The Shadow on My Day

This morning started out well. The sun is out and shining, and it's supposed to be warm, unlike the past few days. I got to work and checked my email. There was a discussion going on about Socialism in the email group I belong to, which somehow derailed into a discussion of the legal importance of marriage. Someone I thought I knew said something that shook and saddened me deeply- she basically implied that without a legal contract between a couple, the children would not realize their full potential. Therefore, anyone living with a partner that considered themselves to be married in every spiritual sense of the word, without involving the government, would not be able to bring up children "properly." Her exact words were:

It is obviously more productive to not get married and just become a bastard factory. I don't think the argument that it is OK to have children without a legal relationship between parents is good for the child. Despite the fact that it is no longer taboo I think it leaves a nothing in the child's life.

This statement could be construed to include single parents as well.

As the product of a dissolved marriage and an imperfect but persistent one, I take great exception to this statement. I have many friends that were raised by single parents, and I know people raising children without being married to their partners. The important thing, in my mind, is that a child is brought up in a loving home, with boundaries, but with a parent or parents who love them. Not everyone has a mother or father, but that doesn't stop them from becoming great. Look at our president, for example. His mother raised him alone, and I think that he and many of us raised similarly are stronger for it.

That people pass judgment on others without having truly thought about the situation(s) involved is very sad. I cannot seem to shake this heavy feeling off.

I just wonder at the lack of open-mindedness in this world today.