Last week, Sophia asked, “Can a mom get a baby without a dad?”
Tanya explained to our 6-year-old the basics of how babies are created. By basics, I mean she omitted details about artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization.
“But,” she clarified, “any two people can raise a child, not just a mom and a dad.”
“That’s good,” Sophia said. “A girl at school has two moms.”
Tanya and I have already done the first “where do babies come from” talk with Ella, our 9-year-old. But we haven’t yet broached the more contemporary (and potentially divisive) topic of same-sex parenting. Watching Sophia shrug off an issue that can easily polarized an entire country, I wondered: are families with same-sex parents any different from traditional families.
Nine years into my parenting career, I’ve learned how hard it is to be responsible for another human. I’ve also learned the indescribable feeling of loving a child, and being loved in return. Those emotions are common to parents from all races, nationalities and political pursuasions. That’s because parenting calls upon the most innate, basic instincts there are: guiding a helpless creature to a capable existence.
Biology tells us that only a male and female are capable of creating an embryo. But science doesn’t address situations like one individual’s ability and desire to love and nurture another human, or the right to raise a family as he or she sees fit, regardless of sexual preference. And with the many ways at our disposal to have a child—biologically, adoption, in vitro—the only true criteria anymore is one’s willingness to do the work. And let’s face it, raising a child is much more challenging than conceiving one.
When children are too young to understand sexual orientation (and, frankly, couldn’t care less), the measures of successful parenting are meeting a child’s physical and emotional requirements, keeping them safe, and having a little fun. Those early years set the foundation for positive values. And if two loving parents happen to be of the same sex, I’m confident that the crying baby, who’s just happy to have a snuggle, isn’t concerned.
I would imagine that as adolescence approaches, the logistics could become complicated. But regardless of the composition of one’s parents, no teen is immune to the trials of homework, peer pressure and puberty. And surely no parent—gay, straight, man or woman—slides by without stress either.
The reality of family life is that all parties are constantly learning, and none of us is in a position to judge what happens in someone else’s home. In this way, sexual orientation is no different from ethnicity or someone’s job.
Children benefit from the different strengths of fathers and mothers, and for that matter, males and females. And yes, according to biology, having one parent of each is preferable. But when the girl with two mothers in Sophia’s class hurts herself and calls “Mommy,” she’d probably say that two are most certainly better than one.
Well Said. The capacity to procreate does not a parent make. A parent, or parents, by definition is one who has the capacity, and willingness, to parent. There are strict requirements, however, to qualify. They include, but are not limited to, having the capacity to love, to govern, to forgive, to nurture, to be strict, to be compassionate, to provide stability and freedom, to guide, to inspire, and to know when to do what. Holy Smokes WHAT a challenge. Hats off to you and T. for filling the bill(s).
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