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.
*snort* Is today’s word ‘doomed’?
Well, it’s hard to see much promise in the scenario. I mean, given this,
Is such an arrangement likely to attract the best that mankind has to offer?
And he(Our Mentor) trots out more grotesques. Fuck Me Drunk as I should have said in the previous post, rather than stir up acronymophobia.
I get the feeling that if by some mischance sperm ever did find their way in there, they would all start desperately swimming away from the egg.
I see the Groan doesn’t allow comments. Wonder why.
So they want to have a baby via sperm donation, but they also want total strangers to split the cost and labour?
For some reason, it reminded me of this article, also from the Guardian, in which Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett tried to convince us of the merits of squatting and collective child-rearing:
Also possibly relevant, Ms Cosslett’s belief that squatting and “communal living” are not only terribly radical, and thus good by default, but also, somehow, the opposite of selfishness.
Well, it is the Guardian, after all….
That ‘heteronormativity’ is looking pretty good right now.
“Lesbian couple require rich simp for one-off sperm donation followed by open ended commitment and financial support”.
Have I missed anything?
I’m not entirely sure if they (I was pretty convinced it was a single person writing this until Leo popped up) are after one or two blokes although in a rare moment of honesty she/they do concede that pretend males will not be considered – only the biological real deal will do.
To slightly paraphrase today’s all-important question “What is a man?” Eleanor certainly knows the answer.
Why don’t they just adopt and get an au pair?
Presumably, one would have to pay the au pair. As I understand it, au pairs don’t generally look after the children, clean the house, and then bung you a few quid for the privilege.
Fortunately now that one of the lesbians can also have a cock and balls, these niche reproductive difficulties are naturally resolving themselves.
As a prescient author once wrote “Life, uh, finds a way”.
Ok let’s try again.
“Lesbian couple require rich simp to buy them a puppy, take it for walks, clean up the house when it makes a mess and pay all vet bills”.
Karl
What proportion of lesbian relationships actually include such items?
I strongly suspect the ladydick phenomenon exists exclusively in the realm of sick blokes trying to assert their power over actual lesbians.
Bigot!
By far the largest demographic pushing for the inclusion of men with cocks in the category formerly known as women is the sex formerly known as women.
The most popular and admired Western female leaders have promoted the acceptance of new and improved women-with-penises. Jacinda Arden, Nicola Sturgeon. Women’s sports teams cheer being humiliated by the successes of superior fellow women with dicks.
It seems they want it good and hard – so good luck to them I say.
Which brings us to:
It appears John is spot on, though a lesbian speed dating event with chaps sporting their princess wands and Aphrodite alopecia might sort Miss Margolis’ problem.
As opposed to a latex outfit and a purple erection,
(trips over and sprains ankle during desperate dash to door, accepts the inevitable as the ominous thump of henchlesbian doc martens draws ever closer).
“providing the sperm”
Easy enough, I guess. There’s a shack (just w/of here) outside La Grange…
“latex outfit and a purple erection”
That’s next to the purple umbrella and a 50 cent hat…
[ A brief, futile struggle; a vigorous whumping. ]
Having a child is not a casual endeavor. You can’t just pass them around to uninvolved people. When you are tired and stressed you still have to care for the tiny person. These twits want the fun of kids without being responsible. Who cares for the child when all the narcissists have something else to do?
Who cares for the child when all the narcissists have something else to do?
Probably just ignore them as if putting them on a shelf with whatever was the latest lifestyle accessory now out of fashion.
Well, yes.
Responsibility is just a late-stage-capitalist/white-male-supremacist construct.
Except when it comes to paying the bill.
We’ve learned that there are plenty of people looking, like us, to do parenting differently.
Outside one reference to changing diapers, not any thought at all about the potential child and HIS or HER best interests.
