but it isn't parenting, nathan. just ask the parents who've adopted children. or do they not count?
As the father of two kids (actually three, if you count our miscarriage last year), I can say with authority that you're mistaken if you think parenting starts when children are "shit out" (your gracious words). The entire process of preparing for the arrival is preparing to become parents. And yes, when children arrive on the scene, you have become a parent. You don't grow into one. You are one -- a point President Obama clearly made. (Hell, you start becoming a parent when you get the EPT and you suddenly show up at Kids'R'Us to empty the store of every safe baby appliance imaginable, for a kid who has months and months yet to arrive.) So yes, I can safely say, birthing a child is the core process of becoming a parent -- the defining moment. The one we all point to. That day, everything changed. I know it did for me, and I'm willing to bet it did for just about every parent in this forum. I even remember Bono talking about how the day his first daughter was born, he understood why men would fight wars.
Sure, there are other, much harder, much more complicated ways to become parents. I have friends who have adopted, done IVF, etc. They are perfectly capable parents. But biologically speaking, the way we have evolved (or were created, depending on your particular cup of tea) is reproduction through the pairing of opposite-sex mates. Can you really so easily and casually discount the biological role that gender distinctiveness and determinism plays in conception?
And if human beings are social creatures, who learn sociologically, where do you think we learn gender roles from? Certainly from the village you espouse; but first and foremost, from our families. Everything we understand about male and female sexuality comes first from our parents; it only takes a cursory reading of Freud to get that. So don't you think that it might be kind of valuable for girls to learn femininity from their mothers, and masculinity from their fathers? Obama sure thinks so, and he quotes some pretty significant statistics to back him up. Kids need mothers and fathers in healthy marriages -- and boys, in particular, need fathers. I'm not sure what's so controversial about this particular point.
so, again, nathan, and hopefully for the last time, what can a male parent do that a female parent cannot do? and, to push it just a bit further, do you think that anyone parents in a vacuum? or do parents rely on other people as well -- aunts, uncles, grandparents, coaches, teachers, other parents, older siblings, etc.? does it not take a village?
Sure it takes a village. But it starts with a family. And I can say with some authority that fathers and mothers parent differently, and that fathers and mothers parent their sons and their daughters differently. My wife and I certainly do. There are innate characteristics to boys and girls that differ wildly, that require different needs. Again, is this really such a controversial point?
you've pointed to parenting as a justification against marriage equality
No, you did. I was sitting casually by, minding my own business, until you asked the question, "What can men do that women can't?" I pointed out two answers. You disagreed. That's your right. But you're the one who brought it up, dude.
being a parent is not a requirement to marriage.
Actually, most people I know these days wait to get married until they want to have kids. So while it's not a requirement, it's certainly an expectation. Always has been, too.
your thinking on this is uncharacteristically blinkered, nathan.
Really? Recognizing differences between the sexes, and conjecturing that maybe there's some value to those differences when it comes to core social structures? I mean, your average science textbook recognizes such differences in primates. You really want to jump down my throat about that?
and it's a sideshow (that i've indulged) from what this thread is about: marriage equality.
You're the one who said it, dude. Don't get mad when other people call you on it.