I read a comment on a Facebook thread recently which made me cringe.

The actual thread was about how people who do not have children are made to feel as if they have nothing to contribute to discussions about child welfare. The barb “You wouldn’t know” is very hurtful. The cringe-worthy comment came from a primary school teacher who was childless and had left a meeting after being told her viewpoint wasn’t valid. They had been a discussing a lesbian parent who complained that the school was celebrating the gender-specific celebrations of Mother and Fathers Day and she was angry that her fatherless child would feel excluded. The cringe comes from the lesbian parents- not the teacher who I entirely feel for in this situation.

I think homosexual parents who behave aggressively like this are a minority and it is a problem that they are becoming a stereotype of homosexual parents. If you and your partner decide that your child’s biological father has no place in their lives and will be raised exclusively with two mothers then that is A-O-K but that does not mean that you can then dictate to your child’s school whether or not the general school population can celebrate Father’s Day. Yes, it may be sad for the children of single mothers and lesbian parents to watch everyone else celebrate, but that is something that your family needs to address within itself.

Father’s Day isn’t about you specifically. The families that do have the pleasure of celebrating these holidays should not be penalised.

My theory is that it is not their homosexuality that puts them in this mindset. It’s not simply being a lesbian that makes you hate the idea of a man being in your child’s life. I think it depends on your Daddy Issues. Almost everyone has parent issues from their childhood, how honest you are with yourself about those issues and how you deal with them definitely informs how you relate to yourselves as parents and the other people involved.

My father switched over the years between entirely absent and call-in incompetent. I could never adjust to either. I could have developed into the kind of person that baulked at the idea of a man ever putting my child through what I went through but instead I went to the other extreme and I want my child to have the opportunity to have as many devoted parents as possible.

I understand that some lesbian couples just are not comfortable having a third parent, but then they also don’t go around demanding that no one else celebrate Father’s Day just because they don’t.

I think you’d have to have some pretty serious Daddy Issues to demand that your school not celebrate gender-specific holidays. I feel bad for people that are that feel that angry and marginalised. I can’t imagine feeling that helpless and defensive. Maintaining perspective on what constitutes an attack on your rights and freedoms as a minority is always difficult because sometimes the line is so thin.

But you can never protect your rights and privileges by taking the rights and privileges away from others, and you won’t make your child feel better about not having a father by stopping other children from celebrating Father’s Day.