Two fathers

“it’s a good example of how you can socialize kids to be inclusive and understanding of diverse family arrangements.”

Yes, it is that. I suppose one can socialize the youth into much.

Many people (myself included) are justifiably concerned with socializing adults into forming optimal family formations. This includes things like not having children outside of wedlock, marring the wife of your child, taking responsibility for the children you produce, & the importance to children & society of married intact families.

To this end…. One wonders about axioms like — “Standard effect Behavior” or “law impacts Culture” . These seem to be subscribed to generally by the right and left. Leaving us with the question: To what end?

A Child Trends research brief summed up the scholarly consensus:

“Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters
for children, and the family structure that
helps the most is a family headed by two biological
parents in a low-conflict
marriage. Children in single-parent
families, children born to unmarried
mothers, and children in stepfamilies or
cohabiting relationships face higher risks
of poor outcomes. . . . There is thus value
for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.”3

Kristin Anderson Moore, et al., 2002. “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect
Children and What Can We Do About It?”, Child Trends Research Brief (Washington, D.C.: Child Trends) (June): 1
(available at http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/MarriageRB602.pdf)..

With the pantheon of social problems in this world, one is forced to set priorities between “socializ(ing) kids to be inclusive and understanding of diverse family arrangements.”
&
Promoting optimal parenting & family formation in the (vast) mainstream population.

“…how you can socialize kids…”: for God’s sake don’t tell the Jesuits.

Fitz, might we not also choose to change laws, social programs, and so forth so as to reduce the risks to “Children in single-parent
families, children born to unmarried
mothers, and children in stepfamilies or
cohabiting relationships”? I would bet that many of those changes would also reduce conflict in the biological two-parent marriages you’re praising. For example, we could reasonably say that a lot of the harm to children in single parent families and children born to unmarried mothers comes from economic issues (insufficient health care, insufficient access to affordable day care, etc) and that these economic issues probably increase conflict between biological parents too, via arguments over money. So while marriage might (depending on each parent’s economic situation) address this problem, it might not, and let’s concentrate on addressing the problem rather than shoring up one particular version of marriage.

For example, we could reasonably say that a lot of the harm to children in single parent families and children born to unmarried mothers comes from economic issues (insufficient health care, insufficient access to affordable day care, etc)

Ah yes, the reasonable idea that the role of a parent can be replaced by sufficient cash.

This seems unlikely, from first principles (humans offer different services to money), from my own personal experience (I can’t imagine even millions of dollars performing the same role in my childhood as my father did), and research – see for example this Swedish study at http://sfhelp.org/01/research_divorce.htm or this American study at http://128.252.132.4/csd/Publications/2001/ResearchBackground_01-8.pdf

There is always a control problem here, in that no one can do a randomised study where couples are randomly broken up. The people who have children outside wedlock may very well be different people in the first place from people who have children within wedlock – so therefore if they were forced into wedlock their children might still have equally bad outcomes. So I don’t expect to convince Ted on this issue.

But it does seem unlikely that a parent who has been around parenting since their child’s babyhood – does not contribute anything special to life.

Eszter’s post was about _gay_parenting, hence if someone wants to argue that the fact that parents are gay makes them bad parents, they will have to cite studies showing what difference it makes to have gay parents rather than hetero parents. You’d have to controle for all other factors – educational level, household income, etc etc. – and then see whether it makes a difference that parents are gay. Clearly such a study would need to be done in a society where gayparenting is, to the exnent that this is possible, accepted on the same terms as parenting by straight people, since otherwise the ‘gay’-dummy might simply track the effects of the subordinate position of gays in society. In any case, I haven’t seen any study showing that gay parents are worse parents than non-gay parents, and the kids I know who are being raised by gay parents are all doing very, very well.

Moreover, the question is not just whether one type of parenting is better than another, but rather whether one type of parenting is simply not good enough to justify discouraging that kind of parenting. Otherwise we would come to absurde conclusions: Suppose we were to find that children from middle class families have better parents than those from lower class and higher class, would that then imply that we would legally forbid the lower and upper classes to have kids? of course not. So if anyone wants to legally forbid (or discourage) gays to have kids, they will have to show that gay parenting is not just, perhaps, not as good as hetereo parenting (still needs to be proven in this discussion), but also that gay parenting is not meeting a minimal treshold of good parenting.

fitz, I looked at the first link in your most recent comment, and it *still* doesn’t distinguish between biological and adoptive parents.

This post is about the Netherlands where same-sex couples can get married and where the non-biological parent(s) can adopt the child.

