From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2003 - 20:38:55 MDT
From: "Charles Hixson" <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
> Damien Sullivan wrote:
>
> >On Mon, Apr 07, 2003 at 08:29:02AM -0700, Charles Hixson wrote:
> >
> >Women, and men who like women not in traditional roles, might think there
have> >been some improvements as well. Sexual revolution, women admitted
more to> >technical colleges and jobs...
> >
> Those are social gains, I admit. But the costs have been tremendous.
> My wife is a music teacher, and she reports that the ability of students
> to learn is quite strongly related to whether or not the mother is
> working (as other than a mother). Women who choose to be childless have
> benefited a lot, and those who needed to escape an abusive
> relationship. Otherwise, I'm not at all sure.
Historically speaking, the nuclear family model (monogamous heterosexual
"parent units" and their 2.+ kids, with the male working to support the
female for all or part of the time while nurturing young 'uns) is a
relatively recent one. Yet, our (U.S.) society is biased to the needs of
that nuclear family model, and subtly (sometimes not so subtly) penalizes
family units built on a different model (a parent who may choose to rear a
child without a partner, as in the case of males - heterosexual or not - who
are now finally able to adopt whether or not they're married, or females who
opt to go the sperm bank route). Ever hear of the term "broken family?"
"Broken family" is used to describe any family not fitting that historically
new but already old model (due to the influence of The Pill, other
scientific advances in birthing options, and the maturation of our society -
sadly, the latter mainly due to birth of recent antidiscrimination laws,
born after a difficult labor evidenced by a lot of kicking and screaming).
If one penalizes children right from the get-go by insinuating ... ohhhhhh,
this Johnny or that Mary come from a "broken family," ohhhhh ... why wonder
if they may have a difficult time of it?
As a society we will have to wend our way through this period of transition,
and concentrate on what can be done to benefit all children - not just the
ones from the approved family model. The costs may indeed be tremendous for
a time, but the benefits may be even more tremendous eventually - and for
everyone concerned. In any case, the new emerging mores due in large part
to to new emerging technologies have opened up many options for people - and
that's good. Like it or not ... we AREN'T going back to the old economic
systems and the daddy-mommy-junior-sis+tuna-casserole-for-dinner "lifestyle"
(although the latter will surely remain as one option).
Olga
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