Yesterday I inadvertently started a flame war when I stated that “It’s a lot like the belief that children are best off with a mother and a father, which, under optimal circumstances, I would agree. We generally are better off with two vibrant parties.” I still don’t understand why that is a controversial statement- it seems to me that in order to be the optimum situation, you would have to take into account a lot of things- biological and legal realities, as well as the unpleasant stigmas that still regrettably exist today in many portions of the country. It doesn’t mean that two lesbians, two gay man, an unmarried couple, or a single parent can’t all be great parents. It just means that in the abstract right now, this is the optimum situation.
All a man and woman need to do to produce a child in most cases is a few minutes of fun, and should they be good parents, our entire societal structure is set up for that relationship. There are no legal questions at stake regarding custody as those issues have for the most part been long settled, there are no issues regarding whether the parents can marry, there are no issues regarding the extension of benefits to children, etc. It seems to me that is the optimum condition. Otherwise, why are we fighting for gay marriage and gay rights in general? I thought it was to erase these kinds of disparities (such that we can), but I guess I’m out in left field. I thought the flame war was particularly odd when the entire premise of the post was that SOMETIMES ONE PARENT IS ENOUGH.
I’m guessing I got caught in the crossfire with the bigots, one of whom was just absolutely destroyed today by Al Franken:
That was beautiful.
RalfW
Proud to be a voter in MN today … though I could be a bit more proud if Amy Klobuchar would get off the dime and co-sponsor the bill as well.
chopper
clearly, you hate gays as much, if not more, than obama.
do you, perchance, drive a bus?
JenJen
Al Franken +Infinity.
jrg
Clearly, you’ve never been in the same room as a woman who is in labor.
RalfW
I even called both her Minneapolis and DC offices today to suggest just that.
Zifnab
What did the five Franken fingers say to the face?
jayjaybear
I think (and I’ll admit that this was one of the contending interpretations in my head when I read your post, John) that whoever it was that blew up at you in that post thought you meant it was the optimum ideal (meaning an objective “best case scenario”) for parenting, rather than the current optimum situation (i.e., the single situation that is legally easiest to bring about).
I almost reacted to it myself, but your past history on the subject made me very unsure that I was interpreting it correctly, so I just sat it out.
asiangrrlMN
Cole, I stayed out of it yesterday, but I have this to say. Optimum is generally meant to be synonymous with ideal–the best possible outcome to which everyone should aspire. I raised an eyebrow when you used the word, even though I took into account your general meaning.
Your explanation today is much better than what you said yesterday because you took out the guesswork as to what you meant. Mother-father is easiest because our society is set up that way–it’s not necessarily optimal, given a variety of conditions.
With that said, this clip is righteous.
@jayjaybear: Or what you said just before me, damn it. My loquaciousness is my downfall yet again!
Bobby Thomson
And then there’s this.
Just Some Fuckhead
If two parents are better than one, think how amazing three parents would be, or twelve even.
chopper
lesson: not everything that sounds like a value judgment actually is one. generally goes along with ‘giving someone the benefit of the doubt’ and ‘not flipping out immediately about everything you hear’.
Loneoak
I think the problem is you can’t back that claim up with empirical evidence. It’s just an assumption based on a very problematic stereotype. What is so sacrosanct about the contemporary norm of two different-sexed parents that you would just assume, contrary to quite a bit of evidence, that this is the best way to form a family?
eastriver
You surely realize, JC, that Franken also shot down your pathetic supposition regarding optimal child-rearing. You do realize that, right?
Loneoak
Btw, is anyone else not getting the edit option after they post?
Ochotona princeps
Well…no. I think the point of a lot of the pushback is, despite what you might guess, most of the research on this topic has shown that same-sex two parent households do just as well at raising kids as two opposite-sex parents–even in today’s society, with all the attendant prejudices and bigotry.
Empirically, having two mothers or two fathers is just a “optimal” as one of each. Hence the backlash.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen. There’s a large subset of people who seem to enjoy the process of flipping out and will do it at the drop of a hat given even the flimsiest of excuses. For evidence, look at today’s Republican party.
Zifnab
See, I disagree with this statement, but only because I believe that a two-party system is insufficient, in much the same way that a two-parent family really can’t raise kids properly without friends and extended family to pitch in as well.
