Scrolling through your Facebook News Feed and seeing novel-length, emotionally fueled statuses about anything from being Justin Bieber’s “one less lonely girl” (guilty) to Paula Deen’s battle with the butter stick is not only tiring, it’s become ubiquitous.

It’s college; I’m used to being irritated by the opposing and sometimes controversial opinions of my peers. Differing views spark my interest, opening a peephole into the opposition’s heads. But when somebody publicly expresses an opinion that not only pertains to me but criticizes the way I was raised, it gets personal. And it’s in that sense that I feel both credible and obligated to sever this apparent closed-mindedness and perhaps convince others that parenting goes beyond gender. 

The other day I came across a friend’s status that cited his opposition for same-sex marriage because “every child deserves a mother and a father.” I was angered because here is a person declaring war on the diversity of parenthood, not just on same-sex marriage.  

I was born to loving parents — my mother and my father. My brother was born 13 months later. We lived an urban life in a traditional household. School, media and peers all reinforced my belief that living with my mom, dad and brother was just the way it went.

It wasn’t until second grade that I began to doubt traditionalism. My parents got divorced, and I didn’t necessarily feel guilty or lonely, instead I felt — if I had known the word earlier — betrayed. Here I was living a paradoxical life in a country of matrimony, mothers and fathers. A young me, contemplating my future as a consequence of a norm I would soon learn can be defied.

Both of my parents eventually remarried, bringing me to my next phase of untraditional parenting situations: being blessed with now four loving parents. Even at 13, when divorce wasn’t uncommon, I found myself defying one mother and one father — I had twice the amount of “deserved” parents. 

Through the diversity of parenting situations I’ve experienced, I can’t help but feel my anger is justified. My friends come from diverse familial situations: single-parent households, extended families. It’s the simple realization that we are all (seemingly) normal despite our incomparable backgrounds that I feel the need to protest a deceiving idea of the parenting children “deserve.”

I simply aim to enlighten those who have encouraged this “one mother and one father” belief. In fact, there is a whole other world of possibilities for children that give them an equal, if not superior, parenting situation. I am a child of two heterosexual parents and of single-parent, two-parent and widowed households. Nobody gets to tell me that I deserved otherwise or that my lifestyle is null because of the circumstances in which I grew up.

The Journal of Marriage and Family referenced an array of studies portraying a wide scope of parenting situations. Compared with married heterosexual couples, lesbian co-parents came closer to achieving egalitarian parenting styles and household responsibilities. Compared with two-parent households, single parents often had better relationships with their children and helped to break traditional gender roles. Compared with households with a father, “fatherless” households may actually enable children to break free of gender restraints typically imposed by fatherly influences. 

We cannot keep basing our parenting styles upon the notion that there needs to be a man to masculinize a son and a woman to feminize a daughter. This is exactly the type of practice that promotes gender conformity like boys playing sports and girls playing with dolls. 

Variations in parenting situations aren’t always detrimental; they appear to have their own unique set of advantages. As the American family paradigm shifts, so will our views and practices. The emergence of nuclear family households in response to financial hardships and of single-parent households as a result of high divorce rates cannot be disregarded as substandard alternatives.

I fully acknowledge the benefit in having one mother and one father; it’s the picture painted in most of our heads as early as kindergarten. But I have to disagree that this is deserved. Because what a child deserves is loving parenting, and it’s irrelevant which parenting situation that’s achieved through. The idea that “more is better” doesn’t hold true here. It’s better to have one warm, caring, devoted parent than two irresponsible ones. 

If it were up to me, I would have thrown out the words mother and father long ago. By attaching a gendered meaning to the idea of parenting, we form this idea that there needs to be both a motherly and fatherly influence. When really, the term parenting should encompass all types, not just one.    

I will simply state my objection here:

I lived with two parents. I’ve lived with one. I’ve had four parents. And I’ve lost one. And here I am, healthy, normal and a living example that perhaps I didn’t get the parenting I “deserved,” but I still got the love. Does it really matter how?

Adam is a junior in ACES. He can be reached at [email protected].