Today is Father’s Day in the US. In Australia, Father’s Day is in September, when the weather starts to get a little warmer and a picnic wouldn’t be out of order.
I was perusing the Google News feed and I smacked into this insulting piece of patriarchical propaganda that almost made me lose my breakfast. It is written by some godbag who believes that fathers are somehow not doing their jobs of making men into men and women into cowering doormats.
He paints what I would consider a terrifying picture of his father: An overbearing, abusive, fanatically religious tyrant, who used “the lash” to get his attention. However, this author clearly saw his father as the perfect patriarch.
It’s an obvious reaction to the recent long-term study that lesbian couples raise more well adjusted kids than hetero couples. Perhaps it was the lack of sexual oppression in a home of only women. Perhaps men are *gasp* not necessary to make a child, boy or girl, grow up into a healthy, happy adult person. Perhaps, even, men are a hindrance as a parent rather than a helpful force.
As a straight person (well, bisexual, but in a straight relationship), I am not threatened by this study. I have known several people who were raised in lesbian households and they were no different than people who weren’t. No better, no worse. I mean, they were, of course unique individuals like anyone else, but they were not especially notable as being more well adjusted or anything like that. I think what is important is that a child be praised, given structure and have parents and a loving support system. A child needs that bank of love upon which to draw.
What the sanctimonious godbag who wrote that stupid piece of Father’s Day shaming failed to take into account is that donating some DNA does not give a man the right to call himself a father. He’s seriously begging the question when he assumes that all men are equipped to be fathers. Yes, a child needs parents, but just because some d00d spurts his sperm into a woman’s baby hole, that doesn’t make him quality parenting material. What makes a man parenting material is compassion, responsibility, maturity, the ability and willingness to put in the time and effort to make life as good as possible for his offspring. What if the child’s biological donor is a complete asshat? What if he’s a kiddie fiddler? What if he’s a Godsmack fan? What kind of father would that kind of man be? What about the dads who are around but who simply suck at being a dad? Like the author’s tyrannical, bible bashing, macho man? Or the guys who do things like this? Wouldn’t a child be better off without a complete fuckwit setting a bad example? I certainly think so.
I chose to marry my partner because I wanted to stay in Australia. I wanted to stay in Australia because I wanted to have a long term partnership with a man with whom I had fallen in love. I took advantage of the privilege set up in the system for hetero couples and married him according to the carefully heterocentric wording required to get married in this state. I had a baby with him because I thought he would be a good parent and it’s proven true. We have a wonderful baby and a great partnership. We provide a loving household and try to set good examples for our offspring so that he will grow into a loving, responsible adult. And that hasn’t anything to do with the gender of us as parents.
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Poly Momma 