or her homosexual or bisexual orientation within the family unit negatively affects self-esteem and anxiety in children, as measured in adulthood. Thirty-six subjects indicated that they had not known of their parent's sexual orientation until an average age of sixteen for the children of lesbian or bisexual mothers, and twenty-two for the children of gay or bisexual fathers. This group's scores on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Marlowe Crowne Social Desirabilty Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Scale were compared to scores obtained by sixty-three participants who did not have a homosexual/bisexual parent. The number of years a secretive environment surrounded the child was measured, as were participants' attitudes about the secret sexual identity. Although the study did not find that adults previously raised with a closeted parent had significantly higher levels of anxiety or lower levels of self-esteem, results indicated that those who had been raised as children with non-disclosed lesbian mothers showed a significantly higher level of self-esteem than participants with heterosexual parents. Implications of the findings for the targeted population are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Southern Oregon University, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd, Ashland, OR 97520, USA.
authors.forename: Paul D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McClintock
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety; D001727:Bisexuality; D002648:Child; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006716:Homosexuality; D018452:Homosexuality, Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents; D011606:Psychosexual Development / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D014342:Truth Disclosure