A bit of catch-up news finds that a good friend of the family is in the late-second trimester of a surrogate pregnancy. She was hired for $25,000 to bear a baby for a gay couple. One of the men had his sister donate an ovum egg cell, which was then fertilized by his partner (in-vitro) - thus the baby would have the sperm of one of the partners and the family DNA of the other. The total costs for all the fertility medical work was expected to be around $100,000. (I'm hearing this third-hand, so the numbers could be off.) I asked how our family friend is feeling: she's delivered two babies of her own, and the emotions must be intense? Will it be difficult for her to give up the new baby after carrying the little thing for nine months? I didn't even ask about the political morality of all of this: I still think that a child grows up best with a mom and a dad. I'm sure two gay guys can lovingly care for a baby, but it's quite unorthodox, and it just seems kind of wierd, frankly, that the child will have no mother in its life and upbringing.
Anyway, Janice Shaw Crouse has a related piece over at American Thinker, "Girls Need a Dad and Boys Need a Mom":
The latest issue of The Journal of Communication and Religion (November 2008, Volume 31, Number 2) contains an excellent analysis of the importance of opposite-sex parent relationships. The common sense conclusion is backed up with social science data and affirmed by a peer-reviewed scholarly article: girls need a dad, and boys need a mom.There's more at the link.
Not surprisingly, the study also found that communication is an essential building block for all family relationships -- family interactions are the crucible for attitudes, values, priorities, and worldviews. Beyond the shaping and modeling of these essential personal characteristics, the family shapes an individual's interpersonal system and self-identity.
Further, stable homes include specific talk about religion and support for children's involvement in religious activities. These families create high-quality relationships by specific communication behaviors, such as openness, assurance, and dependency. Those same characteristics, not incidentally, are powerful predictors for marital success or failure.
The authors, G.L. Forward, Alison Sansom-Livolsi, and Jordanna McGovern, stress the fact that a family is more than merely a group of individuals who live under the same roof. They cite numerous studies indicating that parents play a crucial role in a child's personal and social development. In fact, a child's relationship with his or her parents is the single most important factor in predicting that child's long-term happiness, adjustment, development, educational attainment, and success. Beyond that general information, studies indicate that girls get better support from the family than do boys. Girls feel closer to their parents, perhaps because parents converse with and express emotion more readily with daughters than with sons. In general, mothers spend far more time with daughters than with sons. Likewise, fathers spend more time with sons than with their daughters. Yet, father-daughter and mother-son relationships tend to have greater impact on a child's future intimate relationships than their relationship with the same-sex parent.
Related: Michael Medved, "Changing Marriage Itself."
29 comments:
Out of curiosity Professor Douglas; Sir, do you ever sleep?
This seems mindless to me. They're spending $100,000 to do this? What, is it illegal for same sex couples to adopt in California?
Just think how many children need parents, yet these fine gentlemen decided that no, they'd have to drop $100,000 to go around nature and create another one.
"I'm sure two gay guys can lovingly care for a baby, but it's quite unorthodox, and it just seems kind of wierd, frankly, that the child will have no mother in its life and upbringing."
"Unorthodox" is, to me, an overly generous term. Two gay men can theoretically change a baby's diaper, but at a core level I'm convinced it's extremely detrimental environment to raise a child. A motherless existence is certainly one major detriment. Moral equivalence between two men and one man/one woman is another. One more step in a world that seems to have gone mad.
As with everything that a family use to hold dear we are becoming so brainwashed and tire of fighting an uphill battle that we are become innoculated against the final repercussions of this insanity......I read that New Hampshire is about to change a law which allows for marriage between gay couples by changing the defination of civil union without informing the general population of the meaning,afterall its just a change
T-101: I once asked Patterico how he has "the time to do all of this research, have a heavy-duty full-time job, write some occasionally long articles on all sorts of other things for the site, and still have time to eat, sleep and make little Pattericos."
The same might be asked of our esteemed host: how does he find the time to do all of this research, have a heavy-duty full-time job, write some usually long articles on all sorts of other things for the site, and still have time to eat, sleep and make little Douglases.
