[As usual, my friend Hans Moleman (at mistermoleman.com) has made a good and timely point: in an age when the benefits of motherhood have been scientifically and legally debunked, refuted, and declared non-existent, why do we still celebrate “Mother’s” Day?]
It is time to put an end to this outrage. “Mother’s” Day is an abhorrent, anachronistic vestige of heterosexist oppression. In barely concealed homophobic code, it implies that a child needs and/or benefits from having a mother, and that motherhood is something other than an outdated social construct.
Sure, motherhood may have been revered in the Dark Ages. But as Enlightenment has spread across the land in recent years, social scientists and learned judges have patiently explained to us that “mothers” are now quite redundant.
Wise judges such as Vaughn Walker, ruling that the voters of California have no right to decide so important a question, wrote:
“The gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in a child’s adjustment… The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology…Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted.”
See? It is “accepted beyond serious debate”. As Al Gore likes to say, the debate is over, we know all we need to know.
The judge did admit that things were different in the Dark Ages: “When California became a state in 1850, marriage was understood to require a husband and a wife.” But, as they say in California, that was then and this is now. (On retiring soon after ruling against Prop 8, Judge Walker said ““I have done my part.” Indeed he has.)
The Iowa Supreme Court was equally patient in dismissing the folly of mother-fixation.
“The research appears to strongly support the conclusion that same-sex couples foster the same wholesome environment as opposite-sex couples and suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and father to be raised into healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else.”
There you have it. This whole motherhood thing is just a stereotype.
And think of the emotional pain inflicted. Every “M-word” Day is a gross offense to the self-esteem of gay male couples who are thinking about raising children.
It reminds one of a heart-breaking episode from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Stan, a young rebel with gender issues, announces that he wants to have a baby:
Stan (also known as Loretta): It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
Reg: But you can’t have babies.
Stan: Don’t you oppress me.
Reg: Where’s the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?
Well, Reg, modern science has finally come up with effective gestation boxes, so Stan’s dream (actually Loretta’s dream) can now come true. And the courts have said that gay adoption is OK, because all that a child needs is “parents”.
So we can leave this motherhood fetish back in ancient Judea where it belongs.
The obvious thing to do is to rename the holiday. Federal and state governments are quickly replacing the anachronistic “Mother” and “Father” lines on government forms and birth certificates with the more sensitive “Parent #1” and “Parent #2”.
The calendar can and should do the same thing. May 11 is Parent #1 Day, with Parent #2 to be celebrated later. (Don’t get me started on the whole “Fatherhood” outrage. That can wait until P2 Day.)
Boycott Hallmark until they correct this archaic macro-aggression against the differently gendered parent!
Reminder: Did you call your Parent #1 today?
O Ben Finiti 