I think the bigger the family – and the more parties – the better. It would be great if we had a true Tea Party in this country, rather than a Republican Party with various hats that it can trot out wearing on any given day of the week. It would be great if we had a true Green Party in this country, rather than a Democratic Party that tries to triangulate between what is best for the health of the public and the planet and what is best for the industrial business.
Because then it’s not just a straight fight between Mom and Dad. You don’t feel like you have to vote Republican because you don’t like the Democrat, or the Democrat because you don’t like the Republican. The people running for office should be a better fit for your opinions than just the classic liberal/conservative cubby hole. And your political options shouldn’t be so strictly defined by your nearest geographical neighbors.
I’d love to see some a parliamentary system in the states, where third parties and fourth parties and sixth parties can gain some real traction. I’d like to see districts that elect more than one candidate, so that 49% of the voting base doesn’t get disenfranchised for disagreeing with the other 51%.
But that’s just me. You were saying something about gay rights.
j low
@jrg #4- I don’t think the labor part involves the “man and a woman” part.
jayjaybear
Well, to be fair to the flipper-outer, too, the argument that mother-father-children is the optimum child-rearing arrangement gets really old after a while, and advocates for marriage equality have been hearing that argument from pretty much all sides for almost a decade now. The frequency has gone down lately as the marriage equality movement becomes more mainstream, but it’s still irritating to hear it (or interpret it from a pretty ambiguous statement).
Woodrowfan
flamewars are surprisingly easy to start online, especially if you’re wrong. but those of us who have read this blog long enough realize you didn’t mean anything homophobic.
hitchhiker
Thanks for the link . . . Al’s close was pitch perfect.
You obviously can’t even read the thing you’re using as evidence, which means your head is up your ass and we’re free to move on.
The Dangerman
I don’t see how your original statement is at all controversial; optimally, there should be a Mother and a Father (assuming both are capable of being positive parents, of course).
Also, optimally, the child shouldn’t be born with any kind of physical or mental abnormalities; without that “optimum”, there will be some “challenges” at some nonzero level…
…and I think the same applies to single parent or same sex parent households. Nothing wrong with it, there are just nonzero challenges that come with the deal. This may be internal or external (societal), but those are evolving.
I miss the controversy.
Superking
@ Just Some Fuckhead at 10.
It takes a village . . .
Greyjoy
I don’t think a two-party system is optimal because obviously the way it’s been in the last 40-odd years has been decidedly suboptimal. Especially when you have one of those two parties systematically co-opted by Nutjobs of America, which then uses its influence to totally destroy democracy by also taking over the financing industry and the media. How does democracy recover when Nutjobs of America owns Congress, the Supreme Court, the banks and the newspapers? Look, back in the earlier days of our republic we certainly had other parties that sent high-ranking officials to Washington. The Whigs, the Federalists. I’m sure we can again, but not until we manage to undo what Nutjobs of America has done to our political system.
jacy
I just took it as a plain old analogy: that it’s better to have two parties making decisions so that one party doesn’t go too far in a direction that they can’t see their mistakes, overreach, blind spots, etcetera.
Speaking as someone who has been a single parent and a co-parent, I’ll tell you it’s a whole lot easier when you’ve got another responsible individual to balance you out, lean on, be good cop to your bad cop, etcetera. But it’s also useless to have another co-parent who is a shiftless idiot or a criminal or insane. Then it’s better for you to just go it alone.
Using this analogy, what Cole said made perfect sense to me and I missed anything that might have caused offense.
Trinity
/colebot
jl
I don’t like to go all ‘curse on everyone’s houses’ but that is how I feel about this flap. Cole’s statement was silly, but making a big deal about it silly too.
Why is Cole revisiting it? Because he loves pain and sorrow?
I don’t get the ‘abstract’ part.
“It just means that in the abstract right now, this is the optimum situation.”
Then Cole explains why, given the very specific economic and social institutions and customs in these United States, everything else being equal, you might say that using statistical measures of child welfare, living with a woman and a man as parents is ‘optimal’.
But what is ‘abstract’ about that?
I still say, optimal is extended family, either biological or socially constructed, only question is which Native American nation optimized the optimum?
But, thanks for Franken clip. We probably ought to start a campaign to run comedians for office, average intelligence and competence of legislators would probably improve.
