Marriage Referendum question on mens rights

Disgruntled Badger

Disgruntled Badger wrote: »

translated: what does it matter what sex parents are? right or wrong?

Not sure what you are getting at here - nothing in my post requires a translation. It was all basic enough English.

The sex of a parent or parental combination is - to me - entirely irrelevant yes. The only question relevant to me is whether the things as child actually requires for a healthy and successful upbringing are being provided.

But as I said you appear to be simply making things up - including your quite false claim that I am clearly not a parent.

seamus

Deleted User wrote: »

The sex of a parent or parental combination is - to me - entirely irrelevant yes. The only question relevant to me is whether the things as child actually requires for a healthy and successful upbringing are being provided.

This, really.

I was thinking about it last night, and in reality what's important is the range of people that children are exposed to, not the sex of their parents.

We unconsciously acknowledge this - people who've lived "sheltered" lives we tend to consider them socially inept, innocent or just plain odd.

Ever see those kids who are homeschooled in the US and apart from going to church basically never interact with other people? They're weird.

What's plainly clear is that the number of parents you have or the sex of those parents makes absolutely no difference. A child still needs to interact with a wide variety of different people if they're going to find their own place in the world.

Thought experiment for people - you're a man with a child, whose mother has died. The only family member available to you is your own father. Given the choice between your own father or some random woman off the street to be your co-parent until the child is 18, who do you pick? If you're a woman obviously just reverse the genders.

zeffabelli

seamus wrote: »

This, really.

I was thinking about it last night, and in reality what's important is the range of people that children are exposed to, not the sex of their parents.

We unconsciously acknowledge this - people who've lived "sheltered" lives we tend to consider them socially inept, innocent or just plain odd.

Ever see those kids who are homeschooled in the US and apart from going to church basically never interact with other people? They're weird.

What's plainly clear is that the number of parents you have or the sex of those parents makes absolutely no difference. A child still needs to interact with a wide variety of different people if they're going to find their own place in the world.

Thought experiment for people - you're a man with a child, whose mother has died. The only family member available to you is your own father. Given the choice between your own father or some random woman off the street to be your co-parent until the child is 18, who do you pick? If you're a woman obviously just reverse the genders.

That's a different scenario because that is biological connection and heritage.

I' d love to know how they reconcile these theories with the blame they land on fatherless boys for the crime statistics, and how often children do really miss their same sex parent as they grow themselves in adulthood.

Sorry, but a child does deserve a mother AND a father. The grandparents provide lineage and generational continuity, absolutely NO comparison with same sex couples.

And your language about homeschooled kids being "weird..." so what if they are weird....that is the same argument and language people use about homosexuals and here you are using on kids!

seamus

zeffabelli wrote: »

That's a different scenario because that is biological connection and heritage.

Well it's not really. If children are best served in an environment with a mother and a father, then clearly an environment with two males is sub-par. But you're saying it's OK when both of those males are related to the child?

The fact that you refuse to answer the question kind of says it all. You don't really have an issue with two men raising a child provided that they're not a gay couple.

And your language about homeschooled kids being "weird..." so what if they are weird....that is the same argument and language people use about homosexuals and here you are using on kids!

It's anecdotal. In my experience, children who have been restricted to only interacting with their parents and siblings, have serious difficulties interacting with society in a normal manner. Anecdotally that suggests to me that the sex of parents is irrelevant, a mother and father alone are incapable of providing the range of input necessary for a person to grow up to function in a wider society.

zeffabelli

seamus wrote: »

Well it's not really. If children are best served in an environment with a mother and a father, then clearly an environment with two males is sub-par. But you're saying it's OK when both of those males are related to the child?

The fact that you refuse to answer the question kind of says it all. You don't really have an issue with two men raising a child provided that they're not a gay couple.

It's anecdotal. In my experience, children who have been restricted to only interacting with their parents and siblings, have serious difficulties interacting with society in a normal manner. Anecdotally that suggests to me that the sex of parents is irrelevant, a mother and father alone are incapable of providing the range of input necessary for a person to grow up to function in a wider society.

No. I don't have a problem with it, when they are blood relatives. There is genetic investment.

Step fathers are also questioned by evolutionary psychology.

There was a case recently where a a mother died and her live in boyfriend got full custody but the biological father did not. This was an outrageous judicial decision.

