Mastering Nature II
Jonathan Rowe on Oct 31st 2006
Continuing with the theme of my last post, and referencing the same LA Times article about gay men having children with the help of surrogates, I wonder whether gays’ artificial reproduction may actually produce “better” social outcomes (children grow up to be better educated, earn more, have more talents, etc.) than from “normal” heterosexual reproduction.
The question that needs to be answered is whether the circumstance described in the LA Times article is or will be somewhat typical of when gays have children. If so, then gays’ reliance on artificial methods may have the effect of selecting for the “more desirable” genes — higher intelligence, better looks, various talents, etc. — for gay couples. Then, comparing the children of gays v. straights, the social outcomes for gay families may be better.
Here is how the article describes it:
Chad Hodge liked #694. She was a 21-year-old college student, 5-feet-5, 135 pounds, with straight brown hair, blue eyes and a narrow nose. She had won 16 awards in high school for academics and music, and scored a 1210 on the SAT. She was outgoing, intelligent, responsible and friendly, or at least she said she was. . . . But David Craig, Chad’s partner of seven years, had his heart set on #685. She was a teacher, 23, 5-feet-2, with wavy blond hair and light blue eyes. She wore a size 0. She had been a varsity tennis player in high school, a ballerina and a classical pianist.
Note, those who argue against gay marriage stress that studies show children do best with married parents of both sexes. Indeed, at the very least, social science demonstrates that poor, unwed, uneducated young mothers having children out of wedlock practically guarantees poverty and other social problems. Democrat William Galston noted that one need do only three things — simple things that anyone can do — which practically guarantees avoiding poverty: 1) don’t have children until you are married, 2) don’t get married until you are at least 20; and 3) graduate high school before getting married and having children.
But failure to do this, and its consequences (the inner city ghettos) is not at all the same or anything remotely similar to say, two professional, educated gay men using a surrogate or adopting. Thus any “study” which relies on comparing intact heterosexual families to out-of-wedlock births by single mothers is utterly inapt to the gay marriage/gay family debate.
When poor unwed young mothers have children, it is the antithesis of “rational planning.” When gays adopt or use a surrogate, they have to jump through an endless set of bureaucratic hoops and pay significant $$$. And such requires the utmost amount of “rational planning.” (Indeed, ironic that the inability of gay couples to naturally procreate may select for rational planners among gay parents, and make typical gay parents superior to typical straight parents, whose average parenting level is brought down by all of the parents who have children irresponsibly when they shouldn’t.)
Some social science already shows that gays tend to be better educated, have higher income, and possess greater wealth. All of this correlates with higher average IQ levels. And gays stereotypically are more creative (and it’s not just creativity in styling hair, but in producing the Western Canon. Bruce Bawer’s article “Canon Fodder” could have been called “Queer Eye for the Western Guy”). Add to that the hurdles that gays must go through to have children which may select for more responsible and affluent gay parents, and the results may be children of gays, as a group end up, on average, better off by various measures. The fact that the children are missing a parent of one sex may be a negative. But the positives — parents with, on average more wealth, more education, more income, better genes — may outweigh the negative of missing a parent of one gender or the other.
Filed in The Bistro, The Boudoir
Jason,
Any possibility that the connection of higher IQ, etc. to homosexuals is selection bias in the sample? That is, homosexuals are likely to face more persecution from the lower income/lower education strata of society, and therefore fewer homosexuals in those strata report their sexual preferences accurately. So perhaps the entire gay population doesn’t have a higher average IQ; it’s just that the portion that isn’t afraid to admit that they’re gay tends to be from social strata that has a higher average IQ than the national population. In the same way the irrational out-of-wedlock mothers may bring down the heterosexual average, the closeted-because-everyone-around-me-would-hate-me homosexuals may artificially inflate the homosexual average.
Good point. But it was me Jon who wrote this post.
Setting aside all of the “gays are brighter, more artistic, richer” and other such debatable assertions, I think there really is something to the fact that gay parents are by definition intentional and determined parents, a trait they share with straight adoptive parents, whereas a random sample of straight biological parents will have some mix of intentional and accidental or half-hearted parents. I think studies that look at children of adoptive parents would have a lot to say about the expected experience of children of gay parents.
