Heterosexuality is one of the oldest concepts mentioned by historical narratives since the dawn of history. In spite of its historical significance, it is still one of the underdeveloped and uninvestigated problems of the modern society. Democratic freedoms and changes in social relations permit homosexual men and women to marry and have children. Thus, the problem of children rearing and upbringing by heterosexual parents is not clear. In such unions, both parents and children experience some problems and difficulties caused by the unique nature of their family. The literature reviews aims to discuss current trends in literature and theoretical concepts related to the problem of heterosexual parents and their relations with children.
The main problems experienced by children raised by heterosexual parents are home violence and abuse, lack of parental attention and support. It is found that mother and father are as different in their attitudes toward children. The family unit has been referred to as the last line of defense against the origin of crime. However, the family scenario too often is one of living in public housing or poverty, witnessing violence, drug abuse, predominantly single parenting, a lack of positive male role models, few people working, and everyone struggling to survive. Still, family breakdown or incompetence is only one of the many factors that give rise to violence and depression of children. These other issues may have an influence on the development of hostility in children that is independent of the influence of abuse, or they may work with the physical mistreatment to raise the risk that a child will become aggressive.
Some researchers admit that heterosexual parents are stricter and more demanding that homosexual parents. The research on parental neglect and indifference has involved studies using a variety of methodologies, much of the research on parental neglect and indifference comes from studies using parental ratings of child behavior or from clinically oriented studies using medical charts or clinical interviews. Such literature have generally found strong links between sexual abuse and aggression, with neglected children of different ages reported as more violent than nondistressed groups and rather less aggressive than some social groups or other groups of abused children.
The researchers admit that work (career) and money are the main priorities or many heterosexual parents. The extent to which witnessing parental negligence influences children’s antagonism is unclear. Some studies have reported important differences between the conduct-disordered and antagonistic behaviors of children who witness parental violence and those who do not. Other studies find no differences between these social groups. One probable explanation for this can be found in the studies showing that witnessing parental indifference and egoism has little additional influence on the behavior of a child who also has been the sufferer of indifference. It may be that there were varying numbers of neglected children in the samples of the various studies examining the influence of witnessing aggression and that these varieties caused the differences in results. It is apparent that additional research needs to be done in this area in order to investigate current problems and the impact of social relations of heterosexual families. These findings will help to understand whether there are unique associations between parental indifference and children’s psychological disorders, or whether the apparent connection is due to the neglect and indifference on many of the children who witness interspousal hostility.
References
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