Linda Featheringill
Walk away, Linda. Don’t get involved in a heated discussion of less-than-optimal it is to be the one parent that didn’t desert the child. Don’t let them get to you. Find something else to do.
Josie
@jacy: Nicely put.
catclub
“It doesn’t” Priceless.
Joey Maloney
That was incredibly uncivil of Senator Franken.
Cain
@Joey Maloney:
Hey.. both sides do it.
catclub
jl @ 27 “But, thanks for Franken clip. We probably ought to start a campaign to run comedians for office, average intelligence and competence of legislators would probably improve.”
markedly, dramatically, immensely, not just ‘probably’.
Jon Stewart, Colbert, Lewis Black speeches invoking fucking comity.
fraught
I love it when bachelor John Cole, who lives alone and mostly socializes with his dad and brother, makes these academic excursions into gay issues and gets his tit caught in a wringer. For him, I think, children are the ultimate abstraction and ‘optimum’ is just a word that should be followed by the word ‘guess.’ Gay stuff is hard.
Superking
Anyone know what study he’s reading? I’d like to check it out.
mike in dc
Hmm. 12 parents? Discipline would be…intimidating to say the list–“Just wait until your fathers get home!”
And you’d never run out of people to blame for your various idiosyncrasies and dysfunctions. “My 4th Mom never really loved me…”
different church-lady
John, you seem to be unclear on the very purpose of the internets.
satby
Shit, I missed all that fun. Analogies, how do they work?
It never occurred to me that you were opining on the best family structure, only that you were pointing out that sometimes you have to recognize one party’s destructive impulses will bring everyone down.
Tonal Crow
Franken done learned that liar but good.
Just Some Fuckhead
Being a parent, perhaps the greatest parent that ever lived, in a two parent household, and raised in a split family, I can tell you that from a child’s perspective, they don’t sit around wishing for a dad, for instance. I remember specifically wishing we didn’t have a stepdad. However, parenting can’t be viewed exclusively through the eyes of a child. It’s also a JOB for parents and more than one parent can make it an easier workload.
In short, I completely reject the inflammatory and insensitive comments of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Cole and substitute my own poorly reasoned take on the subject.
seabe
John, there is nothing wrong with what you said, provided you also include a qualifier: that you don’t need opposite-sex parents in order to get those “two vibrant parties.”
Most studies conclude that you need both a “mother” and a “father” *FIGURE*. That figure doesn’t even have to have the respective genitalia, nor be one of the two parents, so long as they’re in the kid’s life.
MattR
John – Back when interracial marriage was illegal would you have said that being raised be a mother and father of the same race was the optimum condition and justified it by saying that a mixed race couple could not legally get married?
ruemara
1. President Franken-2016.
2. I assumed you meant 2 parent household, because you’re not a homophobe. Your language could be interpreted to be that, yet it would assume a lack of familiarity with you to get to that point. But I also don’t really care about flame wars.
Cassidy
@42….Not for that reason, no. But I would say that children born of mixed race parents were born in less than optimal conditions. Considering the challenges and stigma they still face in our idiot society, I don’t think that’s controversial.
For fuck’s sake be real about this shit. Getting your panties twisted over simple fact puts you right in line with teatards.
gex
The thing is the phrase that having a mother and a father is best for children is what haters have been throwing around as they stomp all over gay rights. Now that’s not how Cole meant it, but it did bug me.
It’s a dogwhistle blown by the “values” people that maybe straight people don’t hear as well as gays do. But it is really loaded and really painful.
Bobby Thomson
@superking
This article links to it. (Warning: enormous PDF)
rb
@MattR: Back when interracial marriage was illegal would you have said that being raised be a mother and father of the same race was the optimum condition and justified it by saying that a mixed race couple could not legally get married?
Hell, would he say it *now*, on the grounds that many people still feel and act with prejudice against interracial families?
MattR
@Cassidy: So what exactly is the “optimum condition” for raising a child? A white, upper middle class white family since they face the fewest challenges or stigmas?
More to the point, here was John’s original quote
If you look at that, he did not initially say that a mother and father are the optimal circumstance for raising a child. He actually said that in a perfect world (ie under optimum circumstances) the child will be raised by a mother and father. He has clarified that a bit and has added some caveats about how good other parents can be, but he never bothers to say that a same sex couple can be as good parents as a married one.
