From a news story about “single women choosing to become single moms”:
Elkins, like many women her age, felt the pressures of wanting a child but realized that in the modern age she didn’t need a relationship with a man to make her dream possible. So she turned to an anonymous sperm donor to make her a mom.
[…] Places like California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm banks in the country, reports that single women make up 32 percent of the clients who buy sperm from its bank.
Fertility centers like those at New York University were originally set up for infertile couples. Now doctors consult with a growing number of single women looking to tackle motherhood alone.
“We’re definitely seeing more single women,” said Dr. Shelley Lee, a clinical psychologist and director of psychological services at NYU. “And particularly women who are professional women[…]”
Elizabeth at Family Scholars responds:
A 46 year old woman: Since I was 20 or 30, I would see a baby and my heart would melt, and there needed to be a child in my life…
A child: Since I was 3 or 4, I would see a father and my heart would melt, and there needed to be a father — my father — in my life…
Elizabeth often seems to assume that the typical child raised without her or his biological father pines for contact with that father – not in a “mild curiosity” fashion, but in a “truly suffering due to existential angst” fashion. But I’m not at all sure that’s true.
The academic journal Human Reproduction published a study of adolescents who were conceived through donor insemination (DI; also know as sperm donation). (Scheib, Riordan and Rubin, “Adolescents with open-identity sperm donors,” Human Reproduction 2005 20(1), pages 239-252). All of the adolescents grew up knowing that they had been conceived via DI. 41% were raised in households headed by lesbian couples, 38% raised by single women, and 21% in households headed by heterosexual couples.
Put another way, 79% were raised in completely fatherless households, and 100% in households without their natural fathers. Yet although 80% said they were “moderately likely” to ever want contact with their biological fathers at all, only 7% reported wanting a father/child relationship.
(It’s important to note that all of these families were open with their DI children about their origins from a young age. Many scholars believe that families that keep their children’s DI origins a secret actually make things harder on the children in the long run, because of the shock and feelings of being deceived when someone discovers their DI origins later in life.)
Admittedly, this study has a very small sample size, and the 60% response rate isn’t ideal. But even if the Human Reproduction study isn’t perfect, at least it’s some evidence. Nor is it the only such study; for instance, a 1998 study of DI children in Child Development found that “reports from both the parents and teachers on standardized measures of adjustment indicated that the children were well-adjusted and no differences emerged across households headed by single women, lesbian couples and heterosexual couples.” (Chan RW, Raboy B and Patterson CJ (1998) Psychosocial adjustment among children conceived via donor insemination by lesbian and heterosexual mothers. Child Dev. 69, 443–457. Summary quoted from Scheib (2005).).
(Other studies showing that DI children are well-adjusted include: Brewaeys A (2001) Review: Parent-child relationships and child development in donor insemination families. Human Reproduction Update 7, 38–46; Golombok S, MacCallum F, Goodman E and Rutter M (2002a) Families with children conceived by donor insemination: A follow-up at age 12. Child Dev 73, 952–968; Vanfraussen K, Ponjaert-Kristoffersen I and Brewaeys A (2003) Family functioning in lesbian families created by donor insemination. Am J Orthopsychiatry 73, 78–90.)
In contrast, I haven’t seen any evidence at all indicating that a majority, or even a large minority, of DI children feel a strong need for a father/child relationship with their biological fathers. In fact, I haven’t seen a single study finding that DI children in open-donor families are less well-adjusted in any empirically measurable way. Elizabeth’s position seems based on ideology and anecdotes, not on evidence.
* * *
In the comments of Elizabeth’s post, Adele wrote:
The logic almost seems to go something like this, “…there will not be a suitable man to be a father but I’m not going to let that stop me! I’ll be both mother and father to my child!” The empirical evidence says that it does not usually work out in the best interest of the child.
The empirical evidence isn’t as clear-cut as Adele believes. A quick look turned up this study, which examined “a distinct subgroup of single parents, who, out of a strong desire for a child, have made the active choice to go it alone.” The study found that “this route to parenthood does not necessarily seem to have an adverse effect on mothers’ parenting ability or the psychological adjustment of the child.”
And this study, which found “The presence or absence of a father in the home from the outset does appear to have some influence on adolescents’ relationships with their mothers. However, being without a resident father from infancy does not seem to have negative consequences for children.”
Of course, some studies have found that children raised in fatherless households are more likely to be troubled than children raised from infancy in intact, married households with a mother and a father. But these studies often include children who went through divorce or other forms of family instability, who face economic insecurity, who have had to integrate stepparents or boyfriends into their households, who grow up in lousy neighborhoods with inferior schools, and whose mothers were extremely young and lacking in resources.
It’s not warranted to conclude that because lack of a father is apparently harmful in combination with other factors, that it must be harmful in and of itself. And studies of DI children seem to show that when these other factors are absent, the negative outcomes of fatherlessness are absent, too.
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where everyone has a security blanket.]
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It’s not warranted to conclude that because lack of a father is apparently harmful in combination with other factors, that it must be harmful in and of itself.