You can’t do parenting differently. The child’s interests come first and every child deserves to, at the very least, have a crack at being raised by their mother and father in a functional marriage. Not to say that other arrangements cannot be successful … wars, accidents, drug abuse, disease, etc … have put children in other family structures with the absence of either or both parents. But the conscientious adults in those situations are aware they still have to put the child’s best interests first.
I also understand the insatiable urge to get pregnant and have one’s own child in women in their 20’s and 30s (been there, had four). But up until 5 minutes ago, it was understood that we need to temper that urge and concentrate on building the right environment for the child first.
When do we stop indulging these puerile narcissists with baby fetishes?
“putting them on a shelf with whatever was the latest lifestyle accessory now out of fashion”
Say, anyone want in on Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs? They’re the cute fashion accessory of the day…
We’ve all heard of young girls who get pregnant, thinking that having a baby will be just so wonderful, and then discover that it is a lot of work and seriously interferes with opportunities for going to parties or, more importantly, finishing high school.
“thinking that having a baby will be just so wonderful,”
and 9 months later, an EBT!!! Yay!
Say, anyone want in on Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs? They’re the cute fashion accessory of the day…
There is one distinct advantage to the Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs, though.
“one distinct advantage”
stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…
She wants a baby – just not that much.
It is a bit, “Well, yes, I like the idea of a baby, but without the boring and unpleasant aspects. And I will need every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off. Oh, and also weekends.”
I wasn’t even thinking of that: There are young girls who are simply in love with the idea of having a baby, so they either set out to get pregnant or are careless about birth control, all without thinking of babies as sources of welfare money.
But the “EBT! Yay!” phenomenon seems to be depressingly common.
I read something, some years ago, about a program to discourage young girls from getting pregnant by showing them how much work and responsibility a baby is: They were given dolls with regularly cried, demanded to be fed, demanded to be changed, and so on. The girls discovered to their astonishment that babies were far more work than they realized and as a result that cohort of girls had far fewer pregnancies.
I would like to make a Modest Proposal.
To quote Kate, now is the time when we juxtapose:
By far the largest demographic pushing for the inclusion of men with cocks in the category formerly known as women is the sex formerly known as women.
When do we stop indulging these puerile narcissists with baby fetishes?
What I observe is that the above, seems to be a common view about the role of “sperm donors” among a lot of women, not just the likes of this set but also the more numerous “cis women”
The “sperm donor” can also expect to be treated as a grade C parent and expected to f off and have all contact with your child cut off, when the non sperm donating parent feels like it. While still paying maintenance of course.
I somehow get the feeling that the assorted women in society don’t quite realise how insulting and offensive the concept is to the intelligence of “sperm donors”, or that the number of “sperm donor” volunteers is likely to get increasingly scarce with the next generation.
“I would like to make a Modest Proposal”
scroll up…
🙂
If memory serves me correctly, the Cosby of the group Cosby, Stills, Nash, and Young provided the sperm for a lesbian couple he knew so that they could have a child. They did have a child but split up later; oddly, Cosby was magically found to be legally on the hook to support said child after the lesbian break-up.
I loved their commercials for Jell-O Pudding Pops.
“I would like to make a Modest Proposal”
Steady on, this isn’t r/lecter.
No surprise, I suppose, since the relevant paternity laws were written to benefit the children who were deemed entitled to financial support. So no
prenuptialpre-turkey-baster agreement that absolved the sperm donor was legally binding, much to the surprise of some men. I have read that the man is legally responsible even if the woman obtains the sperm without his consent.Would it be more acceptable if we restricted the conversation to Irish babies?
“more acceptable if we restricted the conversation to Irish babies?”
Well, the insights on such are from an American of your acquaintance…
So no
prenuptialpre-turkey-baster agreement that absolved the sperm donor was legally binding,I wonder if a break-up of a gay couple who got their kid(s) via surrogacy has ever gone back to try and rope the surrogate into financial responsibility?
You don’t say?
I’ve known a couple of people who were raised in such “countercultural” settings.