On a separate point - about “controlling nature” as well as what criteria parents may use in picking genetic contributions from a “catalog”: because only one of the gay parents can be a genetic contributor (with present technology), I’ve known some couples to select the “catalog contributor” to try to approximate the other partner in physical appearance, so that the child will look more plausibly like the product of both of them.
Thanks for you input Tom. Though one thing concerns me a little. Even though adoptive parents –whether gay or straight — are “by definition intentional and determined parents,” doesn’t some social science show that adopted children tend to not do as well as children raised by biological parents? Or do such studies compare the adopted siblings with their own brothers and sisters who are the biological children of the parents.
“The fact that the children are missing a parent of one sex may be a negative.”
Heh, ya think? I mean we’re designed in a such a way that reproduction isn’t possible without both sexes, but I suppose we can definitely strip things down to their functional parts, pick and choose what we need. Hell lets define quality of life in a similar way, how functional are you? You smart? Got money? Maybe a little wit? Congrats! You’re likely well on your way to being an spoiled brat.
“any “study” which relies on comparing intact heterosexual families to out-of-wedlock births by single mothers is utterly inapt to the gay marriage/gay family debate.”
Right, because such a study includes a group quite essential to reproduction: Mothers. I wonder what it means for raising a child the fact that mothers are required to have them in the first place…
…which is not to say gay parents can’t be good parents (I came around to gay adoption partly after reading several touching stories linked from this blog) but rather that I want you to explain yourself better. I just have this inkling that these academic studies miss alot which is not quantifiable, and perhaps more valuable, to raising a child. In light of this, such a post with such a theme as Jon’s above seems more an academic exercise than anything, thus why I feel it seems particularly divorced from reality.
Scof,
I understand folks have your sentiment. Originally, this post was longer, but I edited it for simplicity sake. I gave three examples of parents raising children. I had a single mother from a poor urban neighborhood, a blue-collar traditional intact family, with not a whole lot of money but still “middle class,” and a white collar affluent educated gay couple raising their biological children and who selected for mothers with good genes. I noted, in all likelihood the children of the gay couple would yield the best “social outcomes” — smarter, better educated, make higher incomes, accumulate greater wealth.
But I could still see folks (not me though) preferring the blue collar family, even though their children probably wouldn’t graduate from a college (other than a community college) or be the financial success that the gay’s children would.
you mean, BIOLOGICAL children of gays who reproduced via surrogate.
Out here in the Midwest, most gay men with kids are divorced after trying to be straight, doing the “ex-gay” bit, etc. And many of the lesbian or gay couples intentionally having a family do so by adoption, usually of “hard to place” children, who generally have checkered backgrounds (mother an alcoholic or addicted illicit drug user, mentally ill, etc, or the child is either developmentally abnormal or has a serious physical problem).
Re: studies showing that adopted kids have “worse” outcomes than bio-kids: Date of study matters greatly. Studies of 1950-1960 US-born infant adoptions are likely to show different outcomes than studies of 1990-2000 U.S.-born infant adoptions - the first group were generally born to healthy young unwed white mothers whose main reason for relinquishment was parental shame/coercion or lack of support , while the second group were largely taken from their incapacitated mothers by DFS, for reasons of drug abuse, mental illness, abuse of older kids, abuse of the infant.
“Thus any “study” which relies on comparing intact heterosexual families to out-of-wedlock births by single mothers is utterly inapt to the gay marriage/gay family debate.”
Excellent point — calling Maggie Gallagher! (like it’d do any good at all.)
I can appreciate that Jon, I started thinking about my comment and your post more and was just taken aback by the way it seemed Mom’s were being treated. Started to wonder if heterosexual men place a different (better?) value on women (as Mothers) then homosexual men do…and then I get real confused when I think about how heterosexual women value men as Fathers, versus how homosexual women women view them. Just curious what these sentiments might mean towards the raising of a child…