It strikes me that the biggest factor seems to be dashed expectations, for lack of a better word. A child whose family is not open about DI is troubled because of dishonesty, to be sure, but beyond that a feeling of crumbling identity, which also accompanies divorce. (Both self-identity and family identity.) To that end, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a child who expected to have a biological father present in her/his life would be more troubled by his absence than a child who never had the expectation in the first place.
It’s a simplification, I know, but if I promised to get my nephew a pony for his birthday and then didn’t, he’d be upset. But if I never created the expectation, I doubt he’d spend the day mourning the absense of one.
It’s not warranted to conclude that because lack of a father is apparently harmful in combination with other factors, that it must be harmful in and of itself. And studies of DI children seem to show that when these other factors are absent, the negative outcomes of fatherlessness are absent, too.
Translation: If you grow up in a financially well-off and stable home, lived in the exurbs and attended first-rate schools, your mother is a white woman in her 30’s with a professional career and extensive resources then you are likely to become a well adjusted and successful adult.
And why did we need a study to tell us this?
A white woman in her 30’s with a career who makes the decision to go at childrearing alone or with a partner and is successful at it cannot be extrapolated to mean that “single parenting is equivalent to a household with a mother and father ( or with 2 parents whether a heterosexual couple or gay couple). There are not just some studies that show single parenting to correlate with negative outcomes for children but in fact most studies show this. ( Or perhaps I should say most that I have ever read).
Furthermore, the article clearly states ” >80% felt at least moderately likely to request his identity and pursue contact.” Eighty percent is a large majority of the respondents, and then you have to further consider that “of those who might contact the donor, 82.8% would do so to learn more about him, with many believing it would help them learn more about themselves.”
These statistics tell me that in the majority of the cases, even though these children may have grown up the be well-adjusted teenagers they still desire to know about their father.
As for the only 7% of respondents who say they want a father/child relationship, the participants in this study were 12-17 year olds, which mean’t that they were really still children and thus possess a child-like mentality. I think the study would have been more convincing if the respondents had been asked when they were adults, say in their late 20’s or 30’s after living a bit and/or having children and a family of their own.
“A child: Since I was 3 or 4, I would see a father and my heart would melt, and there needed to be a father — my father — in my life… ”
I wonder if she ascribes the same emotions to adopted children. Does she think four-year-olds pine for their real parents whenever they see children with their (assumed) real parents? Or maybe she extends this logic to argue against Judaism, since those kids’ hearts will melt every time they see a Christmas tree.
Maybe it’s immoral to only have one child. Children who have siblings usually end up liking them eventually, and children who lose siblings are traumatized, so children who never had siblings must cry on the inside every time they seem two siblings playing together.
How can a person not understand that losing a relationship is hard because you had a relationship and then you, well, lost it? Where does she get the idea that we all have predetermined relationships with certain people? I love my paternal grandfather very much, but my maternal grandfather died long before I was born; needless to say, my heart didn’t do a lot of melting when I saw kids with their maternal grandparents.
SBW, it’s interesting that you make the leap from wanting to know about him to wanting to know him. The adult adoptees I know from the old sealed records days don’t want to know their biological parents, but want very much to know about them, particularly medical info.
Do you really think that more than 7% are likely to want a parent/child relationship when they’re no longer children, or did I misread that?
I have no idea how you can deal with the (hetersexust queerbashing) ‘Family’ scholars blog without puking. The commentors tare incredibly vile.
Care to take a bet how soon it’ll take Elisabeth to use her theory about single mothers to bash same sex couples raising kids?
Kaethe Writes: SBW, it’s interesting that you make the leap from wanting to know about him to wanting to know him. The adult adoptees I know from the old sealed records days don’t want to know their biological parents, but want very much to know about them, particularly medical info.
I didn’t make a leap. The 82.8% are of the >80% that felt at least moderately likely to request his identity and pursue contact. The children could easily get medical info because the records are already open.
Do you really think that more than 7% are likely to want a parent/child relationship when they’re no longer children, or did I misread that?
I don’t necessarily think that more ( or even less) will want to develop a relationship when they get older. I was trying to make the point that, as the respondents are fairly young, their opinions may change dramatically over time and that in order for the study to gauge the true feelings of the teens they should ask them again at a later date. That way it would show whether their feelings about wanting to know their biological father were fairly consistent or changed dramatically. In 20 years 50% might want to develop a relationship with the other parent or perhaps only 2%.
This topic gives it unfortunately still in Germany. One will probably
never come to an agreement.
As usual, the ethics of fatherhood through sperm donation, thus deliberately creating a child you will have NO contact with and NEVER support-(and get paid for it to boot) goes unexamined. Even on this blog.
Unfortunately, I believe, we are heading towards a society where men will be deemed unecessary in all aspects. Including child rearing. There seems to be a popular notion, mainly amongst women, that there is nothing that men are needed for by the fact that they are men except for maybe sexual relationships. Quite frankly I find it scary, but thats just me.
This situation affects me particularly because I watch my mother constantly struggle with the fact that she has no biological father in her life, no father period even. She was told that she didn’t have a father, she didn’t need to worry about a father, a father wasn’t necessary. Now she says she deals with a great sense of lose because she doesn’t know half of herself, if she has siblings, are there personality traits that he has that maybe she has, things like that. What he looks like even (because she doesn’t not look like her mother). Just to know of him, not necessarily know him. There was a gentleman that wanted to marry my grandmother but she refused that my mother had wished she had said yes to simply have some type of father figure in her life.
