hm, not necessarily getting oneself knocked up and then raising a kid alone. could be a donor sperm - entirely anonymous. as for the missing biological father - sometimes it's never an issue, is it? it isn't always. but yes, of course I have my reservations on deliberate single mothers. I have asked many about this and most would say that it is very selfish and I don't deny it. but it isn't so simple either, wanting a child and then simply getting one. the world is more conservative than we think, and family objections could be enough to deter a woman from trying. but what if it ties in with her entire life philosophy? what if she has tried looking for men - or not looking but had fallen deeply in love before, but lost it? what if, she has a well-paying career to financially support the child, and that she is mature enough to know that she is ready to raise a child, but there is just no darn mr husband
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I would say that many of the modern social problems we have arise, quite simply, from the fact that we have separated the two. It occasionally happens, for reasons beyond the parents' control, that they are unable to raise their child together. However, to deliberately frustrate this social structure is to invite confusion into the natural order -- and that has consequences beyond the individual.Agreed. I don't claim to have done much research into parenting, but I do recall reading an article once which examined the differences between 1-parent vs 2-parent upbringing, as well as 1 male + 1 female parent vs single parent vs 2-same-sex-parents upbringing. Talking purely about upbringing and not conception here, a man and a woman bringing up a child have their own roles to play in the psychological development of the child, even if the man and woman are not the biological parents (as in the reasons beyond the parents' control you brought up
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Haha, unfortunately I can't remember, sorry. It was one of those articles you read out of a brief interest and then forget everything but the gist.
But anyway I do believe firmly that there is a reason why man/male and woman/female are designed to come together to procreate, and unlike others in the animal kingdom, we are also designed to nurture and raise the child, and any deviation from this natural order of things will have an impact on the child's upbringing.
hmmm. cough. 'natural order of things'. touchy dangerous words..
I didn't know you were so.. conservative.
sigh. sometimes I wish heterosexual people like you was gay, and then you'd understand that nothing is quite so 'natural' in the 'order of things', that there is no predetermined 'reason' for anything, that gay people spend so much of their lives grappling with sexuality and all the angst and sorrow involved - that to 'deviate' from being gay is the most painful thing in the world. stupid, stupid heterosexual people.
Well, I have nothing against gay people. I mean, it is a choice to some gay people and the natural order of things to others (i.e. some choose to be gay, others are born gay), but this is nothing to do with gay people at all
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Sigh, if you read my comment a little more carefully, you will realise that I did not say it was a problem.
All I said was:
Studies have already shown that boys growing up in an all female environment (e.g. single mother, grandmother and 4 older sisters) tend to become more effeminate and vice versa, so the noticeable lack of one gender (or gender role, rather, as kevlars has pointed out) of parent would have an effect.
But if you read my next paragraph, I emphasised that:
This is what I meant by "impact". I carefully chose the word 'impact' to be as neutral as possible, to say that it would significantly affect without sounding detrimental.There is no "problem" with growing up effeminate, just like there is no line between the black and white of alpha-male and effeminate. It's a graded scale, and we now see lots of new terms coming out: metrosexual, übersexual, etc. Your environment during your nurturing years affects where on this scale you are likely to develop on, and the composition of this environment plays a part
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So, in other words, if I am reading you correctly, the "impact" of growing up in a family other than the traditional nuclear one with one parent of each gender is not a negative "impact". So this "impact" is not actually any kind of basis for saying that each of man and woman has a particular role to play. So there is no need for those particular roles to be replicated in the upbringing of each child. So there is no case, except for your unexplained insistence that biological parentage is some kind of trump card, for preferring the traditional nuclear family to any other kind where the child could get the same amount of attention. Am I missing something in your chain of reasoning here?