All the studies showing how boys need their fathers growing up entirely contradicts all the PC bull**** about how the sex doesn't matter. Yes it does!! Ask any grown man who didn't have a dad or a mom, or any grown woman who didn't have a dad or a mom.

A pre teen or teenage boy really wants to get sex ed from his mom right? Oh that must be fun. Would you have like to sit down with a porno mag with your mom and been explained to how things work?

zeffabelli

seamus wrote: »

It's anecdotal. In my experience, children who have been restricted to only interacting with their parents and siblings, have serious difficulties interacting with society in a normal manner. Anecdotally that suggests to me that the sex of parents is irrelevant, a mother and father alone are incapable of providing the range of input necessary for a person to grow up to function in a wider society.

Well then your experience would be rather parochial.

zeffabelli

zeffabelli wrote: »

That's a different scenario because that is biological connection and heritage.

Both of which are nice to have - but hardly essential or all that important. Unpack what "biological connection" actually means for us and you might find there is less substance and more air to it than you think.

zeffabelli wrote: »

I' d love to know how they reconcile these theories with the blame they land on fatherless boys for the crime statistics

Statistics are not actually as bad as you think and where they are bad they might not be indicative of what you think either.

All too often such statistics are in no way normalised for reduced income and time resources - both of which are predictors from crime. So people touting the "Mother and a Father" rhetoric leap on those statistics and merely assert a causal link between the lack of one sex of parent and those statistics.

There are also "reverse correlation" and "base correlation" issues such people ignore too. They simply assume when waving the statistics around that the lack of a father (or mother) is the causation for the crimes. That assumption is not warranted from straight statistics. Consider the "reverse correlation" scenarios - where a troublesome or troubled child is the causation for the absent parent. Or the "base correlation" scenario where X and Y are not the cause of each other - but some other factor Z is the cause of both.

A straight lay mans reading of statistics is not going to get you the truth of things - but as we have seen it will provide fodder for anyone with an agenda to use on anyone who is lay to statistics and how to interpret them. If one wants to evidence the idea that a lack of a father in a family is a predictor of criminal behaviour - they have a lot deeper statistical and sociological analysis to do than simply breaking out the crime stats and looking for patterns that fit their bias.

zeffabelli wrote: »

and how often children do really miss their same sex parent as they grow themselves in adulthood.

Do they? This is one we hear a lot - that children need a "role model" for their sex - or someone with which to identify with related to sexual or sex related attributes (Girls having their periods is the most often mentioned one in my experience).

But the reality is quite different. The "peers" most kids have for such issues tend more towards direct peers - siblings cousins and friends - our media - magazines - and more recently the internet.

And even then - when a parent is approached - multiple anecdotes tell us that often children approach the opposite sex parent - as often as the same sex - and when they do - either by choice or by absence - there is no basis for worrying that said parents will be ill equipped to handle it. Who actually thinks that a person must actually have shaved - had an erection or period - or whatever else in order to guide a developing adult through the process?

zeffabelli wrote: »

Sorry, but a child does deserve a mother AND a father. The grandparents provide lineage and generational continuity, absolutely NO comparison with same sex couples.

Except same sex couples have parents too and they will be every bit as much "Grand parents" in the life of the child as any biological ones will be. I live in an MFF relationship and we have two kids by one F - and plan two more by the other in coming years. And at this current time the non-biological F and her parents feel like - act like - and are like actual parents and grand parents in every way.

"lineage and continuity" much like your other buzz phrase of "biological connection" sounds good on paper and might have emotive effects on people - but sit down and actually unpack them and the air leaves the vessel.

Bob24

Deleted User wrote: »

Both of which are nice to have - but hardly essential or all that important. Unpack what "biological connection" actually means for us and you might find there is less substance and more air to it than you think.

You might want to have a look at this and how they explain the order of preference:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/which-grandparent-are-you-closest

I only came across these studies last year (actually as studying material for a language classes), and was dubious at first. But if I think of myself or people around me the pattern is there.

Not only biological connection matters, but the degree of certainty for that connection also has a psychological impact.

Bob24

Bob24 wrote: »

But if I think of myself or people around me the pattern is there.

That is the danger of looking to confirm a pattern in your own closer circle. Firstly the sample set is often too small to validate doing it in the first place. Secondly we tend as humans to only think of the examples that fit the pattern we seek. Had the article claimed the exact opposite - you - or many like you - would have found the same self confirming patterns just as readily.

