Redefining the family unit
A lesbian* couple decided to try to “co-parent” a kid with another couple.
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).
The others? Not one of the others, but both of them? Really?
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?
Ah. There’s actually an answer to that question. Or several answers, but one in particular is very basic. It’s because biological parents have a stake in the child that non-biological parents lack. This of course doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t adopt children, but it does suggest that parents shouldn’t casually swap kids with other couples just to “redefine the family unit completely.” Sharing a kid with another couple is a different thing, but still, it’s as well to understand the realities before trying to redefine them.
Our first real contact with this world was last year at the Modern Family Show in London, an annual event for LGBTQ+ people looking to start families. One of the events was a talk on the legal side of co-parenting. Before this event, the room had been packed out for a talk on surrogacy. Then, the room cleared. Just a handful of us turned up to hear the co-parenting talk; mostly women.
See, surrogacy is cool, because it’s just renting a woman. Co-parenting is more complicated, and suggests some work is involved.
It has been energising to see that – niche as it may be – there is a call for this kind of family structure, 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.
In other words, women. You don’t say.
Without any exhaustive studies on this, I can only guess why.
Let me help. It’s because they’re all women. Women are supposed to do the child stuff. All of it.
*Or at least a couple of women. The other one is called “Leo” so maybe there’s a luxury identity involved.
Our courts can barely handle parenting and custody disputes between two parents. But sure, let’s go ahead and “redefine the family unit” to add more “parents” to the mix. So when they all split up, the Court can figure out how to bounce the child around between 4 parents, how to make decisions with 4 people each having a say, with 4 parents and their lawyers draining the courts resources, and each other’s. Who pays child support to whom? What happens when one (or more) of the 4 decide they would rather put their time and money into their own biological child’s life and cut ties? This is madness.
Well, you see, it’s not about the children, it’s about the adults and how interesting and creative they are.
Ironically, they’re being undercut by the insistence that the biological father would be involved in the parenting set-up. Why not go the route of getting an anonymous sperm donor, then separately finding a willing co-parent (or two)? This would both address the ‘eggs-to-sperm’ ratio issue (this could be done quite easily and effectively with four women as some other gender assortment), and eliminate the creep factor she is apparently dealing with looking for a donor.