Do children have the right to be raised by both their biological mother and biological father?

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Jun 30, 2015

I want to clarify the question.

I do not know of a word that applies, so I used the phrase "raised by".

The question is, basically, do children have the right to have a mother-child relationship with their biological mother and a father-child relationship with their biological father?

The mother may die when the child is 2 years old. But the child can still grow up relating to his/her biological mother as his/her mother. Through pictures. Through stories that people tell. Through words like, "Your mother would be so proud of you".

The same thing could be said about a child whose biological father is in prison when he/she is born. The father may never be physically present or ever be a teacher, disciplinarian, etc.--never be able to help "raise" the child--but the father-child relationship can be experienced if both father and child want it and if other people allow it. Through letters and pictures. Through visits to the prison. Etc.

If, say, a man has a child through surrogacy with a donor egg and the biological mother is never in the picture then having a mother-child relationship with her is not possible for the child. At least not until he/she is an adult.

If one or both biological parents not being in the picture as much as possible is not a right then nobody would have a problem with the adults in a child's life eliminating everything that could be part of any possible emotional connection with his/her biological parents?

I think that the responses naming only things like love, a safe environment, etc. are off base. No, I did not just say that children do not have the right to be loved or to be safe, so please do not distort my words. The point I am now trying to make is that the healthiest thing is to be able to function in every way. To say that either a relationship between two people must be pleasant or there should not be a relationship at all is unrealistic. A child may feel hurt by and angry with his/her biological mother and/or father. If there is no right to a parent-child relationship of any kind with a child's biological mother and/or father then the chance to communicate that hurt and anger is denied.

KitKatMatt · Jun 30, 2015

Again, I'm going to say "no".

I don't think a child has a right to be raised by their biological parents.

Why? Because that implies that the biological parents would be legally required to raise the child (or in the case of death or donor, someone would be legally required to teach them about their biological parents) because it is the child's right to have the biological parents raise them.

I think children have the right to search public databases to learn about their parents and find/attempt to find them. I think they have the right to ask other people about their parents to learn about them (of course, those people have the right to deny telling them anything).

It's unfortunate if a child is angry because they have not had a relationship with their biological mother or father, but they don't have a right to that relationship. No one is legally bound (or should be legally bound) to foster a relationship or communicate with a family member.

PapaZoom · Jul 1, 2015

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
I want to clarify the question.

I do not know of a word that applies, so I used the phrase "raised by".

The question is, basically, do children have the right to have a mother-child relationship with their biological mother and a father-child relationship with their biological father?

Ok, if I understand properly what's being asked, my answer is yes, they do have this right.

Moral Orel · Jul 1, 2015

dgiharris said:
My system of morals and ethics is such that I believe a child's life is of more importance than an adult's (all things being equal).
But to back track a bit, I will acknowledge all of the reasonable circumstances in which divorce or raising a child as a single parent are preferable to two people who hate each other trying to raise a kid. I will grant that.

I'm thinking more of two people who got married, decided to have kids, and then later want to split up for personal reasons...

*sigh*

I guess I'm just a minority here. My biological hardwiring might be more caveman-like than my modern fellow man. When I see a child, something happens to me, every fiber of my being wants nothing more than to love and protect that child. Even children that aren't mine. And as such, I would do anything for a child that was mine to ensure their happiness. And if that meant putting on a fraud and living with a wife I no longer loved, then I would do it. I would come to an arrangement with the wife. We sleep in separate beds, we can live separate lives and see other people, but as far as the kids are concerned, we are married and happy and together.

I just remember when I was a kid listening to my parents have the occasional argument. The thought of them separating was like the thought of the sky falling and the world ending. I just wish that on no child. It is just sad that our current culture seems to put the wants and desires of the parents ahead of the wants and desires of the children.

Also, Western Culture has bought into this fallacy of soulmates and true love yada yada yada. It's as if we believe that love should be effortless and perfect and that if you aren't 100% happy 100% of the time then your significant other isn't your soul mate and thus you need to find your soul mate because you deserve it. The reality is that love and marriage take work, constant work. And I guess as a culture we just aren't willing to roll up our sleeves and do the work anymore. Much easier to just get a divorce and move on...