That said however - it seems the article has simply asserted out of nowhere that this is all explained by "parental certainty". Right - so they have a study that appears to show a pattern - that is fine - but then they have simply thrown out an explanation for it. They have pulled it out of nowhere - offered no basis or rationale for it in the article at all.

But this is to be expected because the article to which you link is not a study or an article at all. It is a Blog. An opinion piece. It is simply the opinion of the author and holds no actual merit beyond this.

Even if ALL of it were true however - let us pretend for a moment it is - so what? As I said the biological connection and history is still "nice to have". I conceded that from the outset.

But from the perspective of talking about what a child deserves - needs - what the "ideal upbringing" is - and so forth - I ask again so what? How is it relevant? There are multitudes of us that do not fit that pattern and we are all just as ideal as anyone else. There are multitudes who never even knew their grandparents either - and again they have had upbringings no less "ideal" in general than the rest of us.

efb

Well it would give me a right to marry the person I love

Bob24

Deleted User wrote: »

That is the danger of looking to confirm a pattern in your own closer circle. Firstly the sample set is often too small to validate doing it in the first place. Secondly we tend as humans to only think of the examples that fit the pattern we seek. Had the article claimed the exact opposite - you - or many like you - would have found the same self confirming patterns just as readily.

That said however - it seems the article has simply asserted out of nowhere that this is all explained by "parental certainty". Right - so they have a study that appears to show a pattern - that is fine - but then they have simply thrown out an explanation for it. They have pulled it out of nowhere - offered no basis or rationale for it in the article at all.

I think you are choosing not to believe and ignoring part of the information to rationalise your choice. The article clearly states: "A study of a large sample of undergraduate students at the University of Michigan shows that they are emotionally closer to, spend more time with, and receive more resources from maternal grandmothers than either paternal grandmothers or maternal grandfathers"

Also I posted that article as it is easy to read and gives a short summary, but as I mentioned there have been other academical studies confirming this. See another examples (the second link is the full research paper and is well documented with actual figures):
- http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2004-06/uons-wgp060904.html
- https://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~uqwvonhi/LGvH.PSPB05.pdf

Btw - all I am saying is that academic research has shown that biological connections do have a marked psychological impact on how people interact with each other (as opposed to what has been said on this thread). Just correcting an inaccurate statement, I don't really care about the rest of the argument.

Bob24

Bob24 wrote: »

I think you are choosing not to believe and ignoring part of the information to rationalise your choice.

It could be that - or what I said it was. By all means ignore the reasoning for my position I have offered - and assume a new one on my behalf. But you will achieve little by this except being wrong about it.

Bob24 wrote: »

The article clearly states:

I am aware of what it states - I just read it. I was not questioning what it stated about the figures. I was questioning the explanation for the figures that they leapt to out of nowhere. Perhaps the cause of your misrepresenting my position therefore - is based in you not having understood it correctly.

Again - I am not questioning the data really (I can not as I have not read the original study yet - but I may). So posting further articles confirming it is superfluous. What I am questioning is what the author of this blog opinion piece did WITH the data - by jumping to a pulled out of thin air conclusion to explain it - and it's relevance to this thread.

You appear to have replied to my post as if I had doubted or questioned the data itself. I did not.

ancapailldorcha

KingZeus wrote: »

It's well documented across most mammals that maternal grandmothers are closer to the grandchildren. It makes sense evolutionarily speaking.

Please back up such claims rather than just leaving soundbytes.

Sheldons Brain

seamus wrote: »

This, really.

I was thinking about it last night, and in reality what's important is the range of people that children are exposed to, not the sex of their parents.

Why the need to think about it? Nobody denies that a range of things affect parenting. But with all of these things about education, social range etc equal it is better for children to have a mother and a father. There is justification for someone saying that because children have a mother and father that they don't need something else, nor is it right to justify a child not having a mother and father by reference to something else.

And why is it "better"? We have it asserted the whole time - reasserting it adds nothing. The question is whether there is any reason to think so.

jackofalltrades

efb wrote: »

Well it would give me a right to marry the person I love

Posts like this really warm the heart.
You've got my vote, even though I was a definite Yes anyway.
It's great to be able to vote for something that will make such a difference to someone's life.
In a "debate" with so much mud slinging, it's good to hear the personal stories.