Love, Family and the Real World – by Lucy Watson

A world where all couples are married. And they are all happy. Where women don’t get beaten. Where partners don’t cheat. Where there is no need for divorce because every single couple feels the same about each other in 20 years, as they did the day they got married. Where they all want to have children.

This is a world where women don’t have sex for fun, but for procreation. Or where condoms don’t break, or the pill doesn’t fail. Where people never get drunk and have unprotected sex. Where no one is ever raped.

This is world where people of the same-sex aren’t attracted to each other. Or don’t give into that impulse, but rather strive to conform to the traditional family model.

This world DOES. NOT. EXIST.

Yes, a very few people get this supposed ideal. A man and woman meet and fall in love with someone who is perfect for them, and they have the same goals, and the same future. They marry and have a family when they’re ready. They live (at least mostly) happily ever after. Yes, this happens.

But here’s what else happens.

Marriages fall apart. People remarry and start new families.

Same-sex couples fall in love, and want the opportunity to have the same “perfect” life that traditional couples get.

Women have sex for pleasure.

Contraception fails.

Men walk out.

Women walk out.

Women raise children alone – because they don’t want to have an abortion.

Or they make the very difficult decision to abort, because they can’t or choose not to raise a baby they can’t give a good life to.

People foster children. Adopt.

Same-sex couples have children.

Children live with grandparents, and aunts/uncles, and godparents.

Fathers and/or mothers die, and their partner raises the child alone.

Couples live together and don’t get married.

Women make the decision not to have children. And are happy with that decision.

This is the real world. And it is just as full of love, and it is just as valid as the traditional “perfect” family.

Life is hard, we all get dealt different hands, and we all make hard decisions which affect our course. We muddle through and try to do the best for our own lives.

We only get one life, after all – and nobody should tell us how to live it. It’s OURS. We all deserve the right to find happiness and love.

Life is not “perfect”. And that’s why it’s beautiful.