Child and Parenting

For a cohabiting gay male couple that share a household but have no legal bond, a lot of factors play a role into if they should raise a child together. For the most part the information of them being together for three years and being committed along with monogamous are not enough to tell in the end. Although one seems quite dependent with a stable and the other being almost opposite - the child does not have much to fall upon if something drastic happens. Having no family in the area is a big impact because if something drastic happens to one of them the other has no one else to seek help from. In addition, mentioning upon cohabiting gay male couple in the fact raising a child- one needs to know the characteristics and certain values of both individuals. "Paths to parenthood no longer appear so natural, obligatory, or uniform as they used to but have become voluntary, plural, and politically embattled."(Stacey 50) Mentioned by Stacey in Unhitched it depends on the emotional needs of the parents in this case the gay couple, and their intimacy and purpose for wanting to raise the child. Other factors that one needs to know is also well off the gay couple is because " gay men have to struggle for access to "the means of reproduction"…they encounter a range of challenging, risky, uncertain options- foster care, public and private forms of domestic and international adoption, hired or volunteered forms of "traditional" or gestational surrogacy, contributing sperm to women friends, relatives, or strangers who agree to co-parent with the, or even resorting to an instrumental approach to old-fashioned heterosexual copulation."(Stacey 51) The explanation of the gay couple should be more surface based, in order to decided that they should or should have children there needs to be more of an overview to decide because finance and approach plays a role within raising a child as well. Furthermore, it comes down to the devotion and time that the couple will put into

Cited: "Mary Lyndon Shanley: Just Marriage." Boston Review — Home. Web. 02 Dec. 2011. <http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/shanley.html>. Stacey, Judith. Unhitched: Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China. New York: New York UP, 2011. Print.