The bulk of child development research claims that a parent needs to be present through the growth and development of a child. Children who don't have that connection end up with many risk factors, such as delinquency, intimacy and trust issues, instability, and a propensity for certain mental disorders. I won't dispute the research results, but I will point out one major bias in the results: The research framework is mono-normative (for more on mono-normativity, check out my other blog at http://non-monodiscourse.blogspot.com/). The results get boxed into normative ideas of family structure, with monogamy on one end and absenteeism/infidelity on the other. As much as more conservative elements would love to testify to the rightness of this structure, the reality is different, more nuanced. Family structure is a shifting, dynamic thing.
I am a long-distant parent. My year-and-a-half old daughter is on the other side of the country, being raised by my ex and her boyfriend. I do have contact with my daughter, weekly video conferencing and whatnot. It's been like this since last year, before my daughter's first birthday. I find it hard to delineate the bias advice of child development professionals from my personal feelings. I miss my daughter, and six months into her life I was torn out of it. I'm still suffering from that, and issues of injustice around it (see earlier posts in this blog). I think those feelings are getting mixed up with the common child development mantras, where a part of me says that I need to get my daughter back, so she can grow up with her father in her life.
Yet the validity of the arguments in that research are questionable at best, because of the bias. The cool rational part of me objects to the lack of study in unconventional parenting situations for children. The assumption is there's some sort of genetic connection between parent and child. My question is what validity is there in that assumption? Is it a culturally or biologically based connection? I would argue cultural.
So then, with my daughter being cared for by my ex and her boyfriend, who are (by and large) mimicking the traditional normative family (at least where my daughter is concerned) what does it matter how involved I am in her life? I don't believe by absence is harmful, so why do I need to capitulate to a confused jumble of emotion and bias reasoning?
Society would have me do that though. Norms are powerful, and many people capitulate to the 'rightness' of them.
So, what next then? It's always in the back of my mind, the invalidated normative reasons. Always something I can use, like some kind of NBC weapon, coming with it's own slew of ethical consequences for it's use. Is it a path I could ever take? Like our own government, detesting it's existence, yet holding on to it 'just in case.' Do I hold the same path, easing a part of my sub-consciousness by keeping a weapon in the closet I hope never to use, and would hate myself for using?
The ethicality of it is very grey, especially when my justice/vengeance feelings get mixed up in it. Clarity becomes challenging. Rationality almost impossible. Thankfully I have a very rational mind, that sees logic and reason as the foundation to my understandings, and builds feelings off of that (usually).
Being human is being imperfect, and I am indeed imperfect in how my emotions work. My reasoning is strong, but my emotions are flawed, as they should be.
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