While I don’t personally believe biological fathers are needed to essential raise a child, I do believe in fatherdom and that women can’t replace it.
I really think I would have a hard time not atleast being aware of my father, maybe not even his name but atleast what he looks like.
There is also maybe an economic factor to this. Where I grew up young men and women, particularly when the teenagers seem to be struggling with this and its the topic of community worry and anger because its so rampant. But then these a the underclass. I’m sure a women who has financial and social resources can tap into those resources to keep the minds of their child off of the absence of knowledge of father.
I have no problem however with a couple using egg or sperm donations to have a child because of their own infertility issues – or a homosexual couple. In those cases I would like for the child to either have a male figure(s) (in a lesbian relationship) that could serve a father type role, or in the case of a gay male couple a female figure(s) that could serve the mother role.
Other than that I find it selfish to purposely create a child (meaning going to a sperm bank does not constitute and ‘Oops’ type situation) to be a single parent. I’d strongly rather adoption.
Elena
There is nothing unethical to me about donating sperm or eggs. Both men and women get paid to do this. For men it tends to be easier. Especially when couples may need these materials to create their families. I don’t believe they should get paid for it, that seems unethical.
I have a general opinion though that if you are in a situation where you want to start a family and by design you can naturally conceive a child, but choose not to do it naturaly, or it cannot be acomplished in the bounds of your relationship , you should adopt. (meaning you don’t have infertility issues) I generally have a hard time with the sperm bank, egg bank thing in that sense when there are so many children that need to be adopted. But the pull of DNA is strong I guess.
Z Writes:
May I ask why? What is it that a man can teach a child that a woman can’t? What can a woman teach that a man couldn’t?
Isn’t it totally unsurprising that “only 7% [of DI children] reported wanting a father/child relationship”, given that they know both that their father wants nothing to do with them and that their family wants them to have nothing to do with their father? What’s interesting is what their response would be if it wasn’t forced by their position.
Isn’t that only 7% of DI children have a desire for a father/child relationship in fact strong evidence for a substantial effect on their psychological adjustment?
Nik, why do you assume that “their father wants nothing to do with them and that their family wants them to have nothing to do with their father?” After all, both the sperm donors and the families in this study voluntarily chose “open identity” DI, when they could have instead have chosen anonymous DI.
If either donors or families were as strongly opposed as you say, then wouldn’t they have chosen the anonymous option?
Your argument here boils down to “if the children say something that I don’t want to hear, then I’ll assume they’re lying.” You could be right, of course, but I don’t really see any reason to think you are.I think there has to be more reason than you’ve given here before we can reasonably assume that a significant portion of the answers given by the respondants were lies.These studies use standardized tests of psychological well-being to measure psychological adjustment, looking at things like self-esteem, social skills, reported happiness, etc.. By those standard measures, DI children were doing as well, on average, as non-DI children.
You can’t say “look, 7% feel longing for something they can’t have” and assume that proves that DI is bad. First of all, what about the other 93% – why don’t they count?
Second, longing for something you can’t have is, in fact, commonplace among adolescents, and not proof in and of itself of bad mental health or poor adjustment. It’s not as if being raised in a conventional mother/father household is a guarantee that teenagers never suffer existential angst! Would you say that if 7% of adolescents in father/mother/child households wished they had different parents, that proves that being raised by a father and mother is harmful?
A lot of the anti-DI arguments seem rely on an implicit assumption that if DI children aren’t exactly identical to the children of conventional families, that proves that the children’s interests aren’t being served. I think that’s too extreme. If the children are well-cared for and appear to be mentally well-adjusted, then I don’t think there’s a serious case for saying that their families aren’t serving their interests. It’s not fair to demand absolute perfection with no problems whatsoever from non-standard families, when no one makes that demand of conventional families.
[Edited as marked to reduce the snark quotient. Sorry about that, Nik. –Amp]
mousehounde
Frankly because I don’t believe in the social, physical, mental sameness of men and women. I think they both operate differently and have different experiences and think differently. I don’t believe a woman knows what it means to be a man and vice versa. I don’t believe woman can replace what is man or a man can replace what is woman. When the situation presents itself we try our best to replace that aspect if it is missing in the lives of our children, but again in my opinion I think it is ideal to have either an actual parent or a positive stand in reprenting the other side.
And where I come from the lack of fathers (and decent fathers) or mothers in the same case have caused children to seek out their own examples of what they think this is, and it has caused a host of problems amongst female and especially male children. Many of it being pyschological. Again, this could be due to economic factors. (My opinions tend to come from being a black woman). So issues of fatherhood and the claim that biological fathers or even fathers are not needed to tend to have a different effect on me, even offensive.
Frankly because I don’t believe in the social, physical, mental sameness of men and women.
Do you believe in the sameness of men to one another and the sameness of women to one another?
