How do you honestly feel about a baby having two mums?

[Corneliusthecamel]

Hi,

Recently, a close friendship has come to an end and it’s been difficult to process. Long story short - I am a woman married to another woman and I gave birth to a baby last year who was conceived via sperm donor/fertility treatment through the NHS. We are all really happy and she is beautiful.

A good, long term friend of mine has become increasingly distant over the past couple of years. I confronted her about this recently and she admitted that she struggles with my life choices and doesn’t feel it’s right that I have chosen to bring a baby up with another woman. She feels very strongly that a baby should have a traditional mum and dad unit where possible and feels that I am wrong for choosing this path.

Anyway, the friendship is over, and I think that’s the right thing for both of us - it’s not really possible to carry on when we both have such different views and experiences of the world.

But it has made me want to ask - what are your honest opinions of two women choosing to pursue fertility treatment and having a baby? Obviously it’s my life and I’m happy so in one way, who cares. But I truly didn’t think my friend held those types of views and often, people won’t speak their true thoughts in real life, so I am curious what people truly think about it

Why do people get hung up on the traditional family idea.
Its rubbish.
I grew up in a traditional family and all I experienced was arguing.
Any child would choose happiness over anything.
As long as the children have loving parents that’s all that matters.
I do think it is important to raise all children knowing that families can look different but it’s about love, stability and good parenting that matters.

What do you mean by “do better”?

What exactly is your point?

Why would that matter, though? Wouldn't it just be the circumstance of that family? Just a fact as to how the child came to be?

I’m against surrogacy completely. It’s best physiologically for newborn babies, and the person who gave birth to them, to be close to each other, even if they’re born via donor eggs, so not biologically related. That’s why when people try to justify surrogacy by saying “oh but she’s not using her own eggs, so she’s not giving her baby away/it’s not her baby” it doesn’t wash.

My point is that even if a child has two parents that's no guarantee either or both parents are going to be present, hands on, interested, involved, loving, nurturing, protective ....

It's not naive, though. Anyone could struggle with a sort of identity crisis at any time in their life. Parents who adopt or have assistance with reproduction typically have counselling and are very educated about how to answer questions of origin and provide support. A child from a hetero family has no more chance of being happy and successful in life than anyone else. With assisted reproduction becoming more common successive generations will be less questioning, prejudiced, ignorant and rude about it. Thank God for science. Many families have benefitted as a result.

You’d be better directing that question to @EmBear91

Don’t then. Children need to have a close relationship with their parents - the people who bring them up - they need to feel loved, protected and safe. Those parents do not need to be the child’s biological mother or father. The type of man that many posters “wouldn’t trust to bring up a child” is not the same type of man that is going to go to the huge trouble and expense of having a baby without a female partner. The latter is likely to be far more naturally nurturing, caring, responsible, and committed. If they didn’t have those qualities why on earth would they not carry on living their best childfree lives with the ability to always put themselves first?? Why would they deliberately make their lives more difficult, expensive, stressful, and limited by having a child if they were not fully committed to loving and providing for that child?

You keep stating all these points as fact but without backing them up with any actual evidence. It’s clear you’re just making them up to fit your homophobic narrative.

”the emotional and psychological impact affecting their sense of identity rarely gets mentioned”
errrm maybe it doesn’t get mentioned because it’s not actually a fact.
Where’s your evidence? Have you read many studies on this? Do you know multiple same-sex families with fucked up kids with no sense of identity? Nope, didn’t think so. You’re looking at this from your small hetero world view with no experience or knowledge of real life children of same sex parents.

Myself and my female partner have two kids, I know around 7 or 8 other same sex families, with kids ranging in age from babies to 16/17. Almost all the female parents I know used donor sperm from unknown donors. All the kids know they have a donor not a dad, none of the kids refer to their donor as “dad” (for the PP who said the child may want to call him dad 🤣),
i often discuss donors with same-sex parent friends - none of them have ever said the child has had an identify crisis - Their identify is based on how they’re brought up, who their parents are (the people who brought them up), where they go to school, what music they like, what part of the country they’re from. None of them have ever had an identity crisis because they don’t know where part of their DNA came from! My own kids are young but they’re well aware of the difference between a donor and a dad. They’re well-adjusted, confident, loving kids who are proud of where they came from. They’ve also never got any negative comments or hassle whatsoever at school. My oldest even gets told by a girl in her class that she wishs she had two mums! What does that say about dads?! And we’re not in a big city. We’re in rural Yorkshire. And no, not Hebden Bridge!

