Ruth Institute Blog

This scenario can already occur with heterosexual parents. For example, let’s consider this scenario: man gets woman pregnant; man and woman stay together for a while, but after a couple of years, man leaves woman and becomes an absent father, uninvolved in his child’s life except for child support payments and occasional random visits that over time decrease to none and child support also dries up; woman meets a new man and they get married; new man is stepfather to woman’s child and performs all of the dad functions; child calls stepfather “daddy”; years later, bio-dad decides that he wants a relationship with child again and begins to assert his rights as father of the child.

In this scenario, does biology trump parenting? Does bio-dad receive rights over stepfather who has actually served as a father to the child? This scenario actually occurred for my sister and her husband. Their ten year-old daughter (hers biologically and his through the act of parenting) does not want a relationship with bio-dad, a man that she does not even remember! But because his rights were not terminated, he still has them. Stepfather wants a say in the custody dispute, but technically has no legal rights to the child that he has raised. Thankfully, the state in which they live recognizes child-parent relationships even in the absence of biological or legal relationship. Stepfather had to go to court to establish legal ties to his child, but the end result is that child has two fathers and a mom. However, she will always only have one “Daddy” and that is NOT the man whose sperm helped to create her! And now, regardless of how my sister’s marriage turns out in the end (of course, we all hope they stay together forever), the parent-child relationship between stepfather and child is legally protected.

And these are all HETEROSEXUALS!!!!

See, the law and the courts are beginning ever so slowly to catch up to the reality that it is the act of parenting that makes a person a parent, and that children have a right to the parent-child relationships that are formed between themselves and non-biological parents who help to raise them. The sex, gender, or sexual orientation of those parents are irrelevant. What matters is love and parenting.

@Heidi
In your example, the genetic parents of the child are not married. I agree with you that this is not optimal and causes problems. That’s why we support lifelong married love so strongly–it protects children proactively without all of the sorting-out that must go on later in the event of a split.

Additionally, our position (stated many, many times) is that the only reason for removing a child from their biological parents is when one or both have proven unfit. If one of the bio parents leaves and shows no further interest in the child, it’s an extreme abrogation of responsibility. It’s wrong, and it hurts everyone in the family. In its wake our country provides for the child-centered solution of adoption.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263983
Dr J did a piece last July in response to the above study, published in Pediatrics, comparing which types of households were most dangerous for children.

If the biological parents had been married, I shudder to think of what further harm my sister would have suffered since the biological father abused her during their relationship. Perhaps I should have included that information. In any event, the point that I am trying to make is that children may form parent-child attachments with adults who are not biologically related to them and those relationships should be respected under the law. The law should deal with people’s lives on the level of reality, not on the level of ideals. And the reality is that children are being raised in a myriad of family situations and their families deserve respect and the equal protection of the laws.

@Heidi
Abuse is horrible and inexcusable. I’m so sorry your sister experienced it, and I’m glad she got out of the situation.

The reason I’m advocating marriage here is not to tightly bind people together despite their behavior toward each other. I believe sex is special and forges an emotional/hormonal connection, no matter how casually you try to engage in it. (Additionally, it has the possibility of forming children.)

If you have sex with someone, it’s harder to evaluate them as a potential marriage partner because you[r body] want[s] to be with them on a non-rational level. This bond is wonderful in marriage because it’s been preceded by “homework”–spending time with each other, finding out if you’re compatible, talking about goals and direction, observing how each one treats others outside the relationship (esp subordinates or those weaker than you), seeing how the families work, etc. However, it’s awful if you start to forge the sexual bond first and then find out that you’re chaining yourself to a monster. As traumatic as breaking it is, sometimes it looks like the least painful option.

The least painful option, though, starts a lot earlier and reorders things (or, more accurately, returns to an older order)–research and knowledge first, then commitment & marriage, then sex.