I think a recent opinion piece published in the University of South Florida’s campus newspaper, by Akshita Sathe, is instructive in terms of how a person seemingly raised by a male-female couple shouldn’t discuss parenting by same-sex couples. It launches into such territory when Sathe explains her opposition to same-sex parenting by noting, “It just sounds odd saying that one has ‘two mommies’ or ‘two daddies.’ ” The author herself notes that she supports same-sex marriage, but apparently fails to recognize that the precise same argument was already trotted out with regard to there being two brides or two grooms as sounding just as strange to some people’s ears.
And that of course gets to the heart of it – her opposition to same-sex parents being recognized as precisely that is in part based on how she understands other people’s lives to be, not how they actually are. There’s other indications that Sathe is more imagining my life than actually interested in how I think about it. In fact, that’s her actual word choice – “imagine the trauma” she asks, concerning what “a child would have to go through to explain his or her family to others for the rest of the child’s life”. She elaborates on that with references to “social stigma at school”.
I can tell you about all the unpleasantness of that if you’d only asked, Sathe, but I’d be quite frank that the problem isn’t that my family is different but that our difference is seen as something we must justify. Sometimes there’s apparently no justification great enough for us to be given the right to legal existence. The problem is not my family. The problem is you and the stigmas you’re excusing yourself from helping us fight.
Beyond presuming she knows the solution to this political problem better than those affected, Sathe also insists that she knows the personal experiences and opinions of those of us with same-sex parents. She explains, “Naturally, a child of homosexual parents is going to want to find their real, biological parents.” Let’s point out the obvious – she assumes that no same-sex couple will intentionally raise their children knowing any additional biological parents. Likewise, given those experiences, many of us do feel how she described us to, but the idea that we all inevitably do is laughable. We’re not carbon copies of each other in terms of responding to rather broad social experiences.
There’s also the added benefit of discussing who our ‘real’ parents are – not only does Sathe want to avoid legally recognizing some of our parental relationships, but she can’t even conceptualize that we might view the same-sex couples who raised us as our real, actual parents.
Eerily enough, I don’t think Sathe will ever become aware of the fact that some of us just might disagree with her entire understanding of our lives. She mentions at one point that she’s not comfortable drawing conclusions about people like me (notice that didn’t stop her in the slightest though!), but there’s a lack of research on us. That rarity is caused in turn by “the lack of a sound population of families with two same-sex parents.” In other words, I can’t be trusted to honestly report on my experiences being raised by a same-sex couple. No one like me can. But Akshita Sathe apparently can decide that my life was full of what she considers strangeness, and difficulties, and unknowns, so therefore it shouldn’t have been ever lived.
Tags: akshita sathe, children with same-sex parents, conceptions of family, oracle, psychology, university of south florida
Categories: Fatherhood, Motherhood
Inter-racial children face a lot more stigma than the children of same-sex couples.
Ms. Sathe, whose parents deserve condemnation for stigmatizing her with an unpronounceable first name, represents quite well the anti-gays’ argument though: “I’m uncomfortable with, and disapproving of, your existence and the legitimization of your existence, therefore you cannot be legally allowed to be, or do, something.” This pattern of thought is often applied in even more absurd forms, such as “you can be, but you can’t acknowledge your existence,” as in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, of the Boy Scouts policy of admitting gay scouts, so long as they “Don’t tell.”
Excellent response, Matthew. Thank you for rebutting this young woman who presumes that she understands things she does not. In fact, her essay, like many of the commentaries I see about same-sex marriage, suffers from a failure of the moral imagination. Instead of trying to see things from the perspective of those whose lives are most affected by the discrimination against same-sex people and same-sex parents, they presume to know things they cannot possibly know.
Thank you for posting, Matt N.
Matt:
Yes. This piece really tells us more about her than the subject she is opining upon.
It’s not just her. This is the underlying assumption of most “think of the children” arguments that makes me uncomfortable. seriously, I cannot count the number of comments here that essentially boil down to the commentator lacking the imagination of how some else could have any joy having a life that was different from the commentator’s own life.
