Waiting for the right guy equals no baby

I don't think it has any more implications than the other things I mentioned

Life isn't perfect and we aren't all meant to be cookie cutter versions of the perfect family

Do you oppose lesbians convincing using a donor?

I honestly think it's fine, a woman can raise a baby alone and do a fantastic job. A married couple who go to church every Sunday, have money etc can turn out to be awful parents

There's no wrong way to live and to raise a child imo

I don't know my bio dad. I'm not sad about it tbh, i think it's other people who try to make me feel bad about it

Increasing the birthrate isn't something that needs to be done for the good of the species. It's only raging capitalists that want the birth rate to increase for the economy and labour.

Decreasing the birth rate is actually good for the planet.

A loveless partnership can be a desperately lonely place to be. And babies and small children are incredibly hard work even when there is a solid romantic bond between the parents.

To be clear, I don't think women should have to settle, and remaining child free because you didn't meet the right man in time is perfectly acceptable.

But nor should we judge women who desperately want a baby for settling, provided they are not bringing the child into an abusive relationship. A loveless partnership is not an ideal situation to have a baby in.... but it isn't disastrous either.

Plenty of relationships are one-sided, with or without children. I don't think it's uncommon for one person to love the other person more, or continue loving them after they have fallen out of love.

I don't see this as a disastrous situation to bring a child into. As long as there is mutual respect and the man is decent and would make a good father (so not just financially stable or whatever), then having a baby then co-parenting is not a bad option for the woman whose fertility window is closing and who desperately wants a baby.

Yes this. Settling for someone you’re not in love with but who is in love with you and thinks you’re on the same page would be massively dishonest and unfair. And what if you subsequently do fall in love with someone else after having children?

@mumofoneAlonebutokay exactly everything has implications but you said sperm donor does not.
It has massive ethical implications! I do not agree with bringing children into the world by a sperm donor because a women wants a baby! Not thinking of the future human she is bringing into the world.

Adoption does have a lot of implications also. A lot people are affected by adoption and want to know 'where they belong' or 'where they are from'
That doesn't mean that child should remain in care, they need a lot of support/counselling etc.

If the only way to keep the human race going is for children to be born into traumatic situations or poverty then we deserve to die out.

You’re not concerned with survival of the human race, OP, you just want people to tell you it’s OK for a woman’s need to procreate to be more important than a child’s need to have loving, willing parents. Don’t worry, though, as MN is full of women who agree with that.

“All you need…”- that’s an absolutely mammoth list of things! What if you get sick? Can’t work? Your parents get old and need help? You move away?
Glad it’s going well for you, but that’s a glib answer.
Adoption of a living child is not comparable to using donor sperm to create a whole new individual.

If you want to have a child - a child you'll be raising for the rest of your life, do so - all you need is love, financial stability and a roof over your head, and physical and emotional support in the form of family and friends - failing that, enough money for a nanny!

🥰

Huhhh adoption has ethical implications? So kids should just be left in care?

Everything has implications tbh - natural birth vs c section, breast v bottle, schooled vs home schooled, being black vs being white. Straight parents vs same sex parents, rich vs poor

Every decision in life could impact a child and their future - that's life

@mumofoneAlonebutokay
You have just confirmed my view that a lot of people don't think about the long term effects of raising and human being and thinking of the here and now/baby stage.

Of course there is ethical implications.
Please do your research

Of course there are ethical implications!!

You’re creating a human being where they will have no relationship and possibly no knowledge of the person who is 50% of their DNA.

I have family who while happily adopted are grieving the mother they will never meet.

Both donor conception and adoption have ethical implications. To a lot of the children involved biology really matters. It’s unfair of adults to push the narrative of once there is love nothing else matters on children.

But it’s not just the mother who is important or relevant in a donor scenario, is it? What happens if the child starts to wonder about their genetic heritage?

I’m not particularly pro or anti, but it’s not true to say there are absolutely no ethical considerations

I don't think there are any ethical implications tbh

It's not like surrogacy which is taxing on a woman's physical body and mind

I'd also support solo female adoption - not sure if that happens tbh, unsure of the process, but think it would be a great thing.

Edit

A kid being chosen and loved and wanted is a great scenario. Not everyone needs the nuclear family set up to raise happy, healthy kids

I very briefly discussed (and hypothetically*) discussed having a baby with a gay friend, and living as platonic co-parents. I wanted assurance that we (me and hypothetical baby) would be the priority for him, to the extent where if I got a job away he would move with us, and we could discuss at least some legal protection for me, including a legal civil partnership (obviously free to pursue romantic opportunities, with the caveat that “the family” always came first). He was horrified, it became obvious very quickly that I would the primary caregiver and he thought he would be able to drop in and out as suited him.

This doesn’t really add anything to the discussion, but for me it was a bit of a watershed moment- I would be having a baby with a father who was already one foot out of the door, already understood that babies were one thing, but a lifelong commitment to a child / YA was a step too far.
*and very drunkenly

You can resort to name-calling, or your own anecdotal 'evidence' ... Or you could look at what the evolutionary psychology literature actually says, for example:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/sex-differences-in-human-mate-preferences-evolutionary-hypotheses-tested-in-37-cultures/0E112ACEB2E7BC877805E3AC11ABC889

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513898000087

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-016-0068-2

I look forward to reading any of the peer-reviewed academic literature you'd care to cite.

There are donor conceived children speaking out about it online and they are not happy.

I hate how flippantly MNers post "go it alone with a sperm donor" with zero thought to the resulting child. Humans have a fundamental need to know where they came from, and saying "well they can try to find him when they're 18" doesn't cut it.

It concerns me that as a society we are starting to treat babies as commodities. There are donor conceived children speaking out about it online and they are not happy.

It should never been anonymous and no man should be a father of a crazy number of children. A man should also agree to meet with the child in the future if they so wish.

I agree I think people think about the baby, that don’t give enough consideration to that baby’s rights.

We seem to be increasingly recognising the rights/trauma of adopted children, but this doesn’t seem to have been extended to donor conceived children.

Instead there are campaigns to include non-biological parents on birth certs. I’m ok with it this so long as the birth cert reflects who the child’s biological parents are/arent.

@mumofoneAlonebutokay lots of ethical implications, unable to track genetics , let alone the mental health of the person born by sperm donor and having problems with identity.

People think just about the baby stage...not that you're responsible for a human being!

I think more women should go the sperm donor route!

There's a loud group of people that love to shame single mums, just need to avoid them 🥰

Then you’re an idiot.

I think it is about 50% biological drive and 50% social conditioning. And when I say you can have a good life without children,it’s nor a platitude, I’m talking from personal experience. I wanted children, couldn’t have them, and I do have a good life.

If it was me he would know unless he had the emotional intelligence of a plank. I find it impossible to show any interest in men I don’t like and he would definitely notice how little interest I had in him, his life or his family.

He would also notice that we stopped having sex one the children arrived.

Although I cannot imagine feigning interest enough to even get to that point.

I would be devastated to discover my husband was only with me because he wanted a kid and I was the only one who would have him.