«Perhaps the most significant factor that helps us to understand
why custodial mothers lack a discourse with which to voice their concerns... is that they must fight against a dominant discourse that controls all the terms of the modern custody debate.
The same - sex hypothesis stating that children are better off living with the parent of the same sex is not supported by these data... [A] dolescents in a father - family perceive less appreciation than adolescents in a
mother - family [but this factor] does not seem to have any consequences for the relation between the sex of the
custodial parent and well - being... The... question still needing an answer is
why, then, adolescents in father - families suffer more from hopelessness than adolescents in
mother - families.»