This is not a good example, but it struck a nerve (I am confident someone will come along to give a really text book example soon enough)
Kevin:
As charter member of the “funny” (read: not anglo-saxon) name club, let me be the first to say I wish there was a civil way to call this racist BS for what it is but there isn’t so… plththtzllthtlz (best raspberry I can muster). My name has brought me some difficulties and some joy. I am proud of it’s history and it has proven useful for sorting out the people who are worth getting to know better. (PS – Other than that, I agree. This is pattern of punishing someone because their existence gives you the weirdies has a long sordid history especially for gays).
Excellent article, Matt N.
Thank you, Matt, for this. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the importance of centering queer families in the discussion about … queer families, and how so often we are NOT trusted to speak truth about our own experiences. Obviously one family’s experience (mine, yours, my four-year-old friend L. who has a trans* parent, my lesbian friends from college who just had their first child…) cannot stand in for larger studies, but larger studies ARE being done. And the intellectual laziness of someone like Ms. Sathe who hasn’t bothered to look at the narratives and studies available (a recent example being Family Pride by Michael Shelton, published by Beacon Press) is really frustrating. Don’t claim the information isn’t available when, in fact, a quick survey of the literature will show you that it is.
Re: As charter member of the “funny” (read: not anglo-saxon) name club, let me be the first to say I wish there was a civil way to call this racist BS for what it is but there isn’t so… plththtzllthtlz (best raspberry I can muster).
Oh, give me a break. This is politically correct silliness of the first rank. I’m of Indian ethnicity too, as is Ms. Sathe (her name sounds Marathi), and I certainly didn’t mind. I’d be the first to acknowledge that many Tamil names are entirely unpronounceable to English speakers, and I mostly just laugh about it. English names like ‘Heather’ would be equally unpronounceable to most people around the world.
Incidentally, it isn’t even logically possible for what Kevin said to be ‘racist BS’. Making fun of someone’s name (which Kevin wasn’t doing) is making fun of a culture, not a race. I’m pretty sure most of us laugh at foreign names we find amusing, on occasion.
“As charter member of the “funny” (read: not anglo-saxon) name club, let me be the first to say I wish there was a civil way to call this racist BS for what it is but there isn’t so….”
There is nothing racist about pointing out the child with an uncommon or unconventional name spends a disproportionate amount of time getting stigmatized, either by accidental or purposeful mispronunciation or misspelling of that name. It is by no means limited to non-white people. And many kids develop a strong resentment of their parents for choosing an unconventional (in spelling, in culture, in reference) name for them, because of the unwanted attention (read: stigma).
A former student of mine, a black woman, was named by her mother “D’licious”. It’s easy to hear the giggles by people of all races, who speak English, to meet someone whose name sounds exactly like “delicious”!
You know Matt I think studies are lame. Each person is too unique outside their sexual orientation to say that gay parents are like this or straight parents are like that. Too many variables that have to actually do with personal character and have to do with actually raising children influence whether people are good or bad at it – things that afflict straights and gays equally like say being a work-a-holic, or being an alcoholic, or being a pre school teacher or a pediatrician. So its really up to the kid to determine how they feel about who raises them.
Its up to society to make sure the people raising kids gain control over them in an ethical way. Donor conception is legal but not ethical because it results in unequal rights for the donor’s offspring and it involves treating humans as objects in contractual agreements for parental title.
As far as you’ve described that is not your situation. You are completely empowered in ways many of your peers raised by same sex couples may not be. Many of your peers raised by opposite sex couples may also not be as empowered and well situated as you either. It’s not about the gender of the people raising you its about the ethics of what it took to obtain you and who you had to loose in order for them to have a crack at raising you. The level of their influence in having one or both bio parents fail is going to have a big impact on how a person views who raises them whether that person is gay or straight says nothing of their ethical path to legal parenthood.
I am very suspicious of anyone who seeks full legal parenthood over a child that is someone else’s offspring – just skip right past the adoption just skip right past the roll as step parent just black market yourself right on to an original birth record as if you were their only family because you paid or you intended yourself to be there.
