A new place for chidren in the family

Marriage used to be about family, about creating a place where children could grow and thrive. Children used to be, if not actually the centre, at least part of what was central to the meaning of family. Not that every family had children, any more than every vehicle is pulled by a horse. But, just as "horsepower" is the standard by which we measure vehicles, so "good for children" was how we measured family structure.

That is changing. A recent Town Hall article by
Kathleen Parker, "Parent A and Parent B -- and baby makes C?" highlights the next step in those changes.

The form for birth certificates presumes children have a mother and father. This hasn't been particularly controversial, since the biological fact is children have a mother and a father. In Massachusetts, the only US state that fully endorses same-sex marriage, this has begun to be controversial -- as it no doubt will be in Canada, and as in other countries as the recognition of same-sex marriage spreads. While biology hasn't changed, legalities have changed. Children may have a mother and a father, or they may have two fathers or two mothers. The legal reality and the biological reality are different.

In order to fully normalize their families, homosexual couples have asked Massachusetts to revise the birth certificate forms to name, not "mother" and "father," but "parent A" and "parent B." But this change in name does not change reality. While it may be comforting for the same-sex couple involved, it leaves out information the child may one day need.

As Parker writes, "What we know but the courts apparently choose to ignore is that identity and selfhood are rooted, in part, in our biological origins. Adopted children seek out biological parents in their quest for identity. Genealogical organizations do a brisk business as families try to reconstruct their lineage."

Of course, sorting out that heritage today can be an increasingly difficult task. "Now with technology, sperm donors and 'uterobots' -- women willing to sell or give away the flesh of their flesh -- any random collection of human beings can 'parent.'" A child's birth heritage is getting increasingly confused and complicated.

Parker notes,

Throughout our culture, children have become objectified, "thingified," created or acquired for the fulfillment of our selves - decor options, accessories, cute little bundles for our entertainment and amusement....

As long as children are viewed as mere extensions of our selves, put here to satisfy some narcissistic need for self-actualization, it is easy to suppose that our needs and their needs are complementary. If same-sex marriage is what "I" need, then two same-sex parents are what "my" child needs.

For years, people have debated the relative roles of nature and nurture in the development of personality. For most people, this is a relatively academic debate. For people raised in their birth families, the source of their nature and nurture are the same. It's tough to understand why the issue of birth certificates matters. But for those in other kinds of families, the importance of knowing both the source of one's nature and nurture is a more pressing reality.

Consider, for example, the push by adopted children for access to their original birth records. This is sometimes unfortunately called a search for their "real" parents. Most adoptees don't deny the reality of their adoptive families or the importance of the people who nurtured them as "real" parents. Still, there's a gnawing sense that something's missing without access to information about their "birth" parents.

There's the practical matter of medical history and the genetic and biological roots we now know lie behind many illnesses. But more, we also know at least part of our personality, part of "who we are" comes from how we were born. Anyone who has wondered how two such different children can come from the same family has noticed this.

One of the great ironies of this is the push for legal recognition of same-sex couples comes from just this insight. Sexual orientation, they have argued, is a fact of birth not nurture. It's not something one becomes through nurture, but something one was born to be. It comes, they say, not from one's nurturing parents, but from one's birth parents.

Someday children may want or need to know the birth heritage that has helped make them who they are. And they will need some way to know, not just their legal parents, but also their birth parents.

Parker concludes, "What's really behind the push for biology-neutral birth certificates isn't fairness, or equal rights, but the elimination of any biological/procreative connection to parenthood."