Recently, The Washington Post released an article with this headline: “Our daughter wanted a mommy, so she picked one of her dads.” In it, the author praised his same-sex partner for taking a “motherly role” as assigned by their three-year-old adopted daughter. He argued that the term should be broadened, as if anyone can be a motherly figure.  

This is another iteration of a fundamentally bad idea of the sexual revolution, that men and women are interchangeable. Still, the story betrays itself. Why did this three-year-old girl sense something was wrong in the first place? She somehow knew she needed a mother.  

In fact, throughout the article, the author expressed concern that his daughter was “bending the reality” of having two dads. And that’s the very point: “two dads” is not a reality, it’s a social construction. Moms and dads? Those are baked into the human condition.  

Dads can’t mom. And moms can’t dad.