One of them hates the people that raised him so much that he fears ever encountering them again, because of how very badly he wants to murder them for the things they did to him and the other kids in the commune. From his heavily edited description of life growing up in a “free love” environment with children raised in common, it wasn’t the imagined paradise of these idiots. Instead, it was the tragedy of the commons, wherein nobody took ownership over any of the kids at any time, and they were basically just there for the taking by the pedophiles that were attracted to the availability of the kids. Even his biological parents were completely apathetic about things, and when he’d gone to them to tell them that their friends were sexually abusing him and the other kids, all they could say was “That’s messed up, man…”, and then did nothing at all about any of it. The biological parents basically abandoned care and responsibility, and focused on smoking dope, like most of the rest of the adults in the situation.
The other person was a girl, and while her childhood wasn’t the horror show the guy’s was, she left it with utter contempt for her parents, that sort of lifestyle, and all the attendant crap that went with it. She’s now so far from that sort of thing that I suspect she’d probably fit right in with many arch-conservative types, in terms of mentality and belief system. Her thoughts on that sort of parenting are nothing short of scathing; get her started, and you’ll get rage-induced apoplexy in very short order.
People really ought to talk to the kids coming out of these situations… Ever want a vision into hell? Try the poor kids of those left-wing theorists in Germany, back during the late 1960s and 1970s. There are some compilations of the things that happened to them with the accompanying psychological work that are nothing short of tragic.
I’m gonna say it again, but Chesterton’s Fence applies here: There’s a damn reason that human societies default to nuclear families with added-on extended relatives. Because it works. By this stage in the game, trying to reinvent it all from entirely first principles is a waste of time; all the stupidity has been tried somewhere, sometime. The fact that it didn’t last, and didn’t perpetuate itself ought to be a clue. Every one of those brilliant early Christian attempts at communal living died out before the end of the first century after Christ, and so did every attempt afterwards to try and set that sort of “free love” and communal living situation. See for examples Jamestown, the Amana colonies, and the Shakers. Ain’t none of them lasted, and for good damn reason: That whole mindset is antiethical to actual human behavior.
[ Post updated. ]
“…the potential child is referred to only in terms suggesting some sort of task.“
That was the thing that struck me most about this article. It’s like they were discussing obtaining a new car, or an aparment.
Boom!
Great blog (only just discovered). Tip jar hit.
“all the stupidity has been tried, somewhere, sometime.”
Applies to most new ideas, and not just to child-rearing and family formation. Excellent post.
Welcome aboard. Do help yourself to bar snacks. If you want a flavour of what goes on here, this is a pretty good place to start.
Bless you, sir. May you always have gas for your drinks carbonator.
Well, I’m not a parent and, so far as I can tell, I have no parental inclinations. (I have at times enjoyed being The Fun Uncle, but that’s usually for brief periods, thereby avoiding any cleaning duties, stroppiness, etc.)
But I don’t recall family members – including those nephews and nieces, now grown up – waiting for state subsidy to reach levels they deem acceptable before having children. And I don’t remember any relatives hoping to share out ownership of their children, effectively with strangers, thereby reducing their own responsibilities and commitments.
Do not help yourself to bar snacks, especially the ones that are still moving.
I’ll just leave this here.
I fear Germany may still be infested with those “theorists”: I saw a one-sentence assertion on Twitter that some Germans are now pushing for sex education in kindergarden. (Sorry, I thought I’d saved the link but cannot find it.)
Correction: It seems that California law (at least) does protect sperm donors, so what I wrote seems obsolete.
Indeed. I knew some dopers, back in the 70’s/80’s, and their homes were dirty and stank. Ditto the sf fans who lived communally: Ever walk into a house and be immediately hit by the smell of multiple uncleaned cat boxes?
See the world of Gene Wolfe’s The Borrowed Man, in which slaves are literally put on a shelf when not wanted (and burned like old books if not checked out for use often enough.)
[ Opens overcoat, revealing numerous pockets. ]
Psst! Try these Dibbler brand crisps. You’ll never want another.
That.
