What doesn’t matter is the gender of the parent — or how many there are, for that matter.
I’ll stop you right there.
White picket fences are overrated, and so are nuclear families. The truth is that dysfunction can seep into family life and impair a child’s development and well-being regardless of the family dynamic.
A two opposite-parent household is not inherently more emotionally stable than any other composure. The problem is that we’re still telling ourselves passe fables that 1950s TV mom June Cleaver is the role model when today’s superparent looks more like current, real-life gay TV host Andy Cohen.
It’s due time we change the narrative around default assumptions about what a child needs to thrive.
Nuclear families aren’t the gold standard
The predominant trope that every kid needs a mom and a dad is starting to shift, but we have just barely cracked open the door on our full acceptance and celebration of parents and caregivers of all colors and stripes.
If we could only embrace and celebrate all types of families, our children would be spared feelings of inadequacy.
“The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter,” said Judith Stacey, a professor emerita of social and cultural analysis and sociology at New York.
Things are starting to change
Author Lang was inspired to write “All Kinds of Families” when her daughter started preschool.
“It was a book we wanted her to have but couldn’t find, something that reflected the different families we saw around us the way other books for the age group might present shapes or colors,” Lang said.
Lang isn’t the only author that has thoughtfully crafted inclusive family bedtime reads.
It especially includes the politicians that legislate against anyone who doesn’t fit that mold, whether single moms, same-gender two-parent households, blended families, families led by grandparents or other family members or any number of other configurations.
Still, the needle feels like it’s moving in the right direction, even if ever-so-slightly.
One example of the recent tick toward fuller family inclusion comes after more than a year of heightened trauma at the hands of Covid-19, which has taken the lives of more than 606,000 moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, siblings and children, friends and co-workers and neighbors at the hands.
What then do our kids need to thrive?
Of note, none of these qualities has anything to do with the number of parents or caregivers a child has, nor what the sexual or gender identity might be.
Indeed, parents and caregivers come in all shapes and creeds.
Moms might have penises. Dads might wear dresses. A kid might have two masculine-presenting moms who make really good milkshakes. Or one mom who works three jobs and one grandparent who greets the kid with cookies and milk after school. Or one dad who makes pancakes on Sunday mornings and reads bedtime stories. Or one nonbinary parent who paints with their children and reads Dr. Seuss with great enthusiasm.
The bottom line: It doesn’t matter what a parent’s background or identity is. What matters is that the parent knows how to kiss boo boos and wipe tears. A good caregiver supports and affirms, protects and empowers, no matter who they are or who their kids grow up to be.
We don’t need to have someone to give a Father’s Day card to in order to grow up to be happy and healthy. We don’t need to reflect “Leave it to Beaver” or have a heteronormative nuclear dynamic with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence for our kids to be fulfilled and lead successful lives.
What matters most is that our children are loved.
Allison Hope is a writer and native New Yorker who favors humor over sadness, travel over television and coffee over sleep.
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