Sunday, November 23, 2008

Help Me, Doc

I've listened to Dr. Laura on and off for the past decade.

I've also listened to Loveline on and off for the past few years.

If you aren't familiar with either, they are both radio shows wherein listeners call to get help with certain dilemmas. Such programs are a secret pleasure of mine -- I like to compare what I would personally advise compared to the hosts.

Because of this secret pleasure of mine, I've listened to perhaps thousands of callers whose problems were primarily a result of something their parents did. The other day, I realized something: out of these thousands of troubled people, I've never heard a call from a gay couple's child.

One would think that, out of all my years of albeit casual listening, I would have at least heard 1 call from a child raised by a gay couple. Statistically -- let's assume I've heard 1500 calls where the problem was parent-related -- I should have heard 7-37 calls throughout the years (based on stats stating that 2-10% of the population is gay and about 25% of gay couples raise children).

According to the strongly held belief that a child optimally needs a man and a woman for parents -- Dr. Laura is undeniably ardent in her polarized gender beliefs, especially concerning the needs of children -- a large concentration of calls should be coming from those children being raised by gay parents.

Nevertheless, I, personally, have yet to hear from one. That's not to say there haven't been any... I just haven't heard them if there have been.

I have, however, heard a plethora of grieved callers (whose grievances are parent-based) who have a man and a woman as parents. True, the grievances are most often the result of the father being a complete dick and/or the mother being a complete cunt (if you'll forgive the crudeness... I used such for a very specific literary purpose)... but is this evidence of the good(man + woman) + children = ideal family theorem?

That is, because someone is messed up because of a dick-of-a-father, does that necessarily translate to, "See, that's why a child needs a good father" ?

Because someone is messed up because of a cunt-of-a-mother, does that necessarily translate to, "See, that's why a child needs a good mother" ?

Or is this just evidence that an effective parent is not a dick or a cunt... but a caring, loving parent?

1 comment:

  1. Oddly enough I was a fan of Dr. Laura's show for a small while when it aired in 1998-99 on Channel 7 here in Los Angeles. However, due to her 'orthodox' views on homosexuality she was eventually moved to a 2a.m. time slot and then bumped from the t.v. lineup completely.

    I actually appreciate the crudeness. :) Despite my efforts to completely eradicate profanity from my vocabulary, sometimes there simply isn't any other way than to just say what one means, even if it means utilizing foul language. Ya know? LOL.

    Hoping your day is going well. I have the day off from Target today. OH and this is Andrewdb01 from GCN in case you haven't guessed. :)

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