on parenting and morality

Last night i got into a pretty heated discussion with some of my friends about the responsibilities of parenting. It was one of those conversations where I felt like a big liberal, and smiled a little to think that all my friends from home, college, etc still think that I'm (relatively) conservative. Not that everyone in the military is much more politically conservative than I am, but I definitely still think the majority of them are, when I get looks of disgust for saying things like "I think two gay men can and should be allowed to raise a child together."

Anyway... though we did talk about gay parenting, most of the conversation was about the morality of divorce. We went through several hypothetical scenarios, but for this post I'll stick to one: if you have a child with someone, are you morally obliged to marry/ stay married to
that child's father/mother? We'll break this up to two sub-questions:

1. If you get knocked up (or knock up a girl), should you marry him/her?
I don't think you necessarily should. I really didnt think this was an interesting question until I realized yesterday that I have so many friends who think you should marry him/her just because you got pregnant. Obviously if you love the person and would otherwise get married, being pregnant certainly wouldn't stop you. But in a case where you wouldn't marry them if you didn't get pregnant, I don't think you should marry them just because you got pregnant. That's just asking for disaster and unhappy marriage. However, the popular answer yesterday was that yes, you should marry them, it is your moral obligation for the child's well being and development that you marry the child's father/mother-- the reason being that that way the kid is supposed to have a "normal" childhood and learn "proper" gender roles. My retort that the kid is more likely to have a screwed up childhood with unhappily married parents was overturned by my friends because, as they said, all unhappily married parents should either try to work it out and get along, or otherwise fake that they get along, for the child's benefit. Anyway, for the second subquestion:

2. Say the child's parents are already married when they have the child. Down the road, the parents become unhappy together. Are they morally obliged to stay together (either forever or at least till the kid leaves home) for the child's well being? In other words, is separation/divorce immoral?
I strongly believe that they are NOT obliged to stay together, nor should they. The opposition argued that it's selfish to get divorced, and if you have a child, you must invest more in the child's well being than your own. I agree that as a parent, your child is more important than yourself- and I think any good parent would agree. HOWEVER, I think that in the case where the kid's parents are unhappily married, it is in the child's best interest to get a divorce! This seems really obvious to me, but I learned that it's not obvious nor widely agreed upon by intelligent, educated young people. I think, especially from friends with divorced parents growing up, that it's better for a child to have happily divorced parents than to have unhappily married parents. Yes, it's difficult for kids to grow up having two families, spending the holidays with a different parent every year and so on, but I think it's A LOT more difficult for a kid to grow up in a home where the parents don't get along and don't love each other. Maybe they learn "normal" and "correct" gender roles, namely that a "normal" family has a mom and a dad living together, but they certainly don't learn the "right" things about love and happiness. I personally think it's a lot more important for a child to learn the value and importance of love and domestic happiness even if it means learning that from step-parents than for the child to be trapped in an unloving home but where the mother and father still live together.

We all agreed that you shouldn't marry someone or have a child with someone unless you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. But life isn't always that easy and straightforward. And it IS possible for good people to fall out of love. Sad to think, I know, but we see it happen. I certainly hope that I marry and have children with someone I love and continue to love for the rest of my life, but if I don't, I will consider separation/ divorce for myself but even more for the kid(s)! Because I think that's the right thing to do. Do I value happiness more than gender roles? I don't really think that's the question, but perhaps I do. I admit, I do think happiness and love are pretty damn important. Maybe this is because my family has a history of depression and I have spent a lot of time reflecting on happiness, but that aside, I really believe that everything ties into happiness-- success, fortune, good parenting, health.

And life's not fair-- maybe the kid growing up with divorced parents will have a tougher childhood than the kid with happily married parents, but I think he'll have a MUCH easier childhood than the kid with unhappily married parents. And in the end, having to deal with difficult issues during childhood isn't necessarily a bad thing, just like it isn't necessarily a bad thing as an adult. If life were always easy it would be boring. And there's a lot more to learn from tough times. Anyway, this is a topic for another day.