I think you have a misconception about open-identity donation. From the first sentence of the abstract you quoted, these are donors “who are willing to release their identities to adult offspring” (as opposed to close-identity donors who remain completely anonymous). There is no contact with the children, that is the arrangement. I’m not assuming that the father wants nothing to do with the DI children, or that the family want this to be the case. That actually is the case. There is no contact and families (and donors) who use open-identity DI use it knowing that this will be the case.
That really is a crass misrepresentation of what I said. I’m not suggesting they are ‘lying’, I am suggesting that the children’s responses are conditioned by the situation in which they find themselves. They know their families and donor have signed contracts saying there won’t be contact, I think they will (rightly) conclude this is the state of affairs that their families and donor desire. Given that situation, their responses are totally unsurprising. But if they were in a situation where their father wanted contact with them, and their family were supportive of that contact, they might well give a different response. Shockingly, when asked to think about a situation where people will be receptive to the idea, their desire for contact jumps to 80%.
That’s fantastic. But no-one is arguing that DI children are mentally ill. (If we were we’d point out that your studies didn’t compare DI children with a control group of non-DI children, and so ask on what basis can you conclude they’re doing as well as them?)
That’s not what I’m saying. If non-DI children reported not wanting a father/child relationship, they would not be seen as well adjusted. Substantially fewer DI than non-DI children are reporting wanting a father/child relationship. Maybe this is the study showing a large empirically measurable psychological effect of DI that you’ve been looking for?
You support DI/’think children don’t need fathers’, so you see DI children not wanting a father/child relationship as a good thing. Those of use who aren’t committed actually see this as a deplorable effect of DI. Your argument is circular. If you thought children did need fathers then seeing children not wanting a father/child relationship as a result of DI would be evidence against, not for, your position.
Z, thank you for your reply, but I still do not understand.
Can you explain what you you mean by “what it means to be a man and vice versa”? Because I don’t get it. Shouldn’t one raise kids up in same fashion? Wouldn’t you want to instill kids with the same values, skills, work ethic, regardless of sex? Or are you talking about things that are generally concidered gender specific:sports, hunting, building, cooking cleaning, child care? Because I can’t think of anything either of my parents taught me that I could not have learned from the other.
Mousehounde
Well to put it bluntly, I don’t think a man can teach a woman child what it means to be a woman and all womanhood entails societal and emotional and I don’t think a woman can teach a man child what it means to be a man and all manhood entails societal and emotional. I don’t think a woman can provide the role model a man child needs to be able to identify with as a man and I don’t think a man can be the role model a woman child needs in terms of what they will face in the world and within themselves as women, things that are specific to each of their gender. There are gender specific issues that go beyond the tangeable. What your talking about, sports, cooking, cleaning, etc,, are tangeable skill sets.
Mythago
I think there is a general sameness between men and a general sameness between women. On an individual bases people as a whole are not the same amongst each other.
David Velleman has written fairly extensively on this subject (from the perspective of philosophical ethics) on the Left2Right blog. Amp, you may find it intersting (or you may just think he’s totally wrong)>
Ah, Mary Daly would be so proud of your reversal!
It wasn’t until quite recently, out of say thousands of years, that men felt they had any role other than breadwinner and procreator. Women were the convenient vessel of the family. Childhood itself is a rather modern social norm.
So what I hear you saying is that when men determine that they don’t have to be involved with the raising of children it flies under the radar of patriarchal norms, and the father in question is just being manly and shit. Women, however, dare not make the same decision, and those hedonistic lesbians (or single moms) better hie themselves to the nearest available male lest their offspring not be properly molded to the overarching utility of the patriarchy.
Bah.
There’s a whole lot of women out there who do think that their sons (at least) need a male role model in their lives. It’s very common for single (or single-in-effect) moms to show up at our Troop meeting with son in tow to sign him up for Scouts for that very reason.
Certainly, both young men and young women should be taught the core values of morality, skills, etc. Heck, my mother taught me and her other two sons (we had no sisters) how to clean dishes, floors and clothes. I do believe I’m the only man I know (outside of those in a profession requiring it) that knows how to operate a sewing machine. But there are differences in men and women, both physical and emotional, and a man has an understanding of the male end of that and can communicate better with young boys about them on that basis.
Remember, too, that you have to consider a young man’s own feelings and how they affect communications. A young man is much more likely to be able to talk to an older man about his own body than to his mother. Reverse the situation; are young women more comfortable talking about dealing with cramps or how to get blood stains out of panties with their mother or with their father? Mind you, communications with young men is not always as verbal, but then that’s part of it as well; a woman will want to talk when a young man won’t. An older man will understand this and be much better able to recognize the best way to approach the situation. The young man is less likely to feel that a older man “doesn’t understand” certain situations than an older woman.
Q Grrl,
you just consistantly take what someone says, add to it, and turn it into what you want it to mean and then re-package it as if it came from the person’s mouth.
I’m not getting into it
Ron F
-You put it in better words than I did.
Z: you’re insisting that the gendered roles of male and female have some intrinsic/inherent qualities. Can you name those for clarity’s sake?
