Identity

submitted by loveSloaneDebate King from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I know the difference legally. I’m saying to some people it doesn’t matter. And their feelings are just as important.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I didn’t ask about the legal difference- I’m asking what is the difference between someone who is actually a mother and someone you see as a mother?

You act as if saying someone is your mother makes it factually so and it doesn’t. Feelings don’t matter in this because a mother is a very specific thing and I promise you anyone who is a mother figure to a child/person that is not theirs (through biology or adoption) does not hold you in the same regard they do their actual children, even if they love you deeply. I say this as a Mother who has acted as a stand in for children who have shitty mothers. I love them, would do all I could for them- the love and bond I have with my actual children is a thousand times stronger and different in many ways.

Those surrogate connections matter to some people on a personal level. It doesn’t mean it’s relevant outside of on a personal level.

Motherhood is a fact. Not being an actual mother is a fact as well.

Again- how you personally see yourself or the people in your life is very different from what’s actually true and fact based.

[–]circlingmyownvoid2 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I’m asking what is the difference between someone who is actually a mother and someone you see as a mother?

To me? Nothing. I mean rights and legality but that’s also not what’s important.

We aren’t going to move either way here. How people feel matters. More to me than you. I don’t think either of us are moving.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

rights and legality but that’s also not what’s important.

We aren’t going to move either way here. How people feel matters. More to me than you.

That sums up the difference between the clashing POVs here. The problem is, there's no way a society can function without rights and concepts being encoded in laws, and to make laws you need to rely on solid and widely agreed-upon definitions. It's impossible to make good law and policy based solely on each person's feelings, which can be mercurial and mysterious, and when each individual makes up the his or her own meanings for words.