Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Does One Really Need Both a Mom and a Dad?


Since the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, much has been posted about the need for children to  be raised in a two-parent traditional family.  Gay parents?  Single parents?  Such "disadvantaged" children are destined for bad outcomes!


There is absolutely no data to support this.  We all know of many children raised by single parents who have had successful and productive lives - Presidents Clinton and Obama being the prime examples!  As a matter of fact, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were raised by their moms; their fathers having died when they were quite young.  Andrew Jackson's father died before the future president was born.  Eleanor Roosevelt's parents died when she was very young and the future First Lady and UN Ambassador was raised by her grandmother.

Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Jodie Foster, Robert DeNiro, and Judy Garland, among others, are children of a gay parent.  They became rather successful as well, wouldn't you say?

Interestingly, the three mass murderers of the 20th Century were raised by a father and a mother.  They may have had difficult childhoods, but Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung had both a mother and a father. The 21st Century villain Osama bin Laden also was raised by a mom and dad! I guess you could call them "successful" if you will, but hardly children their  mothers and fathers could be proud of!