Just be mindful that the author of that article is wrong to glom all kids with gay or lesbian mothers or fathers into one group and, don’t in turn glom all kids with gay or lesbian mothers or fathers into one group when responding either. In the end your common denominator with the rest of the planet is that you have mothers and fathers like every other person who ever lived and they are either good or bad, absent or present. You may or may not have additional people in parental rolls social adoptive or step or foster or guardians.
marilynn, great analysis of this whole thing! I thought it was vaguely ironic that Matt titled this post “Don’t make this about you” and then went on to make it about him. You explained the irony much more clearly than I could. Exactly, it’s silly and meaningless to take any one person’s personal experience, or even take a giant sample study of lots of people, because every person’s situation and empowerment and satisfaction has more to do with so many other things than the sex or orientation of their guardians, and their satisfaction isn’t the most important thing from a societal viewpoint anyhow. Society needs to be concerned with maintaining society as a whole and ethical standards in general into the future.
Donor conception is also not a right, even though it is legal. Anything that is a right is ethical, and anything that is ethical is right, those terms are pretty much synonymous. There may be some exceptions, but the idea of something being a right is that it is unreservedly approved and fully ethical, it is not merely that it is legal. Things that are legal are not necessarily ethical or a right, lots of things that are legal are not ethical and could be prohibited. If something is a right, people never have reason to be upset with someone for doing something wrong or unethical, and it cannot be prohibited.
Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting! : )
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Marilynn: “You know Matt I think studies are lame. Each person is too unique outside their sexual orientation to say that gay parents are like this or straight parents are like that.”
Manny: “marilynn, great analysis of this whole thing!”
And yet…
Manny: “it’s silly and meaningless to take any one person’s personal experience, or even take a giant sample study of lots of people”
I think you might want to reread her post again, Manny.
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Manny: “I thought it was vaguely ironic that Matt titled this post ‘Don’t make this about you’ and then went on to make it about him.”
Do you honestly think this society should have a discussion about legally recognizing same-sex parents without even acknowledging the perspectives of people who, like me, were raised by same-sex couples? Because, yes, I am going to make this discussion at least a little bit about me, since it has played a large role in determining my rights, my security, and my experiences over the course of my life and will continue to do so.
“Anything that is a right is ethical, and anything that is ethical is right, those terms are pretty much synonymous.”
The idea of equating legality and ethics strikes me as not only terrifyingly dangerous but innately quixotic. Ethics are by definition debated and contested, whereas laws are limited to what’s explicitly codified. Most ethical systems acknowledge “gray areas,” whereas legality works with a binary of legal/illegal. Ethics tend to posit their universality, whereas laws are bound to their jurisdictions. I could go on like this all day. Any total equation of them is going to be a comparison of apple to oranges.
I was agreeing with Marilynn that each person and situation is too unique for any one variable to make a difference. Yes, I honestly think we shouldn’t be swayed by personal testimony, it’s too biased, and irrelevant: even if 100% of donor conceived people were super happy about their situation, it is still unethical. I bet children of embezzlers are happy with their wealth too, and upset when their parents are caught and put in jail.
I didn’t equate legality and ethics, I equated ethics and rights. And then, because there are grey areas and a need for liberty and freedom, I said: “Things that are legal are not necessarily ethical or a right, lots of things that are legal are not ethical and could be prohibited.” Not all things that are unethical and not a right should be prohibited, my point is that, because they are not rights, they could be. Things that are rights cannot be prohibited.
I’m not sure an article by a college freshman deserves this much attention. Don’t make it about you, make it about me and my experience is an odd framing for an argument.
Surely children of divorce, children of unwed moms, children with intact biological moms, children with same-sex parents, children with single gay parents, all have individual points of view–and views that change with time, maturity and experience.
“Have no norms” around any family structure, lest you be accused of interfering with someone’s right to their own experience is one possible response.
I’m glad you posted Matt and glad you are happy with the family you grew up in. Have you thought about the family you want to create and how that will happen? Curious –its an honest question. Maggie
Maggie writes:
““Have no norms” around any family structure, lest you be accused of interfering with someone’s right to their own experience is one possible response.”
Here is another possible response:
““I needed a father, but you preferred your fun. You passed laws that would reward my mother for not marrying my father. You hated marriage, because marriage brings a man into a family, and marriage restrains. You winked and smiled while my mother brought a series of irresponsible men into my life, none of whom was my father. They were dangerous. When they grew violent, you herded them into your corral, which you called ‘Domestic Violence.’ You refused to distinguish between husbands and these others. Thus did you continue to tear marriage down, and subject me and mine to more of the violence you pretended to decry.
