To say that these other family formations are inherently deficient because there isn’t a father who sits atop a hierarchy of familial relationships is to say no one else is capable of providing adequate love to a child, while also teaching the children who grow up without that idealized nuclear-family model that their lives are somehow wrong. Raised to believe that they missed something vital, no matter how much love was present in their lives, it’s not a surprise if children without fathers in their homes have more behavioral problems.
