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We Found Our Son in the Subway

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#141

Post by nicholassmith »

siscia wrote: post #30

Love the story. When we talk about gay marriage and adoption I always need to query a little more, especially about the kids. What's about Kevin ? His life is "perfectly normal" (how stupid is this expression) ? He is happy ? Does he have problem with his sexuality ? Do anybody have any experience to share ? Please to be obvious, in neither way... (Why this is on HN ? Well, because I believe that HN is one of the bes…

Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting#Sexual_orientati...

However, there's lots of studies with lots of results and generally often very small sample groups. I would say from the article it sounds like he's well adjusted and happy, if he's gay he's gay, if he's straight he's straight.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#142

Post by jules »

siscia wrote: post #30

Love the story. When we talk about gay marriage and adoption I always need to query a little more, especially about the kids. What's about Kevin ? His life is "perfectly normal" (how stupid is this expression) ? He is happy ? Does he have problem with his sexuality ? Do anybody have any experience to share ? Please to be obvious, in neither way... (Why this is on HN ? Well, because I believe that HN is one of the bes…

> Does he have problem with his sexuality ?

I find it hard to understand what you mean by this question.

Are you asking whether Kevin is gay? Most children raised by gay couples are straight, but if Kevin was gay, would you consider that to be a problem with his sexuality?

If that's not what you meant, then what did you mean? Can you give a concrete example of something that you'd consider a problem with his sexuality that might be caused by his parents being gay?

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#144

Post by celticninja »

Alex3917 wrote: post #98
polymatter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But you, and these guys, and everyone else just do what we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years." I don't mean to scare you, but that is the mother of all sampling bias (to quote xkcd). The parents that don't do so well, generally have a smaller chance of being grandparents. I'm sure all of you reading this will do just fine though. I also need to say that that judge was awesome.

"The parents that don't do so well, generally have a smaller chance of being grandparents." Some people would argue that those who don't do well as parents are more likely to have grandkids...

or are more likely to have grandkids at an earlier age

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#145

Post by salgernon »

ajtaylor wrote: post #124
twstws wrote: post #92

This was hard for me to read. I spent four years waiting to adopt a child.Did almost a year of training and home visits, then waited. And waited. Why does it take so long? Because we selfishly insisted that we'd only take one ortwo children. The social workers were not subtle in letting us know that we were selfish to not want a sibling group of 4 or 5(?!) kids all at once. They made it absolutely clear that we could…

My wife and I also adopted through a state Family Services division. You probably don't want to hear how we got lucky and got a baby within a few months... But we did come pretty close to taking a sibling group of 5. The case worker basically decided she didn't like/want us and that was that. We were pretty upset at the time, but things often have a way of working out. The system is massively screwed up, but I hope y…

It's 4am and I'm reading hacker news in the play yard.

I guess without kids it's be 4am and I'd be debugging something.

In only one of these scenarios am I not covered in vomit.

I'm hoping for one of those "what'll you remember later" moments, but right now I'm remembering a particularly nice day with gdb and otool -tv. Darling little otool!

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#146

Post by thisone »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #111
vaadu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea. What if the government offered free tubal ligation and vasectomy. If you later want to have kids that cost is on you to reverse it.

Here in the UK at least basically everyone has access to free contraception, you can usually walk into a health clinic and ask for a bag of condoms and they will give them to you. I think there may also be mechanisms for women to get the contraceptive pill gratis if they are on government support. The issue is though that this requires some degree of responsibility and planning, which is almost by definition missing…

at least in 2007 the pill was free as well.

Contraceptive implant, coil, IUD, all still free last time I checked. It's not only condoms. And if your local surgery can't provide what you want due to a skills shortage you can go to a sexual health clinic with no problem.

When I was chatting with the GUM clinic staff last time I had my implant changed, she was talking about how common it was for teens to have it, since it's such an easy fire and forget contraceptive.

Preventing STIs however, that's another issue.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#147

Post by CaptainZapp »

gsmaverick wrote: post #106
ck2 wrote: post #105

Lovely story but what kind of husband offers to adopt a child without even previously discussing it his wife? Great relationship there. This story turned out well only because of her. BTW this is why many cities now have a law there is no penalty to leave a newborn at a firestation, yet some cities still resist it.

Fyi, I believe this is actually a gay couple given the author's name is Peter and his partner is named Danny.

Which makes the judge even more amazing in my book.

10 years ago it was more then extraordinary to entrust a gay couple with adopting a child.

Times and attitudes have changed massively in this time, which is a good thing. It's much better for a kid to be brought up by a loving, caring gay couple then in a total dysfunctional traditional marriage.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#148

Post by n09n »

robomartin wrote: post #79
Geekette wrote: post #44

Ugh. This yanked a couple of thug tears outta me. And for those wondering what place this has on HN, I actually read HN for interesting, often-not-technically-related news.

Yup. Got me too. Beautiful story. Lots of love there. Neither my wife nor I were ready for any of our kids. I don't think you ever are. What these guys did was, among other things, down-right heroic. Not everyone would be open to changing their lives to such an extent by choice. It's also a wonderful representation of real values found in the gay community. This country will be far better off when we start to serious…

If it were not for those fanatical religiously-motivated phobias that you decry, that kid would have been murdered before he was ever born.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#149

Post by randallsquared »

Alex3917 wrote: post #98
polymatter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But you, and these guys, and everyone else just do what we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years." I don't mean to scare you, but that is the mother of all sampling bias (to quote xkcd). The parents that don't do so well, generally have a smaller chance of being grandparents. I'm sure all of you reading this will do just fine though. I also need to say that that judge was awesome.

"The parents that don't do so well, generally have a smaller chance of being grandparents." Some people would argue that those who don't do well as parents are more likely to have grandkids...

Depends on what "well" means. :)
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