The reason this is a major issue for me (though it seems like a minor techinicality) is that this issue is the perfect justification to prevent same sex couples from adopting. It is quite easy to use that logic to say that a straight couple might not be as good as candidates for adoption, but since they are straight they will face less stigma or other issues so that is better for the child. Going back to my first question in this post, if the white middle class couple is the optimal conditions for raising a child, should they be given preference over the black or hispanic middle class family or a mixed race couple when it comes to adoption?
Superking
Bah! The actual study doesn’t quite go where Al wants it to go, I don’t think. It does define nuclear family in a gender-neutral way, but it uses data collected between 2001 and 2007. Only Massachusetts had same-sex marriage at that time. No other state allowed it until 2008. So, the definition might include same-sex couples, but the pool would be extremely small with only one state where same-sex nuclear families could possibly exist.
It’s always nice to stick it to those fuckers down at Focus on the Family, but this is kind of disappointing. I was hoping there was a study that explicitly included same-sex nuclear families. Anyway.
beergoggles
Gave u a pass on it yesterday cuz we all know u get carried away on ur rants and have issues being specific sometimes.
Then of course of clarify later, but nobody expects a righteous rant when ur being analytical.
Wannabe Speechwriter
As the child of a single parent-I was raised by my dad when my mom died when I was 6-and having a cousin who is raising kids with another woman, I didn’t find any offense in John’s statement. He was making an analogy to the two party system. It was quite effective. Sure, you can say it’s crude and I’m sure he would probably agree. If this was, for example, a peer-reviewed article or a column in a newspaper or magazine (where there is extensive editing), you might have a point and you probably would be correct he should have thought the analogy out. However, this was a blog post-it was the best analogy he could think at the time. Instead of writing how John is a horrible bigot who hates gay rights and wants to destroy gay families, why don’t you do something more productive with your time-like, I don’t know, call and write your congressperson and senators to tell to repeal DOMA and then get you friends, family, and neighbors to do the same…
Cassidy
@MattR…. In actuality no. I wouldn’t say that middle class is optimal. Considering the assault on the middle class and how both parents usually work….etc.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that is segregated by race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. And realistically a child born to a white, wealthy family and is male has advantages; is born under the most optimal conditions for success and opportunity. Minus a couple of conservative sock puppets, everyone who frequents here knows and is supportive of “non-traditional” families (I really hate that term). But we are also educated enough to know that certain environmental factors can predispose our children to success or failure. So, stating that there are optimal conditions to raise a child in isn’t controversial.
fasteddie9318
So, seriously, go read Joyner’s “takedown” of Franken at OTB, helpfully linked to above @43, and explain to me why OTB isn’t in the “monitor and mock” category. Somebody, please.
PatrickG
Kind of with Superking @ 50 here….
FotF’s conclusion is batshit crazy, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the data collected were limited and did not look at a number of family situations. The definition was gender-neutral, but the data collected were decidedly not gender-neutral. Doesn’t mean the conclusion Focus draws is correct, it just means the dataset is limited.*
I was expecting more enjoyable popcorn time, given the TAKEDOWN ZOMG tags, though I did really enjoy the laughter in the room. :)
*Limited in that, to my knowledge, the study didn’t look at same-sex nuclear families because the definition required they be married. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
JPL
IMO..which granted does not count for much, it doesn’t matter what color, sex, or nationality raises a child. What is important is good and loving parenting. Good and loving parenting is good.
edit…optimal is a strange word and doesn’t belong but that is just imo…
Bobby Thomson
@Superking
But that’s kind of the point. The study compares children of married couples to children of unmarried couples. Children of married couples tend to do better. Which is an argument for not restricting the rights of couples to marry.
Even more to the point, the study does NOT compare married straight couples to unmarried gay couples. It compares all married couples to all unmarried couples. (Interestingly, it doesn’t say how civil unions are treated, if at all.) Now, one could come back and say that there is no evidence that gay parents are considered in the study at all. But that doesn’t help the bigot who was presenting the study as evidence that gay parents are bad.
What Franken did was actually pretty clever. There’s no way for the bigot to come back at him without admitting he made the whole thing up.