Ingrid & Uncle

(Ingrid writes) “Eszter’s post was about gayparenting, hence if someone wants to argue that the fact that parents are gay makes them bad parents, they will have to cite studies showing what difference it makes to have gay parents rather than hetero parents. You’d have to controle for all other factors – educational level, household income, etc etc. – and then see whether it makes a difference that parents are gay.”

The posts I have sited (and indeed the social scientific consensus) maintain that family structure matters, and the family structure that is most protective a child well-being is the intact, married biological family. This research has controlled for the other factors you have mentioned and more.
Advocates of other forms (supported in law & culture) have the onus of proving that these forms are as optimal as the traditional unit. Redefining a foundational social institution is not something done by “right”. Not for same-sex unions, or Muslims, or bigamists, polymorists or whatnot.
Any society has the proper duty to defend the natural intact family as the preferred institution for state support and privilege.

(uncle writes) “Ingrid, a considerable number of studies along the lines you describe have been conducted in the US, and they have, in fact, shown that kids raised by same-sex couples are in no way disadvantaged as a result.”

Steven Nock, a sociologist at the University of Virginia who was asked to review several hundred studies as an expert witness for the Attorney General of Canada.
Nock concluded:

“Through this analysis I draw my conclusions that 1) all of the articles I reviewed contained at least one fatal flaw of design or execution; and 2) not a single one of those studies was conducted according to general accepted standards of scientific research.1”

{1 -Nock Aff. ¶ 3, Halpern v. Attorney General of Canada, No. 684/00 (Ont. Sup. Ct. of Justice) (copies available from the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy; joshua@imapp.org).}

Sociologist Charlotte Patterson, a leading researcher on gay and lesbian parenting, recently summed up,

“[M]ost studies have compared children in divorced lesbian mother-headed families with children in divorced heterosexual motherheaded families.” 2

{2- Charlotte J. Patterson et al., 2000. “Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy,” in Bette L.Bottoms et al., eds., Children and the Law: Social Science and Policy 10-11}

Another review, prepared by Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai in 2001, looked at 49 separate parenting studies before concluding that

“the methods used in these studies are so flawed that the studies prove nothing.” 3

{3- Robert Lerner & Althea K. Nagai, 2001. No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting (Washington, D.C.: Marriage Law Project):}

Even scholars enthusiastic about unisex parenting, such as Stacey and Biblarz, acknowledge that….

“there are no studies of child development based on random, representative samples of [same-sex couple] families.” 4

{4- Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, 2001. “(How) Does The Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?”, American Sociological Review 66:159, 166.}

It is Important when confronting a question of this importance that we dampen our impulses of logical positivism & individualistic impulses. Marriage is a pre-political, pre-liberal institution. It does not respond to the notions of rights and privileges: but rather of duty, responsibility, obligation and sacrifice. Marriage is a social institution, one supported through a complex web of public and private measures. It is naïve to start from a premise of a blank slate and demand uniform “proof” against any experiment purposed.
Social science can aid us in this endeavor but will ultimately fail if we cannot accept its results due to ideological presuppositions.

(correction)

Furthermore – the adoption of a child by the non-biological partner would more resemble a step-family or divorced family than a traditional natural intact family.

“If the child was adopted as a baby by partners already in a well-established partnership, this “resemblance” is exceedingly non-obvious.”

Your going to need to look at two factors 1) What is called “kin-altruism” & 2) the (well studied) impact of Father Absence on child development. {This leads to a greater understanding of gender specific parenting, especially in young men}

“And your “debunking” of uncle kvetch’s point was most unimpressive.”

I’m going to chalk this up to spite. I maintain that you found it “very impressive”, and that is why you brought it up.

If you are unfamiliar with one or both of the factors I pointed out above, then I suggest a little research. My claims may be “unreferenced” , but are hardly “unsupported”. I can’t do your homework for you. If you are ignorant of the considerable scholarship on these subjects then educate yourself. I’m a poster on a blog- not your remedial tutor on available scholarship.

http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/ln202/Newson%20-%20Modern%20Low%20Fertility.pdf

Chase-Lansdale, P.L., L.S. Wakschlag and J. Brooks-Gunn (1995), “A Psychological Perspective on the Development of Caring in Children and Youth: the Role of the Family”, Journal of Adolescence 18:515-556.
Cialdini, R.B., M. Schaller, D. Houlihan, K. Arps, J. Fultz and A.L. Beaman (1987), “Empathy-based Helping: Is It Selflessly or Selfishly Motivated?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52:749-758.
Cialdini, R.B. (1991), “Altruism or Egoism? That is (still) the Question”, Psychological Inquiry 2:124-126.
Cialdini, R.B., S.L. Brown, C. Luce, B.P. Lewis and S.L. Neuberg (1997), “Reinterpreting the Empathy-Altruism Relationship: When One into One Equals Oneness”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73:481-49

http://www.fatherhood.org/doclibrary/delinquency.pdf

Are you gay steve?

