I'm gay and I was born in a straight family. I don't think I attack my "traditional family" or the "traditional family" of my sister.

... and I never attack family (traditional or not). 

My family appears so traditional, I've been called Suzie Homemaker more than once.  I even had someone tell me they feel sorry for me.

Husband - who is main breadwinner in a  building industry management job, slightly older and sounds grumpy sometimes (lolololol)

Me - mostly a mom, half-time worker at church who some would call a Sunday School teacher, also sometimes employed in childbirth support, but overall very nurturing (hah! lolololol), likes to bake and knows how to run a sewing machine

Son, daughter, neat little house, 2 doggies, etc etc.

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My line is:  My husband wears the pants in the family, I tell him which ones.

Anyway - what is traditional?  does it require the wife to behave?  does it require the father to act a certain way (beyond responsible to his marriage?)  does it require a marriage certificate?  or different-gendered parents?  or 2 parents?  or even 1 parent?

Who gives a flying fiddler's damn if a group of people consider themselves a family and support one another respectfully & lovingly? 

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Anyway again:  I support families, and maternity leave at 1 year, and parenting programs and family supports and all of that, but not ever based on someone's narrow ideas of who fits the bill.

right back at'cha!! 

under attack??  really??

how??

because i've had that family for a number of years now, and i certainly don't feel 'under attack'.

i need to know where this 'attack' is going to come from so i can build bunkers or something...

... still, you'd better reenforce the flanks there... you dont' want anything getting through!!

I suppose I more than anyone on here would represent the "attack" on the traditional family since

I never wanted to be a wife, homemaker or mother ......

I've seen many women of my mother's generation and even mine's lives and potentials go down the drain when they got hitched and had parasites

... spending days in the kitchen doing meaningless things like making hubby a perfect steak ...planning the purrrrfect dinner parties ....  when they could have been running companies and earning their university degrees .....or if they do work it's at silly part time jobs with no future and no real pay ... no money of their own only hubby's allowance .....

and that constant feeling that if you burned dinner ... or didn't starch the shirts hubby would go away and you would have nothing to keep you from sinking .... walking on eggs never starting fights .... too afraid to admit that he sucks in bed because that would mean no trips to Disneyland that summer ......

I do admit since i'm not one to hold back............... that i feel sorry for some of those women .... if only they knew what they were giving up .... it's even worse when their own marriages fail and their kids never speak to them .... and they have nothing to show for it ......

i'm glad the tradtional family is more diverse now than ever .... before it was just a life of servitude and slavery things have been changing for a few years now ...

.women are realizing their potentials and putting off both parenthood and marriagehood even men are realizing that their nights are better spent out with the guys instead of changing diapers ....and are also avoiding parenthood and marriage  good on both of them .....

*deleted by me*

methinks you have to clear your temporary internet files........... no pic

yesh cute link too

i love that sesame street video!!

so wheres frog??  i need to know how i'm under attack here!!! 

come on, frog!!  this sounds like an emergency!!! 

That doesn't even make any ripping sense.

come on you two - the marriages Jes refers to deserve to be under attack - and too often the term "traditional marriage" and yes, church pressure has been used to protect those sham marriages.

In fact, I know someone who is particularly vulnerable for a number of reasons who has been shoehorned into a horrible marriage by a creep psycho dude and his church and his family. 

So, Jes has good reason to run from that and attack it, and yes it has been defended as traditional marriage.

Better single than stuck like that.  But for all of us here, none would support such a thing.

i KNEW no good would come from those city folk and their polyester leisure suits...

quite possibly at work, I would imagine.  Maybe I should do some too!

hopefully he's feeling better too - sounds like he had a rough day yesterday.  http://www.wondercafe.ca/discussion/health-and-aging/so-very-tired

yeah... well, 2 seizures is pretty major stuff...

Meh.

I don't see how the "traditional" family structure can be threatened by broadening the definition.  A family is a family.  Love is love.

Beshpin - I heard that statistically the most psychologically and physically healthy children live in homes with two (lesbian) mothers.

This phrase is often used by those who feel fear. The word "attack" itself is defensive - suggesting that those who state it feel that their values are in danger of being destroyed.

The question that needs to be asked is why? What is the essence of this fear?

Perhaps it is our relationship to our own sexuality. For many people it's still a taboo subject - something not fully explored and disclosed with themselves - let alone others. My belief is that for most of us, at least at some time whilst we were maturing, there were elements of homosexuality. For those who were raised in traditional homes in a largely heterosexual society this can be a time of anxiety.

How to rid ourselves of this troublesome emotion?

One way is to deny it's presence in ourselves and project it on the other. Thus, homosexuality is wrong, heterosexuality is right. I'm okay, you're not okay.

But the problem with this belief is that the psyche is self-regulating. It longs for self-expression and acceptance. Thus, like a dog with a bone, it gnaws away until we accept it as part of us. Those that find this a difficult proposition tend to up the ante - they become militant in their attack and aggression.

So folks, this is my long winded explanation of why homosexuality and same-gender families are seen as an attack on traditional family values.

Thus it follows that a lot of homophobia would dissipate if we could acknowledge that biologically we have both male and female hormones and, whether we wish it or not, that places us all on a continuum of sexuality.

It seems to me we have a choice. We can continue to yell across the barricades and nothing of significance will change. Or we can acknowledge the elephant in the room and try and understand each other with empathy and compassion and pave the way for real change.

Good kids are raised to have loving values - it's wrong to think that what's between their parent's legs and on their chests is what it's all about.

Love overcomes anger and forgets offences. It does not take delight in wrong, but rejoices in truth.

huh??  so, if families led by anything other than a heterosexual couple recieve any kind of benefits, they consider it an 'attack'?!?!?

what is the logic in that??  thats not an attack!!  how is that an attack?!!?

i'm not shooting the messenger here, besh... i appreciate that you are just relaying information here, but if you could expand on that, i'd appreciate it!!

Don't most serial killers come from families that are so hyper religious with taboo attitudes towards sex  that religious psychoses develop ?

I don't think that when a child grows up and looks back that they are going to be most upset by having 2 mommies or 2 daddies or being raised by furry; cuddly, and dashingly gorgeous werewolves ....

they are going to look back and remember

that they were healthy

happy

sheltered  

wanted

and safe ......

they don't even have to be related by blood , recent stories on this forum shows that blood might be thicker than water but family can sometimes bleed you dry ....

a family unit can be any unit where those things are a priority and if that does not fit with god's plan ..... he needs a new one .....

So by traditional, are you referringg to the Biblical version of marriage, which is one man and as many women as he could afford to purchase?

Or would that be the traditional western version, which was limited to one man the master, and one woman, owned and subservient in all things, who was purchased from her father by the husband? Would you include the husband's right to concubines at will with that? Or do you consider that a seperate issue? Of course the Wife would be killed if she had sex with anyone else, so we don't need to concern ourselves with that.

Or would that be the more modern traditional marriage of the last couple of hundred years, where the wife had at least the illusion of choice in her husband, but no rights such as voting or owning property once she was married, and the husband was still expected to "discipline" his wife, with violence if necessary?

Or are you referring to the fantasy version the religious right is trying to foist on us as traditional; the "Leave it to Beaver" version which only existed for at most a couple of decades, if it ever existed at all?

Just trying to suss out exactly what you mean by "traditional".....