The purpose of this research was to explore and describe parenting styles in planned lesbian families with young children by using a case study design with observations and interviews as a tool for collecting evidence regarding parenting styles along with three self-reports. The scores of the self reports revealed that: (1) Six of the mothers perceived themselves to have been authoritarianly parented and four perceived to have been authoritatively parented, (2) All the mothers perceived themselves to be authoritative parents, and (3) All five couples perceived themselves to have a strong parenting alliance marked by well coordinated and respectful transactions.

The findings showed that the construct validity of the theoretically derived sequences for observing parenting styles was congruent with the sequences’ definitions, but not the results of the self-reports. The observational data analysis process revealed the emergence of a new sequence that codes observations of children demanding their parents to act maturely in a variety of situations according to established parental standards. In conclusion, the analysis of the observational data and the self-reports determined the authoritative parenting style of four and permissive style of six of the planned lesbian families.