Are you gay steve?

No. But is that actually any of your God-damned business, fitz? Only a homophobe would feel called upon to ask that question rather than presenting arguments and evidence. I think you need to take a close look at yourself in the mirror and ask what’s really driving this little obsession of yours.

So your saying I’m gay?

steve writes)
“Are you saying you don’t understand what the word “homophobe” means? This wouldn’t actually surprise me. You don’t appear to be highly literate.”
There is no such psychological condition. This is a made-up word used to stigmatize the opposition and stifle debate. (I’m old enough to recall it invention)

(steve writes)
“By the way, if you meant that “Trojan Couch” link to be taken seriously, you have confirmed both that you are a homophobe and that you are interested not in the truth but in promoting noxious homophobic propaganda of the most transparently moronic kind.”
You mean the article written by
Jeffrey B. Satinover, M.S., M.D1

Presently conducting research in complex physical and economic systems in the department of physics and the condensed matter physics laboratory at the University of Nice, France. The present work reports on research conducted while teaching constitutional law in the department of politics at Princeton University and physics at Yale University, and consulting to groups writing briefs in various state and federal Supreme Court cases.

DEGREES:
S.B., Humanities & Science, M.I.T., 1971
Ed.M. Clinical Psychology & Public Practice, Harvard University, 1973
M.D., University of Texas, 1982
M.S., Physics, Yale University, 2003
LICENSES:
Connecticut (Medicine)
BOARD CERTIFICATION:
Psychiatry (American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology)
OTHER:
Fellowship Year in Child Psychiatry
Added Qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry
(American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology)

http://www.satinover.com/cv.htm

(yep- what a moron!!)

But Steve – you also have friends in high places..

AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE PUBLISHES PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF FAMILY DISSOLUTION

http://www.ali.org/ali/pr051502.htm

LAW COMMISSION OF CANADA REPORT: BEYOND CONJUGALITY

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-R-0172.htm

Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships

http://www.beyondmarriage.org/

Let me know if you support the legal approaches promoted by these organizations.
This will aid the discussion by pinpointing the philosophical division at the heart of our argument.

Think about Fitz’s “optimal family” for a moment. Biological parents in an intact marriage. Sounds good. Of course, it actually covers a broad range of families. I believe I read recently that 25% of American families fit this definition. (One wonders why the Fitz’s of this world tolerate the “inferior” 75%, but that’s beside this point.)

25% of American families. We all know some of them, of course. Happy kids, dedicated parents. But we know some others, too, don’t we? Battered wives, abused kids. There are plenty of messed up “optimal” families. Even so, without a legal complaint from one of the spouses or proof of serious child abuse, the state does NOTHING to prevent or end marriages like that.

Even if this society barred all non-optimal marriages — which it most certainly does not — many same-sex-led families are clearly better than many of Fitz’s “optimal” families.

The only thing that can account for society’s tolerance of such a wide range of families and so, so many dysfunctional ones and its refusal to recognize same-sex-led families is… prejudice. Could it be any more clear?

What I have plainly been trying to say is that standards effect behavior.
Be it in law or culture (which includes kids shows in Denmark) what standards we uphold encourage and teach a societal norm.

I hope (and I believe) this debate is hardly over for the left. Recent votes on marriage amendments prove that the left is divided on this issue while the right is more unified.
When I maintain that a social scientific consensus exists as to optimal family formation I am not trying to be partisan or foster bigotry.

I don’t think much of those who label competent, fair minded research & scholarship as either “far right wing” or “homophobic”. I personally read all sides of this debate and try to be as fair minded as I am capable.

It is not unfair to acknowledge that the traditional family has historically been considered a pre-political foundational social institution. Philosophers as far back as Paracles have noted the preeminence of the family as a bulwark against state tyranny.

Free thinking people know that the social experiment of same-sex marriage marks both the logical extension of the sexual revolution and a definitive step in normalizing (in both law & culture) central axioms of that revolution.

At this point allow me to point to two timely examples of warranted hesitation towards these ends.

http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2006/08/who_are_parents.html#more

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/nyregion/06gender.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The social consequences of de-gendering marriage and separating it from its necessary connection to procreation should not be undertaken lightly. Neither leftist utopian ideals, not egalitarian motif’s nor political partisanship should stop independent minds on the left from fully exploring the ramifications of such changes.

We all know the power of orthodoxies and dogmas. We all have a prejudices and particularities. We all know about the power of ideas to fundamentally alter the way people approach reality. And we all know that consequences, both foreseen & unforeseen are bound to follow.

I hope I am of some help in prodding the free inquirer within us all.