There are many challenges that children face when they are part of less than ideal family arrangements, assuming that such an ideal even exists (funny how even an ideal family can produce some seriously disaffected adults, but I digress). Imagine doing a study of children whose parents were physically disabled, mentally ill, or of mixed race, alcoholic, moved around alot because of military or professional commitments, or other features of modern and not so modern life that make such children “different” from most of their peers or deprive them of a “normal” family experience. Imagine that it showed that such children had longings of belonging to a more conforming family, for instance, creating an idealized vision of a non-mentally ill parent. Do we conclude from such a study that all such parents should forego reproduction because of the likelihood that their children might have some confusion or ambiguous emotions about their childhood experience? Do we think that they should “just adopt” because, you know, adopted children should be grateful that anyone at all bothered about them and probably, on balance, wouldn’t mind the suboptimal family life so much?
As RonF said, many of these single mothers, wanting what’s best for their children, do seek out experiences and activities that broaden their horizons, and otherwise compensate for their own shortcomings. This strikes me as wise.
I just have a lot of difficulty seeing why this is such a catastrophe, except among those who are primed to reject the reproductive freedom of women as a group.
Hey, *I* know how to use a sewing machine too!
Q, do you subscribe to the concept that kids are often more comfortable discussing things with those who share, or seem to most easily understand, the condition being discussed…?
Under that concept, the issue isn’t necessarily the actual capabilities of the male or female role model in question. It’s also about the perceptions of the child.
Take two common teenage issues, for example: wet dreams and periods. Now, even though a woman might know all about wet dreams, or a man might know all about periods; even though both respective adults might feel perfectly comfortable discussing them, and be perfectly able to do so without making the kid in question feel uncomfortable…
Still, a 13 year old girl or boy is probably not going to take that chance. THAT is a big reason IMO that available same-sex role models are important. If they’re not talking to you in the first place, there’s not much role to model, if you catch my drift.
Actually Sailorman, I’m against the whole notion of the nuclear family which separates children from a great deal of beneficial interaction with adults. I do not think that a child’s entire socialization needs to be guided by their biological or adoptive parents. IMO, a child will be more well rounded by increased interaction with various adults, rather than relying on a strictly Mommy or Daddy-knows-best scenario.
There is a big difference between implying that a biological opposite sex parent is necessary to prevent poor socialization/inadequate indoctrination into gender roles, etc., and admitting that **at times** children benefit most from their interactions with same sex role models. Nuclear families, as far as I’m concerned, do more harm by strictly categorizing children into gender roles that don’t fit them, but do serve the larger patriarchal good by creating our wonderful social hierarchy of boy and girl. It is my opinion that the marjoity of same-sex role models do more harm than good. Especially for boys being raised in a rape culture. When most men do not treat women as their social equals, it is highly dubious that they will teach boys otherwise. Which I think is one of the reasons we have the social fear of same-sex or single mother parenting: who’s going to teach all those young boys to denigrate women? who’s going to make sure those boys are manly? who’s going to make sure women don’t raise faggots and pussys?
It’s really a fear of cultural emasculation that fuels this cry for same-sex influence for boys. And yes, I do think it is *that* specific: boys. Very few arguments are made that girls will be harmed by single fathers or male same-sex parents — because it is understood that men *do* know how to successfully raise girls to be second class and less-than.
Q Grrl
Its specific to boys because there is an extremely high percentage of boys being raised without fathers (bio or not) or positive male role models available to them.
Q,
you may note from my post that I said “man” and “woman” and NOT “mother” and “father;” I’m not sure why/if you’re suggesting I was talking about the nuclear family? You said “I do not think that a child’s entire socialization needs to be guided by their biological or adoptive parents. “ and I pretty much agree with you.
There is a big difference between implying that a biological opposite sex parent is necessary to prevent poor socialization/inadequate indoctrination into gender roles, etc., and admitting that **at times** children benefit most from their interactions with same sex role models.
Hmm. I don’t think you need the person to be a parent. But I DO think that they need to be someone with a similar emotional closeness.
Nuclear families, as far as I’m concerned, do more harm by strictly categorizing children into gender roles that don’t fit them, but do serve the larger patriarchal good by creating our wonderful social hierarchy of boy and girl.
OK, I have to tweak you a little bit here: My daughters are girls because they have vaginas. If they had penises, they’d be boys. I don’t think that giving my kids up to be raised by my (married lesbian) sister, or my (single) brother, or anyone else for that matter, would change that fact…
It is my opinion that the marjoity of same-sex role models do more harm than good.
This is a half truth. As far as I can see from your posts here, it appears to be your opinion that the majority of PEOPLE do more harm than good. I don’t see why one would claim the interaction is more harmful merely because the recipient is the same sex…?
Especially for boys being raised in a rape culture. When most men do not treat women as their social equals, it is highly dubious that they will teach boys otherwise.
Absent the “rape culture” term, I agree. I don’t think this is specific to men though: You could also note that those men wouldn’t teach girls otherwise. And that women who have signed on to society’s problems won’t teach girls (or boys) otherwise, either.
Which I think is one of the reasons we have the social fear of same-sex or single mother parenting: who’s going to teach all those young boys to denigrate women? who’s going to make sure those boys are manly? who’s going to make sure women don’t raise faggots and pussys?
Now I think you’re projecting. The general fear of single parenting, AFAIK, is that you won’t have a good role model. As I discussed in my first paragraph, it’s pretty nice to have a role model of the same sex, when you’re growing up.
