Stuart Wolfendale

Mary Cheney aged 37, lesbian daughter of the Vice President of the United States, who recently took a ‘decision to become pregnant’ has said in response to small arms attack from the religious right that “there is no difference between children raised by same sex parents and those raised by opposite sex parents”. I cannot help but agree with Mary. As a species we have had a one track mind on parenthood for millennia.

The genders of the couple involved are of no account in child rearing. For too long we have fussed over a balance of masculine and feminine influences in the development of the human personality. What an unnecessary mess that has led to and what strife has been imposed on individual men and women, forced to come together to procreate and made to stay on in each other’s company for decades after, when they could have been happily off romping and shagging with their own kind.

We all know that what kids really want is simply a ‘stable loving environment’ as Mary puts it and not be confined to a house with people who have starkly different body shapes and functions, unnerving moods and smells and a lack common interest in fabrics or motor bikes.

Those of us who read Charles Dickens know that he had it exactly right from the child’s point of view. Many of his central characters were lifted out of poverty and opposite-sex cruelty by eccentric indulgent aunts in the country who lived with companions and amid lovely gardens or indulgent rich and elderly gentlemen who owned large houses in the West End of London. (I’d like to see Dickens try that plot line today). Childhood should be one long holiday with gran and gramps.

I was actually brought up by wolves so I can tell you how unessential man with woman or even human parenting can be. My adoptive parents were immensely protective and stood no messing from anybody. As a kid, we were always on the move through romantic snow covered forests in a permanent Christmas. Meals were particularly exciting, especially the shopping part. I could certainly teach you a thing or two about ‘bonding’ and not going out on your own at night and those who know me say I integrated perfectly well after I was found gnawing on a hiker. My only problems are with neighbours’ pets, which I cannot understand are meant to be kept, and with waiters who do not understand the meaning of ‘raw’.

Mary described her child as a ‘blessing from God’ which is really rather over egging the ovary, I think. It leaves out the syringe, the obstetrician and the donor guy she never had. Indeed since Mary says she took ‘a decision to become pregnant’, God is more or less knocked out of the equation altogether, which is probably for the best. We wouldn’t want him hanging around , confusing that stable environment later on.

Personally I believe that ‘scientists’ –all of them- are going to make it possible for same sex couples to have real babies between them and , a bit like global warming, sooner than we think! Research is already bound to be going on somewhere near Seattle.

For the lesbians, a gland for rumbling up transmittable juices will have to be developed for one of the partners along with a minimalist prosthetic delivery device saleable in convenience stores. In gay men, one of them is going to have to do all the heavy lifting. A neat womb in a beige and dark grey will have to be fitted with final delivery by an elasticised anal canal. I am sorry for any sudden discomfort for you here but you have been warned about reading the internet whilst eating.

Technically none of this should take long to come up with. The delay will be in the clinical trials. However, if it is being developed in China, those can be dispensed with and the making of same sex babies can start straight away. Amongst societies which can now welcome news that the natural growth of severely handicapped children is being arrested by drugs to make them less difficult to handle, this will come to pass without a pause, you bet.

In the meantime, I can see that less and less mention will be made of the true origins of babies like Mary. It will become accepted that saying the sperm of a strange man was pumped in to the woman by a tube is unfair, biased and discriminatory. It will be as much incorrect to talk of the process as it was for the Victorians to talk about intercourse. There will be birth mothers and, perhaps ‘decision mothers’.

Likewise Lewis and Jeff will come to be offended if it is said out loud that they adopted their child. In a warm and fuzzy sort of way, it will come to be understood that little Luke somehow got made in a class or at least was wished upon a star.

Of course as little Lukes become bigger Lukes, they will hear all sorts of anatomical details from school chums and see all sorts of bits and pieces on reality shows which will be at variance with their experience of mummy and mummy or daddy and daddy wandering out of the bathroom and they will ponder and ask. Yet how can they be truthfully answered and kept out of secure units?

This will be the time for re-appearance of the Stork who brings little bundles and leaves them on the doorstep. Or there could be those Moses moments involving a discovery under a bush. It will be a delightful return to the olden days and very heaven again for Disney animation. Thank you Mary, for it is decision mothers like you who are the real blessing.

Posted in All, God, Remark