Parenting letter insult to males

I had some trouble figuring out where to begin my response to the July 30 letter to the editor by Robert L. De Beauchamp ("Males lack needed parenting hormones") due to the sheer volume of erroneous information in that letter.

Hormones have nothing to do with parenting skills. Hormones  are based on procreation. The drives that make people want to be parents are known as maternal instinct in women and paternal instinct in men. And to deny the fact that a man can be a good father is just an insult to male gender.

The claim that men need all the wedding ceremony extras to encourage faithfulness is an insult to people in general. A wedding expo I went to had easily a five to one ratio in favor of women to men. Not that there are not exceptions - some women could not care less and some men get very involved, but for the most part this is not the case.

There is a bigger threat to marriage than same-sex marriage. It's called divorce, which is what has diminished this institution. And yes, sometimes it's necessary but most divorces could be avoided if people got themselves some premarital counseling and were willing to try and work things through once they hit a rough patch. And by work things through, I mean compromise - don’t expect the other person to do all the changing.

Next he claims same-sex marriage isn’t necessary because men can’t have children. However, think that through. Lesbians have been adopting or having children for decades. Gay men have been adopting and finding surrogates for years. Are their children less valid than the children of heterosexual relationships? And what about the straight couples that don’t have kids? Are their relationships any less valid?

ZACHERY B. SANDERS

Yuma