AT HOME IN TWO WORLDS

At first, Christine Bachman, a blond teen with a sunny disposition who lives in suburban Boston, found that hiding the truth was easy. Her father, who is gay, had gone to live in New York when Christine was little. She spent many weekends with him, but simply told friends her parents were divorced and that her dad lived elsewhere. Ultimately, though, she began to feel disloyal about making her dad invisible. She didn't know what to expect when, in the eighth grade, she screwed up her courage, and read a letter she wrote to her class. She spoke of the dad "I love so very much" being gay. Suddenly, a thunderous roar of approval swept the room. "They gave me a standing ovation," she says with glee. "I was very surprised."

The stress on these kids can come as much from within the home as outside it. Kids of gays say their parents often unwittingly, and with good intentions, place high demands on them to show that gay parents can raise children who live up to the all-American ideals of their straight counterparts. For Kyle, that pressure came from within herself--"so you can prove," she says, "your family's not so bad." In her bedroom, adorned with posters of the bands Simple Plan and Good Charlotte, she spends hours studying to earn top marks. She is on the school debate team. She runs the video camera for the cheerleading squad at Friday-night football games. She volunteers at an elementary school on Saturdays. She teaches dog training on Tuesdays. She did find time to attend her first homecoming dance with her boyfriend Anthony. Even as she soars, she feels the burden of having to be a model kid.

Studies have generally found few differences between children raised by gay parents and those reared by heterosexual ones. In one of the most widely cited reports, sociologists Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz in 2001 found that kids of gays have as much self-esteem as those of straights. But the former University of Southern California scholars also found, not surprisingly, that sons and daughters of gays tend not to be as rigid about traditional sex roles. The boys of lesbians--most of the research has centered on kids raised in female same-sex households--were found to be more nurturing than their counterparts, while the girls were a bit more aggressive. These girls were also a bit more sexually adventurous, the boys somewhat more restrained.

Elizabeth Wall, 15, of Lawrenceville, N.J., whose fathers just celebrated their 25th anniversary, says kids of gays are just like their peers, but have been taught to be more tolerant of differences. "We might be more open because we grew up taught to love everyone," says Elizabeth. It's not always easy. She recently organized a day of silence at her school to mark the deaths of people to homophobic violence. A dozen or so kids from a church group surrounded her and her friends, chanting "It's not OK! It's not OK!" Elizabeth tries to shrug it off. But she's just a teenager. "It's hard," she acknowledged. "You want people to like you."

People on both sides of the issue agree on one thing: the number of kids raised by same-sex parents will continue to climb. What's also clear is that these children aren't going to sit quietly. If these kids have a message for the rest of the world, it seems to be this: get over it. Jordan Wright, a 14-year-old Michigan girl, just tries to ignore the name-callers and hangs with supportive friends. She says her parents are capable of embarrassing her--but not because they're gay. "If my mom was dancing in a store," she said, "I'd be embarrassed of that." At that, her pal Diamond Jacobs, 12, quickly interjects: "I hate it when my parents do that." Gay or straight, it seems, parents can always be a little annoying.

WITH DANIEL I. DORFMAN IN MICHIGAN

© 2004