“I needed a father, and you gave me the gang leader selling crack cocaine.
“I needed a father, and you laughed and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. Then you gave me a prison trusty.
“I needed a coach, to keep me in line during the difficult years, but you cut my teams and rosters. You called it ‘fairness’ to my sisters, and hugged yourselves for your enlightenment.
“I used to have a YMCA, but you turned it into a day-care center for people like you.
“I needed a father to show me how to love women, and you gave me porn.
“I once had virtue, the poor man’s heritage, but you trained me in vice.
“I needed a mother, and you, having taken my father away, did your best to take my mother away also. You had your work as doctors and lawyers, but my mother worked as a cleaning woman in one of your office buildings. When I grew overweight from the junk you made, because she wasn’t around to cook, you declared a War on Obesity, and profited by it.
“I needed a father, I always needed a father, and you turned your back on me, and told me what you knew was a lie, that a mother or two mothers or a mother and a boyfriend would do just as well. When it didn’t work out, you blamed everything but your own selfishness.
“I needed a father, and you were too busy with your sexual innovations to notice it.
“I needed a married mother and father, what every child needs, what every child has a right to, and you told me to go to hell.
“I went to hell, and have brought it back with me.”
Maggie writes:
I think this is a mis-leading characterization of Matt N’s argument, Maggie. While he is, on one level, saying “don’t make this about you, make this about me” the “you” in this instance is the group of people who are not members of queer families, and the “me” is the group of people who are from those families. Which, as Matt himself points out in an earlier comment, is a pretty key notion: the idea that the people most directly affected by the policies around same-sex couples and their family-formation rights are the people whose voices should be centered in the debate over those policies.
I think it’s a mis-leading false equivalence here to suggest that the “you” and the “me” are just being traded out for one another, each argument as self-centered as the other. In fact, Matt’s making a much larger political point about whose perspective should count when it comes to policy decision-making.
[...] tired of straight people from straight families saying they should be the ones to decide legal definitions of parenthood and accompanying policies to the explicit exclusion of members of queer [...]
Manny, Maggie, and Karen: I think Anna’s hit the nail on the head by saying, “the people most directly affected by the policies around same-sex couples and their family-formation rights are the people whose voices should be centered in the debate over those policies.”
One thing I’ve noticed through this discussion is that I’m pretty much the only one with an identified parentage. To have male-female parents is understood as such a universal status that a reference to such people maybe not being the most well-versed in what it’s like to have same-sex parents is taken as a statement about everyone.
Karen: That’s not really in contradiction with anything I’ve said. A crucial part of what I wrote about here is how through both private actions and political policy one of my parents has been browbeaten for being a mother to me, and how Sathe’s argument perpetuates that. I haven’t experienced the poverty and systemic inequalities mentioned in that post, but I have experienced other forms of secondary legal and social status that have been expressed sometimes in similar ways – including the denial of my parents’ rights and duties to me. I personally find that there’s common ground between what you quoted and what I wrote about above.
Maggie: “‘Have no norms’ around any family structure, lest you be accused of interfering with someone’s right to their own experience is one possible response.”
To clarify – I actually believe really, really strongly in having norms. But, and here’s the part that we do seem to disagree on, I think the opinions of those impacted by specific norms should have particular weight or failing that, at least be considered and included in the broader discussion. And by the way, your reference to “views that change with time, maturity and experience”, seems like a subtle way of asserting that I shouldn’t be sharing my perspective here because of my age.
Manny: “I bet children of embezzlers are happy with their wealth too, and upset when their parents are caught and put in jail.”
Embezzlers is a new group of criminals for my parents to be compared to, so thanks for at least going with an intriguing option. I’ll add that to the list along with pedophiles, zoophiliacs, and sexual predators. At least now they’re not all “sex crimes”? Progress!
Also, yes, I’m going to contest your point that donor conception is innately immoral or unethical, and the additional implication that coital conception is innately moral or ethical (unless you’re going to start denying things that actually happen – warning discussion of sexual assault!).
