(Pic: blog.ruderetro.com)

Jen Aniston’s new movie The Switch is coming out soon, which is about a woman who hasn’t found her life partner yet, decides to get artificially inseminated as she wants to be a mom.  During an interview she had this to say:

“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing… that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long.

The point of the movie is what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot. Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere. That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.”

And Bill O’Reilly, a big right wing a-hole from Fox fired back with this:

“I want to be fair about this because there are millions of single mothers who do a great job with raising their kids. It’s possible, but it’s not optional. And that’s where Miss Aniston makes her mistake. She’s throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that, ‘Hey you don’t need a guy. You don’t need a dad,.’ That is destructive to our society.

Aniston can hire a battery of people to help her, but she cannot hire a dad. Okay. Dads bring a psychology to children that in this society is underemphasized. Men get hosed all the time.”

OMG.  Seriously?  Men get hosed?  All the time?  Where is he getting this from?  What does this even mean?  No where in what Jen is saying is she advocating for women to choose between getting pregnant on their own or having a father figure.  The point, I think, of what Jen is trying to say is that if finding a life partner hasn’t happened for someone that doesn’t have to stand in the way of having a child.  Children can be very happy and well adjusted with having only a mother, or only a father for that matter.  In fact, I know some people who would say there are better off NOT having their father in their lives when they were growing up.

Mom + Dad doesn’t always = instant happiness and I think that is what gets forgotten during these conversations/debates.  Sometimes Mom + Dad = volatile upbringing filled with arguments, abuse, and abandonment.  Family doesn’t always mean having to have both parents.  Do you know what IS destructive to society?  Putting out the message that only one way of experiencing family is acceptable, and that is what Bill is doing; teaching more intolerance and more hate.  When someone has love to give to a child, it shouldn’t matter whether or not they have a partner to share in those duties, only that they are able to care for them and give them the love they need.

Team Aniston all the way on this one.  O’Reilly needs to shut his big fat pie hole.

Tanya: Urgh. I think Bill O’Reilly is just trying to get some publicity with this and he is succeeding for being such a dolt. Of course it’s important for a kid to have a positive father figure in their lives, but if given the option of no dad and a super crappy dad (abusive, neglectful, etc) I’ll take no dad (same goes for mom, I’d rather be raised by a single dad than have a deadbeat mom). Is Bill saying that instead of older women going to the clinic to get pregnant because they didn’t find that right match in time that we are destined to live childless, partnerless lives? That’s pretty depressing. And that can lead to a lot of incredibly unhappy marriages (only getting married because you want a baby is not a good idea). And who is to say that you don’t meet the person of your dreams after you have the kid and then the kid gets the happy family anyway?

If you’re are single (man or woman) and you have the maturity and means to raise a child, why not? I know a lot of single parent homes that are much more loving and stable than some of the two parent homes out there.

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