Re: Having Dads makes you Happy

At 08:55 AM Sunday 7/11/2010, Charlie Bell wrote:

>On 11/07/2010, at 11:40 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:
>
> >
> > I had in mind more the conditions that lead to the need for such 
> neologisms as "baby daddy" or other terms to indicate a parent who 
> is little if at all involved in the lives of either the child or 
> the "baby mama(s)" he impregnated.
> >
> > IOW, it takes a lot more than biology to be a "Dad" (which has 
> been the point made by some others in this thread also.  Indeed 
> biology is not always even necessary:  a couple who want a child 
> enough to adopt one may be every bit as good parents as a couple 
> who have their own wanted and loved biological child to whose 
> well-being they are committed.)
>
>I have never met my "biological parents". I know nothing about them 
>(other than their genes were clearly awesome ;-) )



Yeah, me too, on both counts.



> >> Dave
> >>
> >> Heather Has Two Mommies Maru
> >
> >
> >
> > There was a recent (announced this year, at least) study that 
> seems to show that if Heather was born to two mommies who were 
> already in a committed relationship when one of them became 
> pregnant via donor she is probably as well-adjusted, etc., as 
> Tiffany who comes from an intact two-parent (one of each sex) 
> family.  Of course I'm not the only person whose immediate 
> conclusion was that the extra time, trouble, and expense involved 
> in the conception via donor indicates that Heather's two mommies 
> clearly planned for and wanted her.  So the best thing for the kids 
> is clearly to have their parents in the same house and committed to 
> each other (in the words of the old the nursery rhyme, "First comes 
> love, then comes marriage, *then* comes a baby in a baby 
> carriage.") and the kids rather than living on opposite ends of 
> town or even in different cities or states and keeping the kids 
> almost constantly on the run back and forth between them, even if 
> they don't engage in the additional reportedly-all-too-common 
> practice of each trying to influence the kids against the other.
>
>Yep, pretty much what I was saying a few posts ago. Parenting is 
>about commitment, responsibility, love, and not a little bit of luck too.



My real* parents did an extraordinary job, especially considering 
what they had to work with.

______
*You will no doubt figure from this that whenever someone finds out 
I'm adopted and asks, "So what about your 'real' parents?" I always 
tell them that the parents who put up with me and sat with me in the 
ER and later the hospital room and who repainted the kitchen after a 
couple of experiments took the paint off the ceiling and one wall and 
... are my _real_ parents.



>Single parents can do it too (and people seem too forget that single 
>parents are just as often bereaved as unmarried, so there's no 
>choice for a lot of them),



Absolutely!  I know at least one who not only had one of her own but 
took in foster children and adopted if I remember correctly three of 
the latter and raised at least the first one to college age before 
finding somebody and getting remarried a few months ago.



>  but it's a lot harder to do well on one's own.



Not least of the problems being simply earning enough to keep things 
going in a time when it seems more and more both parents have to work 
to make ends meet.


. . . ronn!  :)