Anthropology Parenting

Let’s Do It, But In A Way That’s Less Likely To Work

August 14, 2023 by David 84 Comments

Come, huddle round. Let us poke at the Guardian:

We’re a queer couple looking for co-parents to raise a child with.

The parenting pages. Let’s start there.

For us, the ideal parenting setup would consist of three or four of us sharing responsibility for a child (the others involved would also be responsible for providing the sperm).

Providing the sperm. A joyous and maternal turn of phrase. Also of note, the idea of wanting a baby, but with only a third or a quarter of the responsibility. A kind of low-commitment parenting. Bodes well.

The way we see it, why not use the implicit obstacles we face as a same-sex couple to become parents in a way that works for us and redefines the family unit completely?

Eleanor Margolis, the lady keen to redefine the family unit completely – which also bodes well – details some of those implicit obstacles:

There are a number of different matching services out there for those looking to find someone to raise a child with: PollenTree, CoParents, Just a Baby, and others. We haven’t been impressed by the design of the websites

Look, when you’re redefining the family, and redefining it completely, website design matters.

It gets worse.

some of them harbour some distinct creepiness. From men sending unsolicited offers of sperm, to those messaging us with elaborate fantasies about watching one of us give birth to their child, we’ve run into a number of what I suppose can only be called “procreation freaks.”

I guess that can happen when you wander off the beaten track, away from the tried and tested. People at the margins tend to meet other marginal people.

Scrolling through the apps can be a jarring experience in itself when you’re not planning on sleeping with the person pictured. Some of them let you swipe – Tinder-style – through the faces of potential dads, as if what you’re looking for is attraction, rather than someone who’s going to do their fair share of nappy changing.

I say again, redefining the family. By harnessing the untapped power of unrelatedness, diffused responsibility, and a total lack of attraction. And it’s perhaps worth noting that, throughout the article, the potential child is referred to only in terms suggesting some sort of task.

So far, we’ve been on a few “dates” with potential fathers. None have gone horribly, and we’ve met some really thoughtful people, but we’re yet to find anyone we fully gel with.

It turns out that “co-parenting dates” are not without issues:

It’s vital to us that we build a friendship with whoever we decide to commit to, before moving on to the actual, mildly frightening procreation side of things. Call me old-fashioned but if I’m going to have any contact with someone’s sperm, I’d really prefer it if we were friends first.

You see, the person with whom Ms Margolis and her lesbian partner plan to have a child – on what seems to be a time-share basis, via “contact with someone’s sperm” – should at least be tolerable. And not overtly monstrous.

Take that, conventional family structure.

The subject of “queer, platonic, co-parenting meetups” is also raised, along with its complications:

At first, we tried to implement a speed-meeting setup, but in the end, the meetup has established itself as something closer to a support group.

At which point, further comment would seem unkind.

Still, things are not, it has to be said, going entirely to plan:

Leo and I are still waiting to meet somebody right for us. Since starting our meetup group, we’ve been inundated with messages from people thanking us for setting it up. We’ve learned that there are plenty of people looking, like us, to do parenting differently. We just hope that, somewhere among them, is someone for us.

However, Ms Margolis remains optimistic, her dream of parenting differently – much like sharing a villa in Spain – still intact:

It has been energising to see that – niche as it may be – there is a call for this kind of family structure,

Albeit among people with whom the author doesn’t gel, and who often exude, and I quote, a “distinct creepiness.”

Readers are invited to ponder the appeal, for any gentleman with fatherhood in mind, of effectively becoming a sperm donor who is also expected to perform household chores, for many years, and to pay child maintenance. In a sexless relationship with random lesbians who may find him barely tolerable, a necessary complication. But this, it seems, is how one “redefines the family unit completely.” It’s “the ideal parenting setup.”

Oh, and one final conundrum:

but the eggs-to-sperm ratio remains an issue. In our experience, co-parenting seems to overwhelmingly appeal to cis women, trans men and non-binary people assigned female at birth. Without any exhaustive studies on this, I can only guess why.

One more time:

cis women, trans men and non-binary people assigned female at birth.

I think the word that applies here, to all three groups, and which is nonetheless being danced around, is women.

Ms Margolis lives in London. Pronouns “she/her.”

Update:

Ms Margolis has touched on this subject before, also in the Guardian:

The idea is that we – a lesbian couple and a gay couple – will raise a child together. For some, the arrangement brings to mind the age-old adage “it takes a village to raise a child,” which is essentially what we’re trying to create: our own village of four. Perhaps this sounds crazy, but – then again – with the cost of living soaring, infrastructure crumbling, and parents being offered the bare minimum in state support, so is the traditional two-parent family.

Having a traditional two-parent family without extensive state support, i.e., more subsidy, is apparently “crazy.” An impossible undertaking. Society, says she, is “simply not designed for having kids.” Ms Margolis cites the risk of “compromise” and “parental burnout” – phenomena she plans to avoid by being less of a parent. About half of one, ideally.

Blimey. Buttons. I wonder what they do.




Subscribestar
Share: