Meeting Needs

 Meeting Needs

So there has been a lot of talk in my recent class about the facts about arguments and how all your ideas need to be supported with evidence that is real and without drastic flaws of which we saw much in the case of whether or not homosexual parents have a negative effect on their children. What my mind was caught up on as the discussion went round and round was that we were generalizing a lot. Now this was apropriate due to the paper that was also making generalizations about homosexual parents and heterosexual parents. But as I sat in class discussing this, many classmates started to talk about their own broken homes and how important mothers and fathers were in the home and whether or not you’d want a bad father or no father at all. 

My main take away from the discussion was a renewed faith in the resilience of children given loving environments. I say that mothers and fathers are so important but I feel like there is a more relevant conversation to have. I think healthy relationships are more important than mothers and fathers. I saw a lot of generalizations about different family situations and I think that any situation a family is in can be significantly better if the needs of those in the situation are being met. If we were to make generalizations let’s not stop at single, married, homosexual, or heterosexual. Let’s look at how a homosexual couple may not have their needs met because of the way they  live their lives, the way others treat them, and how we can predict the kind of environment any person would raise a child if those needs were not met in any person. I am under the opinion that it is not about sexual preference that determines the kind of parent one is, but completely dependent on the reaction anyone would have to certain needs such as being loved, feeling valued, having sufficient to live, and variety not being met. I believe that if we look at struggling couples and families of any sexual orientation we will find that similar needs are not being met across the spectrum.

For instance, if we find a person of any sexual orientation in a relationship or state of mind that would not be a good environment to raise a child in, I reject the idea that sexual orientation or singlness objectively makes one situation more profitable than another. It is clear that a traditional nuclear family can have great value to a community and to the children of that family. But many times it has been seen that even though those in the family are heterosexual and married, there can still me many problems within a family. I know of many families that fall under the traditional Christian, heterosexual, and married category, but those situations were far from sunshine and rainbows. There was parents fighting in the house and child abuse. Besides that, the idea of fathers with alcoholism is way too common of a stereotype to consider that just because someone follows a social sexul trend of marrying the opposite gender and having kids, it does not magically make the kids grow up in a healthy environment. 

Whether or not you have a father or a mother, it does not determine who you will turn out to be. Are there common problems for those in those situations? Absolutely! But is not the single father, it is not the homosexual couple, it is not the single lesbian mother that makes the a toxic environment for children. It is the health of those around children. Does the child receive love? Does the child go to sleep crying every night? Does the child go to bed hungry often? Does the child have fun? Children are resilient and can grow to be wonderfully successful even with one solitary, lonely, amazing, lesbian, single mother.