Yet somehow we have managed to bumble along for a couple three hundred thousand years before she came along with this revelation, unless, of course, by “society” she just means the LGBNKVD+& party scene, which I suspect she does.
About half of one, ideally.
I make that one fourth, first pioneered by Australopithecus, IIRC.
Well, assuming a norm of two parents, one half of one parent. But I fear we’re veering into some kind of intersectional maths.
Well, assuming a norm of two parents, one half of one parent.
Yes, but there are four parents, so one half of one of four now makes it an eighth of a parent which is still probably asking too much of her.
Heh. It’s shrinking rapidly.
The most important thing for children is security. This includes having the attention of parents to show them one’s latest discovery or drawing. When my grandkids are disrupted by home remodeling or a parent out of town, they are much more prone to crying and unreasonable tantrums. Big surprise. They are not fashion accessories.
I visited several communes back in the day. A bunch of big-ass children, filth, flies, dogs, drugs, and a guy walking around naked among the kids.
Ever walk into a house and be immediately hit by the smell of multiple uncleaned cat boxes
You’re assuming the cats actually used litter boxes.
Don’t forget to try the meat pies.
[Notice: named meat extra]
King Solomon wants none of this.
pst wrote: “I saw a one-sentence assertion on Twitter that some Germans are now pushing for sex education in kindergarden.”
I think this is it: “Sex Education Group Recommends Daycares Create “Sexual Games” and Nude “Exploration Rooms”
@Kirk
I think you should add the Israeli kibbutz to that list, though in its own category. There was a strong communist ideology, but no free love nonsense. The children were cared for by one or two grownups during the day, but slept communally at night, not in their parents’ huts.
You could even argue that in the first generation or two of the kibbutz, it was necessary from a practical perspective. But as soon as it was no longer necessary, the kids went back to their parents’ rooms. Turns out putting twelve year old girls to sleep in a room with 15 year old boys has… certain disadvantages.
If you go into the whole experience with the attitude that parenting is like a part-time job you might enjoy, maybe, you’re going to have a bad time.
This is baby as an “intersectional” accoutrement.
It takes idiots to raise a village of idiots. And their creepy request gets creepy responses, how bougie!
King Solomon wants none of this.
Yes, if I recall my Bible correctly King Solomon wanted dissectional maths.
This is baby as an “intersectional” accoutrement.
A Skinner-box might just be the safest place for the child.
Thats it. Thank you very much!
@Zionist Overlord #73,
There were a couple of interesting things about the kibbutz experience. One of them was that the kids raised like that, absent any other imposed issues, were very often extremely non-attracted to their creche-mates. There’s apparently a human psychological feature that renders you unattractive to your peers, when raised with them. I understand that there were very few cases where marriages and/or even dating took place within the same creche-raised group of kibbutzniks. This is entirely anecdotal, and stems from only talking to a couple of people I knew who were from that milieu.
From what I understand, and what I’ve read about it, there was very little sexual deviation going on in the “traditional” kibbutz. Some of the new-age ones, set up during or after the 1960s by outsiders supposedly got a little weird, but those were third-hand anecdotes related by people who didn’t actually participate. It’s one of those deals where you talk to someone, and it’s always someone else that told them, and when you try tracking it down to eyewitness, you never quite get to patient zero.
From the experiences I’ve had related to me about similar half-ass setups doing communal life here in the US, the kids often wound up experiencing something akin to dedovschinam, where the older kids would abuse the younger ones the way they’d been abused by the adults. Some of the crap I had related to me by those people were so bad that you wanted to pour bleach into your eyes and ears to get rid of the images. It was “Lord of the Flies”, but with sex. And, pedophiles.
I have honestly never met or heard of a commune-raised kid that didn’t have some degree of this stuff in their life, if only on the periphery. Almost all of them are damaged, to one degree or another.