ETA: And adding onto the criticism of Joyner above, Joyner writes: “Some commenters argue that Franken is simply pointing out that Minnery is attempting to use a study that has nothing to do with same-sex versus opposite-sex couples to argue that same-sex couples are less able to raise children. That’s a perfectly valid point for Franken to make but it’s not the one he made.” But actually, that was exactly the point Franken was making. Yes, Franken could have used another study to make an even stronger point, but why bother? The bigot never made a prima facie case.
Bobby Thomson
@superking
There are. I linked one much farther up in the thread, and Joyner links others.
aimai
As far as I can see from the part Franken quoted the study excludes from its definition of “nuclear” families families in which one adult in residence has not or can not actually adopt the children of the other partner. That probably includes a hell of a lot second marriages with blended families since the biological children of one party aren’t necessarily free to be adopted by the step parent.
aimai
harlana
I thought you explained yourself exceptionally well, Mr. Cole. And I think it is perfectly acceptable to take the existing political, social, economic and legal environment into account when forming opinions about what could be considered “optimal.” These days, most of us are weighing what is optimal (based on what we want vs what we can never have) and what is not on a day to day basis.
harlana
Is it optimal that both parents of young children work full time and pay for daycare they can’t afford, killing themselves financially to actually spend more time away from their children during their formative years? But it’s happening everywhere. And this is the ideal family that is actually encouraged by our current culture, a bankrupt male/female couple (and that includes at least some formerly financially successful couples) with 3 or more kids they can’t afford. Because birth control is a sin and giving birth is a sacrament.
Just Some Fuckhead
John and I are going to adopt and then you’ll see.. the kids are alright.
Djur
Two things:
I think “It’s a lot like the belief that children are best off with a mother and a father, which, under optimal circumstances, I would agree” doesn’t say what you’re trying to say. “Optimal” modifies the circumstances, not the situation of raising a child with a mother and father. So you’re saying that in the best possible world, it would be best for a child to be raised by a mother and father — which is in fact offensive. I think that “under current circumstances” seems to more accurately match what you claim to have meant.
Second, raising a child with one or two parents isn’t optimal. What’s optimal is for a child to have many loving adults available to protect them and teach them how to be human. If that’s available, all of the major arguments for a two-parent household disappear.
Joey Giraud
@Ralf W
Amy Klobuchar’s too busy trying to outlaw online streaming
Say goodbye to YouTube if she succeeds.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Joey Giraud:
From the article:
It’s not the industry, but average citizens that Demand Progress is worried about. That group was founded by Aaron Swartz, who co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, watchdog.net, Open Library and the popular social news site Reddit.com. His group’s campaign around the bill says its passage could mean that average citizens end up going “to jail for posting video of your friends singing karaoke.”
How awesome would it be if ABL went to jail for streaming copyrighted content after the bill is passed?
superking
To everyone who responded to me above: Neither side is using the study correctly. The fof guy was trying to use it as a comparative study showing that male/female families are better than same-sex marriages. The study doesn’t make that comparison. It doesn’t discuss same-sex in any explicit way. If you read the definitions, its not even clear that
superking
To everyone who responded to me above: Neither side is using the study correctly. The fof guy was trying to use it as a comparative study showing that male/female families are better than same-sex marriages. The study doesn’t make that comparison. It doesn’t discuss same-sex in any explicit way. If you read the definitions, its not even clear that
superking
To everyone who responded to me above: Neither side is using the study correctly. The fof guy was trying to use it as a comparative study showing that male/female families are better than same-sex marriages. The study doesn’t make that comparison. It doesn’t discuss same-sex in any explicit way. If you read the definitions, its not even clear which category families with same-sex parents would fall into. However, we know that there were very few same-sex marriages in the timeframe covered by the study. So, it is extremely unlikely that the definition of “nuclear family” included any families with married same-sex parents. Consequently, Al France isn’t quite making the point he seems to be making. That is, the study does not say that families with same-sex parents are identical to families with opposite sex parents. The study is agnostic on that issue. Now, I absolutely agree that, as it was pointed out above, it is very unlikely that there will be much difference, and the strength of married couples raising children is very likely to benefit the children greatly. I agree that it is an argument in favor of same-sex marriage. But that’s not what the study addressed either.