I love the following movie and highly recommend it. It articulates exactly my thoughts on the matter and is a great movie

You're right that if the parents are good enough folks, then they should stay together. If they can hide the fact that they don't like each other from their kids, it may be dishonest, but the kids come out better adjusted than if they had gotten a divorce. Divorce does have an impact on children, I think no matter what their age, and it doesn't matter if the parents are good or bad, there is always the effect of divorce. But to blindly say all people should tough it out is going too far.

Some folk are not good at hiding the fact that they don't like other folk. Some folk need a lot of therapy just to get to the point that they can have a decent relationship at all with another human being, and if a marriage has at least one of these type of folk in it, then it is better to get a divorce. Yes, there is going to be a negative effect on the kids, but there can be a lot more. What some people don't realize is that parents teach their kids how to be in a marriage. So if you're fighting all the time, you're teaching your kids how they ought to act when they are married.

Here's an article
Here's an excerpt:

...there is no reason to believe that staying together at any cost is better for children than divorcing. In fact, when parents who are unhappy together and engage in unhealthy relationship habits stay together "for the kids" it can often do more harm than good. The behaviors you display in your home will set the stage for how your children will behave as adults. They learn what it means to be married, how to be a husband or wife and how to effectively (or ineffectively) deal with conflict in a relationship. I often hear people say things like, "But we don't do it in front of them," or "They don't really see what's going on." I assure you that these people are mistaken. Over the course of day-in/day-out, year after year, these messages accumulate, and take root, increasing the likelihood that your kids will repeat the very same patterns they have seen in their home growing up.

Now watch this movie, and tell me if people like this should stay together if they had already had kids:

quatona · Jul 1, 2015

SuperCloud said:
Well... I guess when you stand before Jesus you'll find out.

Ah, you´re already in preaching mode.

Moral Orel · Jul 1, 2015

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
If one or both biological parents not being in the picture as much as possible is not a right then nobody would have a problem with the adults in a child's life eliminating everything that could be part of any possible emotional connection with his/her biological parents?

I kind of agree with this. I don't think people should be dishonest about adoption. My wife already had a son when we got together. His dad wasn't abusive or anything like that, but my wife pointed out early on that I had spent more time with him in our first few weeks of dating than his bio-dad had his entire life. He was just a sort of absentee father, show up one day, go away a month... or four. So when we got married, I adopted him, which required the bio-dad to sign away his rights, which was difficult. But we don't lie to our kid and say I'm his biological father. We like to call the other guy the "biological father" and I'm his "real father". Kind of cute eh?

Anyways, we talk about the fact that he has a biological father out there, and he has an old picture of him. But until he is older, we aren't going to let him make the decision for himself to go try to meet him either. We don't want him getting attached just to have the bio-dad ditch him again, and we don't feel that a kid is capable of making the decision based on that amount of risk.

I can see why some folk would want to hide it from their adopted kids, because they don't want to deal with all the baggage later, but I think it's better to just have everything out in the open to begin with.

TheDag · Jul 1, 2015

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
If one or both biological parents not being in the picture as much as possible is not a right then nobody would have a problem with the adults in a child's life eliminating everything that could be part of any possible emotional connection with his/her biological parents?

No that does not follow.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
I think that the responses naming only things like love, a safe environment, etc. are off base. No, I did not just say that children do not have the right to be loved or to be safe, so please do not distort my words. The point I am now trying to make is that the healthiest thing is to be able to function in every way. To say that either a relationship between two people must be pleasant or there should not be a relationship at all is unrealistic. A child may feel hurt by and angry with his/her biological mother and/or father. If there is no right to a parent-child relationship of any kind with a child's biological mother and/or father then the chance to communicate that hurt and anger is denied.

Nobody is distorting your words. Not one single person made the claim you accuse them of making. They were simply saying this are the things we think are essential while you would include the biological parents in those rights.

TheDag · Jul 1, 2015

dgiharris said:
I just remember when I was a kid listening to my parents have the occasional argument. The thought of them separating was like the thought of the sky falling and the world ending. I just wish that on no child. It is just sad that our current culture seems to put the wants and desires of the parents ahead of the wants and desires of the children.

See this is more about you than anything else. The occasional argument is actually normal. We have this unrealistic idea which was reinforced by parents choosing to not argue in front of kids that proper couples don't ever argue.

TheDag · Jul 1, 2015

GoldenBoy89 said:
Why would children that don't yet exist determine the lives of adults that do exist and what they can or cannot do?

