Some research conducted at the University of Melbourne is being widely reported in the media. It is being used to claim that gays are better parents.
In reality the research doesn't prove much one way or the other. Why? Because it is based on a self-selected sample and the data was self-reported (the gay parents themselves filled in a questionnaire about their family life).
The researcher who conducted the survey is himself in a gay relationship and raising children.
For what it's worth, I know of one lesbian couple who are raising children. They are of a very high income and educational level. Their two children were more emotionally turbulent as young children than the average, but settled a lot as they got older. The boy is very likeable but at this stage probably won't be as masculine as average (we'll see). From that tiny sample, it seems to me that this type of family will give its children a better start than some heterosexual families where one or both of the parents has poor parenting skills. But two capable heterosexual parents will give a child the best start.
One final point. The recklessness with which some people in the media are reporting the "gays are better parents" line is very interesting. It's like watching people lob around an atomic bomb. Imagine if the idea caught on that lesbians were better parents than heterosexual couples. The implication of that would be that men don't add anything to family life as men. And the implication of that would be that men should turn their focus to things other than the family, things where their masculinity actually mattered and made a difference.
It is utterly foolish for a society to promote ideas that are likely to demoralise the male paternal instinct.
The implication of that would be that men don't add anything to family life as men.
ReplyDeleteFeminists have been pushing that meme for decades. Perhaps Australia is behind the curve on this matter.
It is utterly foolish for a society to promote ideas that are likely to demoralise the male paternal instinct.
Too late.
It is utterly foolish for a society to promote ideas that are likely to demoralise the male paternal instinct.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to deconstruct the majority so thoroughly that it can never be the majority again, it's a great idea.
It's almost like someone doesn't want white men to marry and reproduce!
ReplyDeleteSeems like something out of the Orwellian dystopian novel Animal Farm. Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others? That's about how they view it.
ReplyDeleteJust like women and men are equal, yet women are more equal than men, the same way heterosexuals and the alphabet freak LGBTQPPI are equal, yet the LGBTQPPI are more equal than normal heterosexuals.
Touché.
regarding the researcher and his conclusions: pick up a copy of any social science research methods textbook and you will find that "advocacy research" is now an accepted form of research in that scholarly field. i.e., objectivity is not even expected.
ReplyDelete@ Justin,
ReplyDeleteYeah that's the same postmodernist crap that escaped from the English department and is now polluting countless other fields.
In the late 1990s, Richard J. Evans said that postmodernist historians believe that the purpose of history is not to search for objective truth, but to take a moral or political position:
“Ultimately, if political or moral aims become paramount in the writing of history, then scholarship suffers. Facts are mined to prove a case; evidence is twisted to suit a political purpose; inconvenient documents are ignored; sources deliberately misconstrued or misinterpreted. If historians are not engaged in the pursuit of truth, if the idea of objectivity is merely a concept designed to repress alternative points of view, then scholarly criteria become irrelevant in assessing the merits of a particular historical argument. This indeed is the ultimate goal of some postmodernists.”