Rather than spend the hours I normally would composing blog posts addressing comments on yesterday's blogs, I'll use the time constructively and do both at the same time.

Oooooh ... multitasking! I'll even keep my kids' snotty noses wiped (They both have colds, and Sam is home from school this week because he's just too miserable to leave the house.), get the laundry done AND do my Kegels at the same time.

So, with no further ado ...

Rush Limbaugh aside ... oh! how I wish ... the study I wrote about yesterday does NOT say that adoptive parents are better than bio parents, nor does it indicate that birth parents should not parent their children ... in fact, birth parents who have relinquished are not addressed in the report.

Once again, here is the link to the pdf of the entire report, not some cheesy pick-and-choose version ... or my not-at-all-cheesy exercise in elaboration ... so anyone with an interest in what it actually says, not how it spins, can read it.

The study, by the way, is not called "Adoptive Parents Get High Marks" ... that's the headline, not the title. The title is, "Adoptive Parents, Adaptive Parents: Evaluating the Importance of Biological Ties for Parental Investment."

The report is about families, and looks at how adoptive families cope with their status as such. Direct quotes should provide a clue ...

What some might interpret as a scientific stamp-of-approval for traditional families ultimately may contribute to a social context in which other family forms are marginalized, have less support, and are unsure of how to operate as a “family.”

Our research indicates that alternative family structures do not necessarily result in a disadvantage for children ...

The report is also about science. It takes what is known as "kin selection theory" and tries to find common ground between evolutionary scientists, who subscribe greatly to the theory, and sociologists, who are having trouble squaring straight evolution-benefitting choices with real life, in finding empirical evidence to compare what can look like apples and oranges.

Adoptive parental investment is one such question that provides some leverage on kin selection theory. Although not disallowing for individuals’ conscious decisions to invest or not invest in children, kin selection theory states that, in general, parents will direct their investments to biological progeny.

Consequently, this theory suggests that adoptive parents as a group will invest at lower rates than will other parents.

(In most animal populations there is almost no adoption simply because adults kill the offspring of competitive breeders to allow more resources for their own. Although there are documented cases of a member of one species 'adopting' a young one of another species, this very rarely happens within a species ... other than Homo sapiens.)

Continued ...