Having a Baby with My Gay Best Friend – WWYD?

50/50 can work very well if both homes are stable

Oh please. 3 MILLION children are being brought up in single parent - by parent I mean mother - households.
1 million of those children have zero contact with their father at all.
So you can get off your judgey high horse.

I could have never been separated from my newborns for days at the time. Even a day would have been torture.

I couldn’t do 50/50 with a small baby/young child. How confusing for the child and how selfish of the parents. You need to live together in the early years for the child’s sake.

In many societies, someone else carries/watches the baby when mum is working on the farm (e.g. granny or tween girl who isn't as strong) and takes baby to be fed in the fields.

And yet parents return to work, leaving their children in long daycare sessions. Sometimes compromise us needed.

Trite assumptions? From the person who said ‘if they just get on with it and live their lives they’ll be fine’.

I replied, they won’t all be fine. And gave my reasons why. Fine if you don’t want to agree with that. But trust me, it’s not all about parents setting a cheery tone, though.

No, really.

I'm not being deliberately obtuse at all - I'm just questioning the trite assumptions you are making as gospel truth. All of the things you have mentioned are considerations for all families - heteronormative, separated, widowed. Even most of them apply to nuclear families with the coveted 2 parents living in the same house.

My point is that the way adults behave and the scene they set is entirely up to them. If you want to make 2 houses a big deal and something to be sad about then the child will follow your lead. If you want to put the effort in to make the norm that you have safe, happy and accepted then there's no reason the child can't thrive.

Children can live in 1 home and be miserable. They can live over 2 and have a great life. Not all children who have parents that live separately need your pity, save it for children who have unhappy parents, wherever they live.

You’re being deliberately obtuse but 50/50 is very destabilising. No main home.

Hugely depends on parental relationships how burdened the child is by this, how close together their two parents can live to each other, work, school (which is as I posted already extremely subject to housing and job market and structural inequality pressures)

Depends also how flexible their adult work or employer is, how well coparenting suits the adults or not, and the age, needs or additional needs, and preferences of the child (including to live with one parent mainly or only). If you have more than one child in the co parented family or there more children with another partner then multiply the factors to take account of.

But not in the first year or two when the baby is dependent on the mother for food. Toddlers maybe, at a push, but not a newborn.

I would have a fertility MOT to know how you’re standing time wise

I would be tempted to do this yourself via a donor as this all sounds great until it doesn’t - new partner coming into the mix on either side would be enough to throw this right out of sync

Hi pehkis, whilst I can see it could work, my worry would be that it could potentially have negative effects on your life that it wouldn't have on J's, in terms of career, finance, flexibility/freedom/time.

The reality is that women tend to be more affected than men by having children - more likely to have financial disadvantage, more likely to compromise on career.

I work with disabled children and adults, and it is overwhelmingly the woman in the relationship who has changed their life - either by giving up work completely to care for them/accommodate multiple medical appointments/be available to pick up from school at short notice etc.

I think it is definitely worth discussing things like - attitudes to prenatal testing, management of medical issues, dealing with appointments and pickups from school..

If you are not living together, you are likely to be doing the majority of day and night care for your infant son/daughter. Is J likely to support you? Will he support you as much as he supports the baby?

The CAFCASS assessment mentioned previously seems like a good idea to help think things through in a structured way. And legal advice too.

I think it's a lovely idea, although if you're both looking for partners in the future lay out your ground rules now, especially with time frames of introducing the child to new partners and what those potential partners might be called as they could end up with 3 "dads" 😊. Might even be worth seeking some legal advice. I would also try to live very close by each other, I think it would be great if you were only a few streets away and you were in a 5 minute walk of each other too.

Where abouts are you in your mid 30s? If you're 33 I would be tempted to wait a couple more years before going through with this plan as you could still meet someone and start a family with them? However if you're 36/37 can understand if you want to get on with it xx

Edit to agree that 50/50 will not be practical at baby stage though and you should probably live together for the first year and maybe put dating on the backburner during that time. Xx

How disingenous

I don't think I would do this unless I was prepared to live with him.

It could work, I'd be wanting to live very very close to each other (like on the same street if not next door) and also make a plan for when DC is a baby. It may (I'd go so far as to say will) be very hard (impossible) for you and, most importantly, baby to be separated when they're small especially if you breastfeed so I'd recommend more of a visitation type care up to age 1 or 2. Even after that, don't discount the pain of being separated from your baby/child.

Why?

So? Surely the act and the turmoil of the parents splitting and that emotional uncertainty / possible antagonism is why kids are unhappy? Not having two places to live. Adults are the ones who make the situation untenable, not 2 houses.

Also I think you're placing way too much nobility onto people's reasons to have a baby - you're making out like people who are married are making an earth-shattering decision, only thinking about the precious child but having children is always because the parents want a child. It's almost always because they want to have a kid to love for their own happiness and fulfilment. Why on earth is love between two friends seen as inferior to 'romantic' love? It's still love. Romantic love fails all the time.

The patriarchy and societies' fear of breaking the norm have a lot to answer for.

@Donttellanyoneimwingingit most kids start off with two loving parents who decided to share their lives together. Obviously that can go wrong and then a child can end up unhappy.

But here are two people who don’t intend to share a life together. They are only sharing the child. Being friends isn’t the same as living in a home planning your whole lives together.

It might work - but there are many reasons it might not.

It certainly isn’t something to walk into without a heck of a lot more consideration than “love will ensure our happiness.”

please don’t do this. Are you honestly going to send a three day old baby to it’s father’s house because it’s his turn and then have them back four days later.

If you want to do it read A Primal Scream. It’s about the trauma of children being adopted at birth. They live with their mum for nine months hearing her voice etc and then lose their mum at birth This is what you would be doing to this child.

If you really are close friends then it seems ok to me but as others have said, I think you should plan to live together for the first year and have an agreed plan for what happens next. I don't think you should live together beyond the first year because baby will notice the change.

I don't know own this particular situation. I do know several couple who have children and live separately. Tbh the most successful one is the parents that live in the same street so kids easily pop back and forth

Is having 2 loving parents not ideal? Okey dokey, I'll be sure to Google that, hang on...

Nope, seems most 'research' suggests that is definitely a good parenting technique.

Again, why is it not in their best interests? Just because 2 parents live under the same roof does NOT equate to a happy child, let me tell you. There are other ways to be a family, it's narrow-minded must-do-it-like-this thinking of adults that makes the problem, not the set-up.

How is having 2 loving parents not in the best interests of the child?