Beyond that, it’s kind of worrisome that you’ve sidetracked this discussion into donor-related issues. I considered tagging it with that, since Sathe does discuss those a bit in her article, but considering that the specific bone I decided to pick with her really didn’t have anything to do with method of conception, I didn’t. After all, a lot of people with same-sex parents had coital conceptions and were either adopted or are part of a blended family. The idea that only donor-conceived children could conceivably be part of a discussion on the needs and rights of queer families places those people outside of the discussion. That’s kind of exactly the thing I’m expressing my dislike for here.
Married conception through sexual intercourse is inherently ethical and a right, we need to protect against eugenic fitness tests and judgements that deny a married couple the right to have sex and produce offspring together. Donor conception is inherently unethical, as is all intentional conception, even by married couples.
I didn’t click on the link to the article, so I assumed you were talking about being donor conceived, not raised by same-sex parents, sorry. I don’t think same-sex parents are analogous to embezzlers, either.
Embezzlers is a new group of people for your parents to be compared to? Matt, the chip on your shoulder, seriously take a step back and make it not just about you. He was not comparing your particular mother or your particular mother’s spouse/partner to embezzlers. You keep forgetting that you said your father was abusive and that was the reason for separating you from him – totally freaking ethical reasonable thing to do. You don’t get to compare your situation to people whose mothers paid their fathers to make them and then abandon them so they could keep them all to themselves or assign them as child of their partners/spouses. And really who cares what the gender of they person is that your assigned to? What’s wrong about that situation is not that the gender of the mother’s partner its the wholesale objectification of her child deciding that she can just change the part of her child that she does not like and make them a different person by saying someone she likes better is their parent.
What I was saying is that as someone raised by his lesbian mother and her partner who had a very positive experience you have something important to say to the world and you say it quite eloquently I might add. You are a powerful speaker and its real clear that you are fiercely loyal and protective of them as your family. I’d be so proud if I were them. Now just don’t go forgetting that you are not among the group of people who were objectified by their bio parents where one buys the other one’s half out for lack of a better analogy. That is not your cause, not your concern and that’s cool. Just untangle the issues enough so that you can see the difference between two women (or two men or a man and a woman) coming together to raise a child in a way that takes nothing from the child vs two women (or two men or a man and a woman) coming together to raise a child in a way that requires the child loose their identity and half their family.
Speaking out against commodification of human life and contracts where control of and parental title over people’s offspring are handled off the record and under the table.
Manny thanks.
I had the honor of being called a “way left, family reuniter from San Francisco” by Elizabeth recently and so I have to ask you a question about this “right” to have sex with a spouse. You might just be the one on here that schooled me and sent some text from a code that talks about adultery being illegal. In my state the word adultery does not appear in the text of any code or any law. So do you have some text from some law that says married people have a right to have sex with their spouse which I assume to mean that they can take it by force against their spouses will or something? Where I live people have the right to have sex with another consenting adult or two or three or whatever. Government does not get involved in that sort of thing and marriage is just a property gig.
I favor people being responsible for their offspring regardless of their marital status because its the fair thing to do and places responsibility people that influenced others to cause children to exist (like buying gametes or embryos or surrogacy)
Marilynn: “He was not comparing your particular mother or your particular mother’s spouse/partner to embezzlers.”
Well, here’s what Manny said upthread: “Yes, I honestly think we shouldn’t be swayed by personal testimony, it’s too biased, and irrelevant: even if 100% of donor conceived people were super happy about their situation, it is still unethical. I bet children of embezzlers are happy with their wealth too, and upset when their parents are caught and put in jail.”
So your stipulations that my circumstances make my case unique are quite literally in Manny’s argument – “bias” or “irrelevancies”. Even if I’m happy that my parents were able to conceive me, albeit in an unusual way, and that the alternative was abusive, undesirable, and ultimately damaging to me and my family, Manny has made quite clear that what’s unethical (and perhaps in his view, illegal) are the circumstances of my conception. To make that point clear, he compared me to the child of embezzlers – so you can imagine who that makes my parents, right?