The role models don’t by any means have to be married to your parent, or be your parent, or live with you. But the reality is that a decent proportion of those role models ARE people’s parents, for better or for worse. And as a single parent, it seems more difficult (though by no means impossible) to find and provide a good role model if you don’t happen to have one handy in the next room.
It’s really a fear of cultural emasculation that fuels this cry for same-sex influence for boys.
Q, this is very odd. I have a feeling you’d be arguing against this no matter what./ These role models we’re talking about–do you think I’m suggesting that they promote the rape culture? Don’t you realize that a child of EITHER sex raised without proper role models will be MORE likely, not LESS likely to be a problem citizen?
If you think men are responsible for most of society’s ills–which apparently you do–then you should be supporting the push towards role models for boys as an effective way to improve things.
And yes, I do think it is *that* specific: boys. Very few arguments are made that girls will be harmed by single fathers or male same-sex parents — because it is understood that men *do* know how to successfully raise girls to be second class and less-than.
Actually, I think it’s mostly because the VAST majority of single sex parents are women.
Sailorman, my phrasing was off. I was speaking to a more generic audience and not you specifically. I was just extrapolating on my ideas/background.
Yes, I want effective role models. No, I don’t think that biological father automatically = effective role model. Neither do I think that the nuclear family lends itself, first and foremost, to creating the most effective role models (from a feminist perspective). FWIW, I also don’t think that biological mother automatically = effective role model either.
When I speak of harm, I equate harm with furthering the interests of the patriarchy, with its concommittent double standards for girls/women. If boys continue to turn to men who are deeply entrenched in patriarchal standards of masculinity, the cycle doesn’t really end.
Well, I’m in complete agreement with you. (*buys two beers in celebration. Picks Q Grrl of floor, where she has fallen in shock. Gives Qgrrl a beer*)
;)
Well, I’m in complete agreement with you. (*buys two beers in celebration. Picks Q Grrl of floor, where she has fallen in shock. Gives Qgrrl a beer*)
;)
That’s why I’m on the floor?
:)
Thanks, Q, for informing me that I’m doomed, by competence apparently, to instilling second-classness in my four-year-old daughter. I knew I was wasting my time taking her to the library and speaking to her in complete sentences. I guess I’ll leave her future to her mother; I’m sure one day, my ex willl tear herself away from the phone and the Bowflex long enough to do what needs to be done. Hell, she might even buy a dining table.
As an avid reader who has only posted here once or twice let me formally say “hello”.
I grew up in a single parent household where my father left very early in my life, before my brother was born. It seems pretty natural that children would be curious about an absent biological father, especially given the emphasis we place on nuclear families. Kids grow up wanting to fit in and are acutely aware when something is different. The degree to which those children want to know is more dependent on the child and how big they perceive the gap to be. My brother, who constantly heard comments about how sad it was that he didn’t have a father around, was very interested in getting to know my father whereas I (as a girl who apparently didn’t need one) was not. Fairly or not, the social expectation that boys need a father and girls don’t tainted our desires to know our father. Does that mean that my brother suffered from not having our dad around? Knowing our father, probably not, but he did seek other male role models to learn from. And now all grown up, despite growing up “without a father” my brother is happily married and a wonderful father to two boys. In contrast, his brother in law grew up with both parents and is an indifferent father at best. Two parents do not guarantee a well-adjusted adult.
I think its important to remember that what kids need is love, nurturing, decent living conditions, guidance, rules and an array of adults to provide information and education on the possibilities of life. None of those things necessarily have to come from biological parents. While we have structured our society around the nuclear family, it is by no means the only method for raising children. To put it bluntly, there is no right or wrong way to make a family, at least in terms of the number and type of people that go into the equation. There is a requirement that the needs of the child be met, however you want to provide them.
IMO, a child will be more well rounded by increased interaction with various adults, rather than relying on a strictly Mommy or Daddy-knows-best scenario.
I was taught in training that Boy Scouting has 8 different methods that are used to help the program meet its aims. One of these is “adult association”; the idea that young men (and young women, for that matter – the BSA has a co-ed program for young men and women ages 14 to 21) benefit by learning how to interact and work with a variety of adults. That includes the unit leaders and (in Boy Scouting) also Merit Badge counselors.
The latter is actually more interesting, in a way. Earning merit badges is a requirement for the higher ranks. The ideal is that the Scout decides what merit badge he wants to earn. Then he selects a name from a list of approved Merit Badge counselors (the BSA runs their name through a national service to make sure they have no record of any kind of violent or child-related offense), gets his Scoutmaster’s approval, calls the MB counselor up, makes an appointment, and generally manages the relationship until he’s earned the badge.
That’s the ideal. The reality when I tell people this is that about 70% of the time Mom (yes, always Mom, folks) says “Oh, no, you can’t expect him to do that?! He’s too shy. I’ll call up and make the arrangements.” No, Mom, that’s his job, not yours. It’s part of the program, just as important as whether he learns the subject matter. I’d say about 50% of the kids never actually get forced to do this; the mother takes over the whole process under the concept that her son can’t possibly be expected to deal with an adult stranger. They’re robbing their kids. Now, maybe that’s not the way it works in all areas, but that’s what I see, and I’ve had at least 150 kids go through my Troop in the last 10 years.