Why not? There are already laws that not only do this but also force a choice on people when there may never actually be any children.

dgiharris · Jul 1, 2015

TheDag said:
See this is more about you than anything else. The occasional argument is actually normal. We have this unrealistic idea which was reinforced by parents choosing to not argue in front of kids that proper couples don't ever argue.

Yeah, i remember what it was like to be a kid and to have even a remote fear that my parents would get divorced. Lucky for me, my parents were very loving and are still together to this day.

I remember how much I loved my family as a kid, I mean, my family was the world. I mean that literally. I think as adults we completely forget the emotions we had as kids. We forget how wonderful the world was, how magical everything was.... As adults we've become jaded and tend to think that kids are more or less like us when the reality is that kids feel everything about 10 times harder than we do as adults.

I will admit that my initial post was wrong when I said everyone should tough it out. The War of the Roses movie would be a great example of people who should get divorced.

But I do think this question says a lot about us as adults and society nowadays. I think in the West we've lost a lot of our will and fortitude when it comes to marriage. Way too many people get divorced, I know people who have been married 3 or 4 times for crying out loud. And we are leaving a trail of damaged kids behind us.

Cearbhall · Jul 1, 2015

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
I want to clarify the question.

I do not know of a word that applies, so I used the phrase "raised by".

The question is, basically, do children have the right to have a mother-child relationship with their biological mother and a father-child relationship with their biological father?

I think we understood. My answer is no.

SuperCloud said:
Well... I guess when you stand before Jesus you'll find out.

Wait, I thought it was Peter?

LANMind · Jul 1, 2015

Many folks on this thread seem fairly articulate, yet badly mangle and confuse the concept of a right with the practical implications. The way many of the arguments read, to me, seem to suggest the analogy that because there's no practical possibility for someone living in a war- and strife-torn region to live in safety and happiness they don't have a right to it, and that's utter nonsense.

In the extreme, if a child cannot be raised by biological parents - perhaps they died in a car accident - they are still fully entitled to those parents. Certainly our society makes provision for parents to step out of the lives of the children they produce, but that doesn't negate prior obligations. If we take a kitten out of box in WalMart parking lot, we certainly establish a commitment to feed and care for the thing regardless of whether or not we intend to. Don't we??

And the "women and children" thing is a modern extension of chivalry, which is itself based, in part, on the idea that those of us who are less in need of protection have a "burden" for those in our lives require more of it.

keith99 · Jul 1, 2015

dgiharris said:
Yeah, i remember what it was like to be a kid and to have even a remote fear that my parents would get divorced. Lucky for me, my parents were very loving and are still together to this day.

I remember how much I loved my family as a kid, I mean, my family was the world. I mean that literally. I think as adults we completely forget the emotions we had as kids. We forget how wonderful the world was, how magical everything was.... As adults we've become jaded and tend to think that kids are more or less like us when the reality is that kids feel everything about 10 times harder than we do as adults.

I will admit that my initial post was wrong when I said everyone should tough it out. The War of the Roses movie would be a great example of people who should get divorced.

But I do think this question says a lot about us as adults and society nowadays. I think in the West we've lost a lot of our will and fortitude when it comes to marriage. Way too many people get divorced, I know people who have been married 3 or 4 times for crying out loud. And we are leaving a trail of damaged kids behind us.

So far only 2 people in the generation after me in my immediate family have married. In both cases they married someone who had children from a previous marriage. In both cases getting free from the other parent was a very good thing for the children involved.

Lets face it some people are rotten parents. A child should not be stuck with a rotten parent forever.

Cearbhall · Jul 1, 2015

LANMind said:
Many folks on this thread seem fairly articulate, yet badly mangle and confuse the concept of a right with the practical implications. The way many of the arguments read, to me, seem to suggest the analogy that because there's no practical possibility for someone living in a war- and strife-torn region to live in safety and happiness they don't have a right to it, and that's utter nonsense.

I suppose I would ask what the purpose is of stating that it's a right if it's not feasible. I don't believe in objective rights. It seems like a bit of a strange concept to me. I simply want things to be better for everyone, even if there's no higher power who has laid out a list of objective human rights. I only use the term because people understand it.

Furthermore, when it comes to this particular proposed right, I don't see the logic behind it, and that's why I won't agree that it's a right even though I do say that things like healthcare and shelter are rights. There are very few things that your biological parents can give you that other people can't give you. It's really just things like breastmilk and intimate knowledge of your grandparents, but those things aren't necessary for survival, nor are they recognized rights.