I know that reading Foreign Affairs and all of these other scholarly journals would be part of the job of an Associate Professor of Political Science teaching in Southern California -- though I have my doubts that running a blog satisfies the requirements of "publish or perish" -- but at least in the Poconos, there are still only twenty-four hours in a day. Unless there are about four-to-six more hours in a day in the Golden State, I don't know how Dr Douglas gets all of this stuff done.
Truth101: Couldn't sleep at 3:00am. Blogged. Went back to bed at 5:30am. Just woke up, almost 10:00am.
Dana: I guess they're really showing the love ...
Has the World Gone Mad: I'm trying to be as tolerant as I can, I suppose.
Everything's changing, Tapper! Thanks for commenting.
Dana: Live to blog! Hooaahh!!
T101 - Some people have an avid pursuit of knowledge and burn the midnight oil when they are reading and teaching and stuff: like college professor types who benefit us all. Thanks Donald.
Right now, the world is moving so quickly with incredible changes and political things going on. Dramatic change keeps occurring all around us, incredible upheaval in political and economic realms - threats of upcoming Great Depression - Hamas attacking - Israel launching an offensive before Obama gets into office... all these things happening quickly. There was outrageous aggression in CA over Prop 8. Today's demands for "rights by gays unheard of in previous generations as homosexuality was known to be just plain perversion. We're witnessing rapid moral degeneration among not only individuals but culture and societies, we're seeing outbreaks of madness in terrorism and war needed to address it, we're seeing destruction of the economy that appears to be going global.
People who are avid students and try to stay on top of world events seem to me to have more to do now than ever just to stay ahead of things. This world is coming apart at the moral seams. That's what it is when people go insane - they come apart at the moral seams. And this whole leftist, homo, insane lobby out there is just ripping and tearing at the seams of society to tear it apart... like they're doing something noble. It's not noble to seek to destroy civilization and I'm tired of people trying to tear apart the meaning of common decency, family, and love.
Thanks Donald for the articles.
When has there not been madness in the world Grace?
And now for the perfunctory thanking of the Professor for his good work on behalf of the righteous and pure homo hating real Americans. Thank you Professor.
"Right now, the world is moving so quickly with incredible changes and political things going on. Dramatic change keeps occurring all around us, incredible upheaval in political and economic realms - threats of upcoming Great Depression - Hamas attacking - Israel launching an offensive before Obama gets into office... all these things happening quickly."
Indeed, there really is a lot going on right now.
Thanks for reading, Grace!
Truth101: My post says nothing about hating homosexuals. Why do you impute "hatred" to me when I have none?
I'd rather sleep, Philippe, but if I wake up, I'll blog until I'm tired, then I sleep well for a few hours.
Well if you love your fellow man so much why do want to deny them the same rights we heteros enjoy Professor? Nobody is telling any religious denomination to start marrying people that don't share their brand of faith.
And Brother, we both were alive in the Sixties. We remember the social upheaval. We remember campus protests and cops beating up hippies and the Godless and immoral play "Hair"
Times are the same now as then. The world can be crazy.
Don, if you are somehow finding 4-6 extra hours in your day here in Cali as Dana suggests through some kind of time-vortex or something, please share your futuristic technology with us Nor Cal folk: despite my insomnia, I could use a few extra hours in my day.
Dana, at least these guys are contributing to the economy like good little capitalists. I would think that you'd be more upset about all those straight couples out there having kids for free when there are so many parentless children around. If these two gay guys piss you off so much, I can't imagine what you must think of those selfish, over-procreative Mormons.
Has the world gone mad?, first: please try to think up a new screen name; not only is this one unwieldy but now you're going to have to be morally outraged over every post you comment on and that's going to use up a lot of energy on your part.
Second: I assume that your point is that it would be ideal for every child to have a mother and a father, and I pretty much agree with you. But as I've said before, once we've made sure that there are no more stupid, racist, abusive, prejudiced or crazy people becoming parents we can then get to work building your ideal society. Until then, I think the commitment these two gentlemen have shown thus far is fairly indicative of how much love they'll show this child.
Truth101: Search my archives for "The Case Against Same Sex Marriage" your answer, and click the tag at the post for more. I've written on this voluminously.
" ... not only is this one unwieldy but now you're going to have to be morally outraged ... "
My thoughts, exactly, JBW!
It's Through the Looking Glass all the way around.