Though some forms of semi communal living can succeed in a way. The Hutterites are an example, can be thought of as a human attempt to model colonial insects but without the sole breeding queen aspect. Humans *can* be conditioned to accept variations. They do have a high drop-out rate, and I couldn’t comment on the abuse quotient, but Hutterite communities have been round for quite some time and still exist – 2016 Canada census recorded something like 370 such communal living “colonies”. They are not dissimilar to the Amish but with a very strong communal living ethic.
Though some forms of semi communal living can succeed…
Yes, but it generally involves a Sergeant Major or Master Chief Petty Officer.
Yes, but it generally involves a Sergeant Major or Master Chief Petty Officer.
Not to mention a metric butt-load of subsidies from a supporting society… Absent which, the entire enterprise would collapse. Even the more “entrepreneurial” free companies of the Renaissance found it difficult to operate on their own without government supporting them.
Most of the communes from the 1960s here in the US had lots and lots of inputs coming in from Mommy and Daddy, who didn’t want to watch their grandkids die of malnutrition…
I’ve an acquaintance who could go on for hours and hours about the conceits of her “counter-culture” parents that claimed they were “living off the land, in harmony with nature…” Her grandparents were the only reason she didn’t die of scurvy or beriberi as a child. She loved them to death, even though she never spent much time with them (parental choice) until she was old enough to get off the commune. She hasn’t talked to her parents in years, and I’m not even sure she knows where they are or if they’re even alive. She cut them off the minute her grandparents signed over the family trust to her…
I have heard that another common subsidy was the one commune member who had a conventional job with a paycheck.
I have never personally encountered a communal group which was not parasitical and pathological to some significant degree. The only collective endeavors which seemed to work were where people with shared interests pooled their resources to rent work space–most frequently artist’s studio space.
“Baby I’ll be there to shake your hand.
Baby I’ll be there to share the land.
That they’ll be giving away
When we all live together.”
Even as a young teen I knew this was childish (or Machiavellian) bullshit.
@Kirk
Agreed, with a few caveats.
Tracing stories of abuse can lead to dead ends for one of two reasons: no factual basis, or a code of omerta. It’s not always clear what you’re facing.
But the main point I was getting at was that even in a non-sexually-ideological system, with low levels of abuse, the system still reverted to parental supervision after a generation. This just shows the power of the natural system.
As to why it happened, I don’t know enough to say for sure. But I will say that even one well publicized case of abuse will have a lot of mothers pulling their daughters out of any communal sleeping arrangement.
The really amusing thing in all of this?
The willful deaf, dumb, and blind eye that all these idiots put to the evidence before them, which is that the “traditional family structure” works best.
I mean, it’s the default, just about everywhere. I can only think of a couple of exceptions to the rule, like the Haka in China. However, those exceptions? Generally ain’t competitive with the “traditional” societies.
So, with that evidence before you, what the ever-loving hell makes you think that you can re-invent the wheel and do a better job of it? You, with your scant life experience and contempt for the ways of your forebears?
Honestly, I have to say that were I to find my self in opposition to the “ways of my forefathers”, I’d be far more inclined to say that I was likely in the wrong, in that the forefather side of the equation has rather more of a record for survival and actually working than anything I might come up with.
Now, granted… Conditions change. New solutions need to be found, but… In the end, the same old same old usually prevails. For good reason; it’s already succeeded for millennia, and in the face of that, who the hell am I to try and refute the evidence?
Most of these people are outright idiots without the slightest knowledge of history, or they’ve gotten really terrible and biased educations that they completely failed to see through and correct. I knew I was being lied to by biased dimwits about the time I hit high school; I took my own corrective action by self-educating myself, a process I’m still working on. Most of the leftoid dimwits I have encountered found one idea early in life that they liked the sound of, and that was the last coherent thought that passed through their minds. And, they usually got that from someone they perceived as being much smarter than they themselves were, which was one reason they never questioned any of the idiocy said “smart guy” expounded upon…
She is right. Society is not geared to support people giving birth to to-do lists. It makes me winder who in that relationship is actually interested in having a baby.