DO CHILDREN NEED MOTHERS AND FATHERS? DaleA

Reader DaleA writes:

Sometime visit an old cemetery, one with graves going back 200 years. What is clear in such a place is that for most of human history children have had no expectation of a parent of each sex. Instead there will be grave after grave of women who died in childbirth. Of men surrounded by wife after wife who succumbed. So this idea of the right of children to parents of both sexes really relies upon very modern innovations in medicine and hygiene.

In my family, a great-grandmother died in childbirth. The children were sent to a combination old people's home and orphanage. The old people, overwhelmingly male, cared for the children until some cousin could be brought from Sweden. This may be a Scandinavian arrangement, but does argue that the idea of a Noah's Ark type requirement for parents is not universal. And if it is not universal, then what is the point of using it in the context we deal with here?
posted by Eve at 11:49 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home