LANMind · Jul 1, 2015

Cearbhall said:
I don't believe in objective rights.

You don't? So, for instance, people working in sweatshops don't have a right to a fair wage in a safe environment? Children don't have a right to quality education?

I suspect most people would say such things are objective rights, regardless of who or what imbues said rights.

John Allman · Jul 1, 2015

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
Do children have the right to be raised by both their biological mother and biological father? The question is about rights in a moral sense, not in a legal sense.

This caught my eye, because this is my "specialist subject", so-to-speak. I felt strongly enough about this one issue to stand as the "Let ever child have both parents" candidate for North Cornwall in the recent British election, with a single issue manifesto that consisted entirely of Principle 6 of the 1959 Unicef Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which declared this right "where possible", as a "principle" at the time, in the hope that it would become a legal right worldwide. This is likely to be raised in Gagged Dad's human rights claim, A v Cornwall.

Predictably, I answer "yes".

As you'd expect, in the circumstances, I am including a link to my blog, which was my shop window when I was a Parliamentary candidate. Since the election is now over, my blog can no longer be said to be "marketing" anything. It has reverted to being a mere opinion blog. However, it does cover this issue from several different angles.

http://JohnAllman.UK

Cearbhall · Jul 1, 2015

LANMind said:
You don't? So, for instance, people working in sweatshops don't have a right to a fair wage in a safe environment? Children don't have a right to quality education?

Not objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. I and most other people think these are good ideas if we want to live happy lives and have a functioning society. I would call them rights, but not in the sense of it being a truth of the universe.

LANMind said:
I suspect most people would say such things are objective rights, regardless of who or what imbues said rights.

Those who believe in objective rights and objective morality certainly would.

TheDag · Jul 2, 2015

dgiharris said:
Yeah, i remember what it was like to be a kid and to have even a remote fear that my parents would get divorced. Lucky for me, my parents were very loving and are still together to this day.

I think your missing my point. Your experience of this irrational fear of parents divorcing is affecting your view here. I say it is an irrational fear because of the way you describe your parents relationship. The way you describe it makes it sound like divorce is highly unlikely. I remember when I was younger the way things were done in terms of finding out if anyone at school had just one parent created a stigma.

dgiharris · Jul 2, 2015

TheDag said:
I think your missing my point. Your experience of this irrational fear of parents divorcing is affecting your view here. I say it is an irrational fear because of the way you describe your parents relationship. The way you describe it makes it sound like divorce is highly unlikely. I remember when I was younger the way things were done in terms of finding out if anyone at school had just one parent created a stigma.

You are missing my point. My point had nothing to do with the probability of my parent's divorcing. My point had to do with the potential impact a divorce would have had on me as a child and how important the concept of family was to me as a child.

I remember watching a movie where there was a family of four, the parents had died in a plane crash, and social services were going to split up the kids because it is easier to adopt them off as ones and twos and luckily a estranged relative came in and adopted all of them... I remember thinking that if that had happened, I as the oldest would have took my 3 remaining siblings and ran away with them, find a house, and raise them myself. Obviously, as a 10 year old this would have been impossible, but I remember my emotions and thoughts at the time. And they were that nothing was more important than my family. My family was my entire world and any serious disruption would be like a meteor impacting the planet...

Again, I think as adults we forget how powerful our emotions and feelings were as a child. For whatever reason I remember a lot of my childhood, not just facts and events but I remember my mindset and emotions as a child. And I think as adults, we tend to gloss over this subject and pretend that it's not that big a deal for children when the reality is, a divorce is the biggest thing in a child's life akin to loosing a limb.

That is my point.

Open Heart · Jul 2, 2015

I don't know if right is the correct word. I think every child deserves to be raised by a father and a mother (but I would include adoptive parents in this). For example, I think single people who deliberately have children are doing wrong by their child.

Do children have the right to be raised by both their biological mother and biological father?

The courage to be human

stupid bleeding heart feminist liberal

Well-Known Member

Proud Citizen of Moralton

"God"? What do you mean??

Proud Citizen of Moralton

I don't like titles

I don't like titles

I don't like titles

Old Crusty Vet

Well-Known Member

IT Scapegoat

sola dosis facit venenum

Well-Known Member

IT Scapegoat

http://JohnAllman.UK

Well-Known Member

I don't like titles

Old Crusty Vet

Well-Known Member

Similar threads