Now, I think that Mom and Dad definitely are to be in charge of determining what other adults their kids will have a relationship with, and have the final say in what their kids should be taught. But I think it’s essential that a child has relationships of various sorts (social, teacher-student, spiritual, etc.) with a variety of adults.
There is a big difference between implying that a biological opposite sex parent is necessary to prevent poor socialization/inadequate indoctrination into gender roles, etc., and admitting that **at times** children benefit most from their interactions with same sex role models.
I wouldn’t argue that a biological opposite sex parent is necessary. I would think that as long as there is both a male and a female parent in the home that are committed to loving and caring for the children there, it is sufficient. I would hold that children always benefit from having an interaction with a positive same-sex role model; positive meaning someone who loves the child and helps their development, as opposed to someone who abuses the kid.
It is my opinion that the majority of same-sex role models do more harm than good. Especially for boys being raised in a rape culture. When most men do not treat women as their social equals, it is highly dubious that they will teach boys otherwise. Which I think is one of the reasons we have the social fear of same-sex or single mother parenting: who’s going to teach all those young boys to denigrate women? who’s going to make sure those boys are manly? who’s going to make sure women don’t raise faggots and pussys?
I’m glad you labelled it your opinion; I wonder what evidence you have to back your opinion up. “Social fear” seems an odd turn of phrase.
It’s really a fear of cultural emasculation that fuels this cry for same-sex influence for boys. And yes, I do think it is *that* specific: boys. Very few arguments are made that girls will be harmed by single fathers or male same-sex parents — because it is understood that men *do* know how to successfully raise girls to be second class and less-than.
Seems to me that few arguments are made that girls will be harmed by being raised by single fathers because it’s non-controversial; it’s generally considered that an adult male trying to raise a female child on his own is not a good idea. There’s no need to raise a bunch of arguments against something when the general consensus agrees with the point that the arguments would be marshalled to support. Heck, most people would probably argue against an adult male raising a male child on his own.
After all, 1) there are so very few examples of it being tried, 2) people are much more sensitive to the issues that I raised in an adult male/child female situation (e.g., how does an adult male emphasize and establish communications with a female child going through puberty) and 3) people are much more worried about adult male/child female child abuse than in the opposite situation. I rather doubt that very many people consider it no problem, and I very much doubt that anyone at all considers it being no problem on the basis that “men *do* know how to successfully raise girls to be second-class and less-than.”
“There is nothing unethical to me about donating sperm or eggs. Both men and women get paid to do this. For men it tends to be easier. Especially when couples may need these materials to create their families. I don’t believe they should get paid for it, that seems unethical. ”
Why does this belief go completely unexamined? And while women donate eggs, the sperm donation angle is more interesting because people get VERY upset about women using donated sperm for single motherhood, yet never even consider the donors ethics. Even if we don’t consider that the donors are deliberately creating children for whom they will give no support, shouldn’t they be taken to task for facilitating the single motherhood the women are getting so bashed for?
Elena –
It is a woman’s CHOICE to use the sperm to become a single mother. A male’s sperm can be used to produce a child within a heterosexual couple who need the material or gay couple who may need the material. So it is hard to place some ethical blame on the person donating the sperm outside the bounds of believing that donating sperm in general is unethical.
After delivery of course, do children need their biological mother?
Well, for optimal health most infants should be nursed. However, children can and do survive without nursing.
The nursing question aside, no, children don’t always need their biological mothers, any more than they always need their biological fathers.
As of today I started reading this blog on children and dad relationships (or lack thereof) and I can’t help but want to respond to SBW’s 2nd repsonse: “As for the only 7% of respondents who say they want a father/child relationship, the participants in this study were 12-17 year olds, which mean’t that they were really still children and thus possess a child-like mentality. I think the study would have been more convincing if the respondents had been asked when they were adults, say in their late 20’s or 30’s after living a bit and/or having children and a family of their own.”
My immediate response is that you cannot outright dismiss a 12-17 year old’s opinion and want for a relationship with a father figure simply because they are ‘childlike and possess a childlike mentality’. The fact the those ‘children’ are HAVING those experiences are valid in and of themselves. They are their own sentiments, deep thoughts, ponderings, and so on. To say that by the time they are in their 20’s and 30’s and will therefore, get over it, is only trying to prove your point of view that they will one day realize that which they once thought is nonsense — which it is not. The larger point of the study is to deduce is children are truly happy with or without a biological father figure (or at least knowing him) and if you discount the 7% (which is a lot of ‘kids’ saying the exact same thing) that voiced their opinion and say ‘No, they are still kids, really…” you completely undermine what thought processes are going through their minds at the moment and invalidate them as people. There are many preteens and teens that are much more intelligent than some adults out there, and I would take caution to dismiss what they have to say simply because they are young. Them having many more years to go shouldn’t alter what they once felt when they were young either. I’m in my 20s and know I can get along without my dad but it never changed the fact that it hurt like hell he wasn’t aroud and that i was dying to meet him when i was much younger.
