Ivy League Doc: Kids need Moms and Dads
CommentsI’ve felt for a long time that the most important secular reason to preserve man-woman marriage is because the ideal environment to raise a child has both a mother and a father. Well, a Providence, Rhode Island, academic and medical expert, Dr. Daniel Harrop, has weighed in on my side of the parenting debate:
Marriage is a core social institution, the only one we have that is dedicated to communicating and reinforcing a unique and vitally important task: bringing together men and women to make and raise the next generation together….
Existing scientific data suggests that the law of marriage protects children to the extent it increases the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by their own mother and father in a harmonious, lasting union….
As a psychiatrist and a clinical assistant professor at Brown, I am well aware that proponents of same-sex marriage will cite the American Psychiatric Association and other professional organizations to justify their view: There is nothing scientific at all about the view that a child needs his mother and father.
The scientific reality is that there are only a handful of studies on same-sex parenting (less than 50 total), and almost none of them are based on nationally representative data, which means we simply do not know how typical or atypical the gay parents and their children studied are.
The point I wish to underscore here is not that gay people cannot be good parents (just as many single mothers and fathers are good parents), but that there is something special and distinctive about sexual unions that can both create life and connect those babies to a mother and father.
Next up, banning divorce.
Peter-
Think of it this way: mother-father families are the best environment for raising children, but divorced homes and same-sex parents can provide good environments, too. So society should do everything it can to promote the first type of home, while still allowing children to be raised in the second and third type of home.
Banning divorce - like outlawing same-sex adoption altogether - would hurt children, not help them.
Peter, when divorce is widespread and even normalized (i.e. the “good divorce”) society gets a lot more segregation of motherhood and fatherhood. It greatly strains the contingency for responsible procreation.
It also undermines the marriage culture in many ways that are still being sorted forty years or so after the big wave of pro-divorce reforms.
However, divorce laws are an example of how the government tends to do more harm than good when tampering with the fundamentals of a vital social institution. The culture, apart from government per se, has seen a good deal more segregation of the sexes and irresponsible procreation in the wake of no-fault divorce reforms.
As for “banning” divorce, well, that’s not the logical course of action. Government recognition, and regulation, of marriage is about protecting the relativey non-coercive means by which the common good is served. With a strong marriage culture, the government just gets out of the way and lets marriage do what it does very well. This is exemplified by the marriage presumption of paternity.
Integration of motherhood and fatherhood is a huge basis from which a society may flourish for generations and generations.
What are the best reasons for “gay adoption”, that is, adoption of a child by two unrelated people who are gay identified?
Note, I’m not referring to second-parent adoption. Let’s start with the basics upon which you might equate “gay adoption” and adopton by husband/wife duos.