Yes you are. I said that there is an impact, and this impact cannot be automatically assumed to be negative. This is in contrast to those who would insist that anything less than a man-woman parental situation will definitely cause the child to grow up as a social deviant. Furthermore, I did not make a distinction where this impact only occurs in non-traditional nuclear families, i.e. every parent, regardless of the composition of the parental scenario, has an impact on the upbringing of the child. Of course it is entirely possible for a boy growing up in a male-female parental scenario to end up as an abuser of women if the familial environment is that which a drunken father always beats up a subservient mother. It is also possible for a girl growing up in a 2-female parent scenario to choose to date men if both mothers are encouraging for her to determine her sexuality for herself, to be open to the possibility of being heterosexual and not insist that the only right way is to be lesbian. This is what I mean when I say that
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I think what is confusing me is the fact that you keep talking about roles. If you are saying that a child sometimes needs (to use your examples) comfort and sometimes needs discipline, and its upbringing will be best when it has those needs met when it needs them met, I wholeheartedly agree
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Simply put: parents have various roles to play in raising children. Previously in a patriarchial society, these roles were clearly delineated into male father roles and female mother roles because it was the most logical then, and the most convenient, to have the biological parents take on the responsibility of nurturing the child, not to mention the emotional ties that biological parents have to their children, whether self-induced or not. With the progression of society into a gender-equal one, now the lines aren't that clear-cut anymore, but the relevance of the roles remain
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Something else that I just read from the perspective of a sperm donor kid -- it's pretty clear that these kids DO want to know where they came from and the "other half" of their history. They know that they can't expect the sperm donor to fulfill the "dad" role (in terms of being there where they come home from school, counsel and discipline and protect them, give them money, etc.) -- but they STILL want to know! I think it's more than curiosity, it really is a desire for identity.
Kids still want their DNA donors to be their parents, I think.
The italics are mine.
Sperm Donor Father Ends His Anonymity By AMY HARMON Published: February 14, 2007 There is no established ritual for how an anonymous sperm donor should contact his genetic children. But for Jeffrey Harrison, Valentine’s Day seemed as good an occasion as any.
“It’s a short life,” he said, “and these children need to have some kind of resolution. I thought I could send a little valentine, kind of, to everyone, just saying hello
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But anyway I do believe firmly that there is a reason why man/male and woman/female are designed to come together to procreate, and unlike others in the animal kingdom, we are also designed to nurture and raise the child, and any deviation from this natural order of things will have an impact on the child's upbringing.
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I didn't know you were so.. conservative.
sigh. sometimes I wish heterosexual people like you was gay, and then you'd understand that nothing is quite so 'natural' in the 'order of things', that there is no predetermined 'reason' for anything, that gay people spend so much of their lives grappling with sexuality and all the angst and sorrow involved - that to 'deviate' from being gay is the most painful thing in the world. stupid, stupid heterosexual people.
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Why is growing up effeminate a problem pray tell?
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All I said was:
Studies have already shown that boys growing up in an all female environment (e.g. single mother, grandmother and 4 older sisters) tend to become more effeminate and vice versa, so the noticeable lack of one gender (or gender role, rather, as kevlars has pointed out) of parent would have an effect.
But if you read my next paragraph, I emphasised that:
This is what I meant by "impact". I carefully chose the word 'impact' to be as neutral as possible, to say that it would significantly affect without sounding detrimental.There is no "problem" with growing up effeminate, just like there is no line between the black and white of alpha-male and effeminate. It's a graded scale, and we now see lots of new terms coming out: metrosexual, übersexual, etc. Your environment during your nurturing years affects where on this scale you are likely to develop on, and the composition of this environment plays a part ( ... )
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Kids still want their DNA donors to be their parents, I think.
The italics are mine.
Sperm Donor Father Ends His Anonymity
By AMY HARMON
Published: February 14, 2007
There is no established ritual for how an anonymous sperm donor should contact his genetic children. But for Jeffrey Harrison, Valentine’s Day seemed as good an occasion as any.
“It’s a short life,” he said, “and these children need to have some kind of resolution. I thought I could send a little valentine, kind of, to everyone, just saying hello ( ... )
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