Ok I have a few coments
1st comment:
I completly agree with Miss C on that last comment. Our minds may be undeveloped in some ways when we are in out teens but only in terms of how we understand how our actions affect those around uss (frontal lobe activity) if annything when we are in our teens or younger we are MORE highly aware of our our environment affects uss. Also as we grow we learn how to function as a cog in the specific scociety we grew up in and have been affected more and have absorbed more of the culture we grew up in making younger people’s opinion on society far more subjective than that of adults.
2nd comment:
I do think that the entire situation of sperm donors (and even egg donors even though their procedures are much more invasive) getting paid for their gametes is a bit odd. It makes me a bit uneasy about the kinds of people who might donate to these banks and pass on their genetic information to some child they often don’t want their identity divulged to. Though I do understand that manny of the ppl donating do so because they feel they are contributing to a cause, manny donors also sign up for financial reasons. There is also the fact that some banks who claim to have the “best quality in human beings” for their donors will charge ppl more for their sperm and probably pay their donors more highly. so…. “Here you have perfect genes you are the cream of the crop of humanity please let us pay you large sums of monney to have ppl raise your babies for you.” Though I don’t beleive that donors have a moral responsibility to make sure their sperm doesn’t go to a single mom where the child will have no father, I do beleive that the entire process creeps me out a bit and is a bit foggy morrally considering it is such an odd situation.
3 rd comment
I am the older between me and my sister and early on in my parents marriage, when my mom was pregnant with me, my father abused my mother physically. My mother stayed with my father so that my sister and I could have a “stable” home…..need I say more lol…. I never saw my father physically abuse my mother, and he was extremely passive agressive where she on the other hand would yell a lot. I would take his side all the time. I’d take her side now that I know, though I don’t think all the blame should be put on one of them now but I’m not speaking to my father anny longer (he’s bipolar and on a lot of meds and I just can’t handle it). There was a lot of negative energy in my house I couldn’t quite figure out that I could sense growing up that affected me very deeply. I don’t know how much I would have suffered from not having my father in my life and that of my mother and sister, but I’m pretty sure it would have been better than the life filled with tension caused by my mother’s grudging dependancy on my father, for a father figure for her children. I felt happiest with my mother and sister when we were living alone in a smaller town house after my parents’ divorce. I didn’t like it at all when we later moved in wiht my mother’s boyfriend, even though it was a larger house. I felt like she was doing the same thing all over again. I felt that she thought she needed a man most to be happy in life. I’m 19 right now and still living with them for a bit. When I asked her once out of a bit of anger and confusion “But WHY did you marry dad!!” (because I could always tell she resented him growing up) she broke down and said “My clock was ticking alright!!!” and I guess looking back on this now even though I am a bit uneasy with the moral concepts behind sperm banks, I wonder: why hadn’t she just gotten a donor?
I beleive that the single most important (and perhaps only) factor contributing to the happiness of a child is the happiness of their parrents, and that the child see the parent doing what brings them the most joy growing up. If the mother is working all hours because she has fun at her job and enjoys it then it’s good for the child. If the mother is begrudgingly doing this to take care of the child that is presenting a financial problem the mother can’t cope with or doing it as a means of escaping her children because she doesn’t enjoy them then though it may not be the mother’s fault it may have negative impacts on the children. I would never place blame on the mothers in the situation above all I’m saying is the happier you are and the more you take care of YOURSELF the better your children will learn to do the same and take care of themselves.
Ok I have a few comments
1st comment:
I completely agree with Miss C on that last comment. Our minds may be undeveloped in some ways when we are in out teens but only in terms of how we understand how our actions affect those around us (frontal lobe activity) if anything when we are in our teens or younger we are MORE highly aware of how our environment affects us. Also as we grow we learn how to function as a cog in the specific society we grew up in and have been affected more and have absorbed more of the culture we grew up in making younger people’s opinion on society far more subjective than that of adults.
2nd comment:
I do think that the entire situation of sperm donors (and even egg donors even though their procedures are much more invasive) getting paid for their gametes is a bit odd. It makes me a bit uneasy about the kinds of people who might donate to these banks and pass on their genetic information to some child they often don’t want their identity divulged to. Though I do understand that many of the ppl donating do so because they feel they are contributing to a cause, many donors also sign up for financial reasons. There is also the fact that some banks who claim to have the “best quality in human beings” for their donors will charge ppl more for their sperm and probably pay their donors more highly. so…. “Here you have perfect genes you are the cream of the crop of humanity please let us pay you large sums of money to have ppl raise your babies for you.” Though I don’t believe that donors have a moral responsibility to make sure their sperm doesn’t go to a single mom where the child will have no father, I do believe that the entire process creeps me out a bit and is a bit foggy morally considering it is such an odd situation.
3rd comment:
I’m 19 years old and have been a closet feminist for a long time
“no! femenists are whiny! I’m not a feminist! You teach ppl how to treat you! You don’t complain to them to do it! I’m not a feminist!” lol but I am a feminist and I love this site!! (just found it), because even though I still hold that beleif that we have to teach men how to treat us I don’t think that that idea is a huge part of the colective concience and I want to make it so! :D