The inevitable has happened. Both the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times have recently posed this question: Do same-sex couples actually make better parents than the old-fashioned, increasingly obsolete Mom and Dad?

Here’s from the Chronicle writer Amy Graff:

My daughter’s first best friend had two dads. My husband and I used to joke that the dads were better parents than us, and the thing is they were.

We’d show up for a play date at the park, and my daughter would announce that she was hungry. I’d dig out a bag of old mushy raisins from the bottom of my purse (who knows how long they had been in there), while one of the dads would magically pull a spread of carefully chopped fruit (enough for everyone) from his satchel.

Now I’m not saying that you can judge a parent by the quality of their snacks but this theme of thoughtful parenting carried through into everything these dads did.

Out of any parents I knew, they were the best at gathering their family around the table every night for dinner, at finding a work-family balance, at disciplining their children in a fair yet firm way, at filling their kids’ schedule with a healthy mix of creative free play and planned activities.

And then there was the dad’s relationship, which impressed me the most. They worked as a team, raising the kids as equals. They weren’t restricted by gender roles or rules.

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