I'm just troubled by the whole arrangement. I've tried viewing from various angles and I can't relinquish the fact that this is just fundamentally wrong...and flawed to boot.
This is one aspect of American/Western culture that I wish could be debated more over without all the emotions and divisive language.
I thought the California vote among various other states was a good beginning but it looks like men in black robes will effectively rub out the will of the people in place for empathy and "changing times."
Good post by the way, Mr. Doublas
Uh...that should read, Mr. Douglas.
JBW, you may rest assured that my ire is just as great for heterosexual couples who, naturally infertile, go through such tremendous rigamarole and expense to create a child when there are so many already born who need parents.
Of course, a big part of the problem is that so many white couples who might consider adoption wouldn't consider adopting a black child, compounded by some black activists who say that such interracial adoptions shouldn't be allowed in the first place.
Dana, glad to hear that but my comment addressed people having their own children rather than adopting. Are you saying that the responsibility for the care of orphans and foster children in this country should fall solely to homosexuals and the infertile?
And while I agree that lack of trans-racial adoption is a big part of the problem my response to both sides of the controversy is the same: it may not be an ideal situation but it's not an ideal world; having parents of a different race (or of the same gender, while we're talking about it) is much better than having no parents at all.
I am sure the "study" of some fringe academic somewhere is sure to trump the opinions of a collective group such as the studies within the American psychological association, which seem to have come to completely contradicting conclusions regarding same sex parenting.
What a shock.
donald, this is good...many parents sometimes think they're the only one the child needs, but they really do need more than just one parent. whether it can be another of the same sex...i'm starting to see that many of the same sex parents make as happy children as any!
Of course they need both sexes, too bad in today's America, most seem to have one(a female), adding to females or two males to the mix isn't helping anything, except maybe reduce the population growth in California.
The left wants to rewrite history, biology and physics to fit their ideological orthodoxies. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. They've been doing it in Europe for generations, and we now see a continent in denial about its past and its present. Now it seems to be coming to America in all its secular revisionist glory.
We have same sex marriage and parenting in the name of tolerance, because the left believes that there is no real difference between boys and girls -- only the presence of "love" is needed.
Puhhhhlease.
Anyone who has had kids knows two things: 1). that boys and girls are wired differently from birth and require the influence of both mothers and fathers to develop fully and 2). that moms and dads bring decidedly different (and important) parenting skills to the child's life. Men and women are not interchangeable just because the left wishes it to be so. This isn't an issue of same sex equality -- its an issue of what is best for children. And on that score, traditional marriage wins hands down.
We are headed to an America where the minority is in charge, largely because the majority is disorganized and lacks the courage of its convictions. Any reasonably educated person knows that kids belong in a stable family with a mom and a dad. But in the face of the culture wars, where everyone is afraid of being labled "sexist", "racist", "homophobic" or worse, we've been reduced to jelly. Its a shame.
Sadly, common sense is dead. How do I know? Because Al Franken will be the U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
Need I say more?
Jesus Ken, you've come late to the party to merely repeat the tired notions espoused by those who came before you. Nobody of any psychological or anthropological repute on the left is saying that "there is no real difference between boys and girls"; knock down straw men on your own site.
Of course boys and girls are wired differently: it's how we've evolved as a species. And yes, the ideal situation is obviously for every child to have a loving and supportive mother and father. Was your childhood ideal? Because mine wasn't and I would wager that most people can say the same of their own.
If the left's argument was that we should remove children from families with straight parents and force them to be raised by gay parents then I can see why you would get so bent out of shape but no one is suggesting that at all.
What they are suggesting (and as I stated farther up the comment section) is that absent your happy idyllic fantasy world, children having loving parents of the same sex is still preferable to having stupid, racist, abusive, prejudiced or crazy parents of the opposite sex or even worse, no parents at all.
And if you think the minority gay, leftist agenda or even Al Franken are the only things keeping kids out of stable families with a mom and dad then you'd better pull your head out of the sand because the reality is a lot uglier than you can possibly imagine.
All people like you accomplish with your archaic and outmoded views of what constitutes an acceptable society is to destroy dedicated and loving families. I hope your own children have it a lot easier than those of the families you would tear apart in the name of "traditional values"; I truly do.
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