This is another one of those Schroedinger's Moral Principles that is either true or false depending on how I phrase it:
True: Two gay men are just as good at parenting as a woman and a man. In fact, many gay couples are better parents than straight couples!
False: Children don't need mothers; there is no particular value a woman contributes to a child's upbringing, and 100% of what she does can be done by a man. In fact, many men are superior at "mothering" than women.
If mothers had no value, we’d have been evolved away (I get what you’re arguing, it’s the phrasing, just saying.) 100% can’t be done by a man. Men can’t gestate, they can’t breastfeed. That’s the ‘absolutely cannot do’ stuff. If the argument is that a single father can a child fine then that’s a matter of degree, so can women, and you’re looking at
on average how each group turns out. I think you would expect the single fathers to do better due to factors below
Both of us interact differently with our kids, and we both bring different things to the table. Both are needed. Kids go through phases of preferring one parent as well, maybe there are developmental stages where more of one type of input is needed. I’ve also noticed all ours will run to one parent or the other depending on what’s happened - something that resulted in fear they go to dad, something that requires comfort to mum.
Single fathers are an interesting one because they do have good outcomes AND they are rarer. There are fewer single dads and I’d imagine that since stereotypically it’s the mother who keeps the kids, you’re selecting hard for a group which;
- Excludes deadbeat dad who abandon the family -
-includes loving families with single father through tragedy (wife dies young for example)
-selects for men who step up and do the job.
-selects for men who don’t just install a new wife to do the work
So you end up with a very selected pool.