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Manny: “I didn’t click on the link to the article, so I assumed you were talking about being donor conceived, not raised by same-sex parents, sorry.”
Wait, so let me get this straight. The fact that I didn’t mention the word donor once in the post didn’t occur to you? But if you’d gone through to read the originally article by someone who wasn’t raised by a same-sex couple and noticed she hadn’t (or at least it wasn’t the center of her argument), then you would have realized that donor conception wasn’t the issue being discussed here? Please go reread what I posted here, because that’s exactly the dynamic that I complained about in the post you apparently didn’t absorb at all.
I would be offended except you that you also started talking about a right to sexual reproduction without even a throwaway reference to sexual consent right after I raised that as an issue. If you just aren’t listening to me, the fact that sexual consent isn’t part of your framework for ethical sexual relations is just an unfortunate and terrifying absence. If the absence of that was deliberate though, well, I’m just going to leave because that battle was finally settled in the US two decades ago with the criminalization of spousal rape.
But presuming you just weren’t paying attention to what I was posting in the comments, just like you didn’t really read my original post, are you seriously arguing that banning large numbers of people from reproducing is a struggle against eugenics? Because from where I’m sitting, the wholesale criminalization of donor conception would prevent a lot of people from reproducing – in part because I consider reproduction as much a social as biological act, but also because what of couples were one of the parents is biologically related to their donor-conceived children?
Aren’t you essentially saying that (whether because of medical infertility or the fact that two people are the same sex) anyone who is capable of reproducing but chooses to live their lives with some who can’t (or someone that they can’t reproduce with at least), it’s acceptable for neither of them to ever have children because it would require (gasp) planning? Isn’t that essentially you telling a lot of people that they can’t have children because they’re different? You know who else said that?
I’m deeply skeptical that you’ll propose banning all birth control which large numbers of male-female couples use in order to prevent pregnancies and control the circumstances under which women become pregnant. And even if that is part of your ethical platform, that seems by far the most dubious thing to actually become law. In any case, if your ethics are ever translated into policy, the most likely impact seems to be that only some couples will have access to reproduction and an ability to control their access of it. In short, it will narrow the number of people who are effectively allowed to breed – which is one definition of eugenics.
Matt N writes:
“… but I have experienced other forms of secondary legal and social status that have been expressed sometimes in similar ways – including the denial of my parents’ rights and duties to me….”
Ooookayy, maybe it’s the definition of “parents right and duties” that this the disconnect?
I’m not talking about law, I’m talking about principle – that’s probably the reason why we have a disconnect.
Karen, that “possible response” does not appear to come from a child who was raised in a broken home. It’s a reactionary rant with quotes slapped around it.
mythago writes:
“Karen, that “possible response” does not appear to come from a child who was raised in a broken home. It’s a reactionary rant with quotes slapped around it.”
I don’t know the details about the person’s background who wrote this. If I had to guess though, this person did not come from an intact stable marriage between his mother and father.
I shared this only because, there is a MUCH bigger picture involved in this debate about the state of our culture and family and as Matt says “Don’t make this about you”. It’s about ALL of *us*. Humanity. Where we are taking ourselves as a society.
I think my guess might have been wrong
But not sure how much that matters.
No no, the point is, no one from outside the marriage can stop the marriage from exercising that right that they share together, with each other exclusively. They can’t force each other at any particular time to do anything, whether it is have sex or cook dinner or watch a television show. But though a spouse could refuse to ever watch television and cook dinner, a spouse cannot refuse to ever have sex or procreate, an ongoing long term refusal would be grounds for annulment or divorce, if the other spouse desires (grounds are not needed anymore, but back in the day, refusal to have sex was grounds, infertility was not). Marriage is supposed to be consent to have sex and procreate together, exclusively, and it is also the right to do so, no one can tell them they do not have the right to have sex or procreate.
Wait, prohibiting donor conception would not ban anyone from reproducing. Everyone has a right to marry and reproduce with their spouse. There is no guarantee, there is no “right to a child,” either biologically-related or not, just a right to marry and have sex with your spouse and an expectation and responsibility (not an absolute right) to raise any children that result. Yes, it is acceptable that people that want children often times do not have children. I want a yacht and a big swimming pool too.