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Gay Marriage: A Hetero's View
Reading about the decision by New York's highest court, rejecting gay and lesbian couples' right to marry, I have to say I am mystified by the court's arguments. The gist of it was that marriage is based on societal goals to protect children.
How does prohibiting two men who love each other from marrying protect kids? Even if you buy the argument that it's always better for a child to be raised by a man and a woman (a notion that is disproven by quite a few studies and by my own eyes, which sees plenty of great gay parents and lousy hetero ones), how does it help a child to prevent his parents from marrying?
Unless the court also intends to prohibit gay and lesbian couples from adopting. Which happens in some states and is an outright disgrace, considering how many kids languish in foster care. And I just do not understand why anyone would think that legalizing gay marriage would weaken hetero unions, or somehow discourage straights from marrying and having kids.
 Stumble It!
What We Do For Our Kids
A couple of days ago, my husband and I took our five-year-old daughter Annie to Sesame Place, a theme park devoted to all things Sesame Street-related.
I'm not a lover of theme parks, and huge crowds can cause me to break out in a sweat, but we'd been feeling that so many of the outings we plan are geared to our older daughter, Emily, 10. When Emily was 4, we'd taken her to Raffi. When she was 2, we even shlepped to Radio City Music Hall to see Barney. But with Annie, we'd skipped those dreaded events, feeling we'd been there, done that.
So Guilt took us, and our daughter, to Sesame Hell on July 3.
What a misery it was for us (me and my husband, not our daughter, who was happy as could be). Crowds galore, jammed into sweaty, long lines for rides. Lots of people crammed into little wading pools, with their babies and toddlers wailing. And for this privilege, we had to empty our pockets. All told we spent more than $200, despite the fact that we bought our daughte rjust one little souvenir (which she adored for all of 20 minutes and hasn't looked at since.)
Looking around at the families, who brought 3, 4, kids with them, spending a small fortune in the process, I had to wonder: Do our kids really need this? Isn't this part of the myth that if we drop a load of money on an overcrowded, overhyped theme park that our kids will somehow be happier for it? Or am I the only person who finds these "child-friendly" experiences grim misery?
I
Stumble It!
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