Who do we think we are?
by Fleur Letcher, MercatorNet:
One of my favourite television shows is the ancestry reality-television show, Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast by the BBC and SBS. Each series features a range of celebrities, such as Britain’s David Suchet, Nigella Lawson, Jeremy Clarkson and David Tennant, and Australia’s Geoffrey Rush, Sigrid Thornton, Michael Caton and Maggie Beer. The program’s historians and genealogists help these celebrities trace their ancestry back to people and places in their families’ past.
It is fascinating to watch as celebrities discover long-lost ancestors in their family tree and learn that the family “legends” passed down through the generations are usually based on some element of truth!
[…]
If you know who you are, then you have a sense of identity. The problem is that today’s society is in danger of squandering these long-held notions that biological, inherited links matter. This is not simply a question of DNA. It is also a question of personal history. Ironically, in this age of the “triumph” of human rights, the basic protections for children to know and have a relationship with both their biological parents are simply not given the priority they deserve.
Many commentators and academics these days seem to dismiss the link between parent and child as a mere “cosmic coincidence”. They view the fact that it takes both a man and a woman for procreation to occur as significant only to the extent of the biological necessity of having male and female gametes when creating a child. They all too often fail to acknowledge that it is essential for the wellbeing of a child to have an on-going relationship with both a male and a female parent.
This misguided thinking has led to more and more people these days being cut off, sometimes intentionally, from their biological roots. The introduction in the 1970s of no-fault divorce and the increasing incidence of single-parent households has greatly contributed to many children being deprived of a meaningful relationship with one of their parents. We now also have anonymous sperm donation, surrogacy and certain fertility treatments deliberately designed to bypass or minimise the biological parents. This can and is leading to the commodification of children.
– See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/who-do-we-think-we-are/17821#sthash.hPtPTF1Z.dpuf
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