Can a man be an adequate father? Of course the answer is yes, but at what point do you say that in a particular case a father is the more fit of the two? Do we wait until the children can speak for themselves and what happens when there are children of varying ages? These are serious questions to wonder and sometimes I feel that some social stigmas are partly the reason some cite in preventing homosexuals from adopting.
I have an old high school friend who loves nothing more than being a father and his world revolves around the seasonal moments that he spends with them. While the parental relationship did not last, the bond between father and child remains strong. He would move heaven and earth for his children (what father wouldn’t) and is a kid at heart himself, really. I’ve known him for years and all he’s ever lived for was his offspring and their wellbeing; which brings me to my question.
What happens when two parents are fighting for custodial rights of the children and the father’s word doesn’t supersede the mother’s? [Now that you think of it, what happens when a father wants the child and the mother doesn’t (abortion)? Do his parental rights begin there should he choose? Yes you’ll say well what about rapists, but you gotta draw a line somewhere.] Anyways….
Sadly the mother, while caring I’m sure, uses the children as leverage against him at her convenience. The court, having lived up to the rumors, sided with the mother as in most (if not all) cases. I have to wonder sometimes if the stigma associated with gender roles and possibly illusions of perversion of children have some role in the subconscious. This may come as a shock, yes, but now that it’s mentioned you have to admit that you thought it.
Could it be that the idea of men raising children perverts gender roles so horrifically that people unknowingly feel that a man can’t raise a child as well as a woman. Being homosexual myself I’ve heard the comparison from religious fanatics that “gays are just like pedophiles” and should be treated the same. I can assure you reader that gays are NOT pedophiles but some pedophiles do have a sexual attraction to those of the same gender. Here is another classic example of a prejudice that results in the association of a group of people due to the actions of another. While we push the mental image to the recesses of the mind, we’d be hard pressed to not flash that image when you hear that a man is raising a child without a mother. People wonder if there’s something wrong with him or if he’s some sort of pervert (tell me it isn’t true).
Social stigmas play a giant role in the decision making of human beings and judges are no exception. I understand that custody is an ugly thing, but at what point is the human element taken into consideration? If a child says, “I don’t want to live with mommy, I want to be with daddy” why is their cry denied. Children don’t say things for no reason and yes there are manipulative people out there, but at some point, dad’s word should have just as much weight as mom’s.