Same.

Love this. I mean, it would make sense if we were all from Hebden Bridge, what with it being the random lesbian capital of the UK 😂 but actually it seems like all the lesbian couples are hiding in Yorkshire on this thread! What can I say, it’s a cracking place!

To be fair, I don’t have an issue with two men adopting. I do have an issue with surrogacy (whatever the sexual identity of the father) and that is the only way a make gay couple can get a baby related to either parent

But that could happen in any type of parental relationship, man/ woman, woman/woman, man/man so your point still isn’t clear?

Yes, that's my point. It doesn't matter whether your parent is man or woman shape, there's no guarantee either or both parents will be useful.

It’s never occurred to me to think anything about it.

Families come in all shapes and sizes and a well adjusted, loved child is all that matters.

A number of posters have said that same sex parents have kids out of selfishness- that it’s all about the parents. Isn’t it exactly the same for many, many straight couples? Who actually has children for completely selfless reasons and in ideal circumstances?! No one does. Deep down, the majority of women have children out of a desire to love and nurture something, the majority of men do it out of a desire to continue their “legacy”. Both of these reasons are inherently selfish. What about straight couples who both have demanding jobs where the baby is put into full-time nursery at a month old? We say “mustn’t judge other parenting choices”. We don’t say “they clearly only thought about themselves when choosing to have children, it’s selfish, they shouldn’t have had them”. Even though the latter is probably more accurate. Really, ideal circumstances are for one parent to be a SAHP, to have plenty of money, and two emotionally available parents. How many straight couples can say they tick all 3 of those boxes? Are they all selfish for having kids in less than ideal circumstances? At the end of the day, everyone has a child for partly selfish reasons, and the non-selfish part is usually something like “I think I can give a child a happy life, I have a lot of love to give a child” - those are the exact same reasons that us gays have kids too.

Wholeheartedly agree with this. From personal experience I can confirm it’s horribly traumatic for the DC. Like a bereavement for them. Dad is gone and replaced by a stranger.

Why did you make a point of stating you saw two women, a couple, one "parenting" and the other, not? It was an odd post without context.

But they are still children. You can't know now how it may affect them as adults.

Look at how many posts there are on here about young adults whose mothers thought they were close and had had a good childhood who are blaming there parents for every issue in their lives and claiming their parents got parenting all wrong.

You are right to point that out. No problem with adoption. It’s the surrogacy aspect I personally have problems with. So that would apply to anyone regardless of sex.

The context is the ongoing conversation on this thread.

Many of them are not really children anymore - some are 15-17, all well-adjusted, very normal teenagers who will say all sorts of shit to their parents in an argument. But as far as I know not one of them has ever said you’ve ruined my life by depriving me of a dad. You’d think - if it was something that genuinely affected them that’d be the first thing they’d throw out in an argument. Go right for the jugular - all teenagers can be spiteful to their parents but this really does not seem to be an issue. Probably because they’ve had loving childhoods with parents who’ve always been very open about their donor. They all have the opportunity to meet their donors when they get to 18 also. But I don’t know of any friends with older kids where the child has expressed an interest in this.

Yes, as you pointed out, lots of people on here whose adult child is blaming them for bad parenting. And rightly so. But the clue is in the word PARENTING. Having a baby using a donor is nothing to do with how you parent that child. The child is not even there yet. I blame my mum for my MH problems (secretly) - she abandoned me for a year, then stood by and did nothing while my step-dad criticised and emotionally abused me for years. Our relationship is simmering with resentment now. I would love to have had two mum’s who were loving and emotionally available. I don’t think I would have giving a tiny shit what half my DNA was. I would have turned out much more well-adjusted. Instead I haven’t turned out particularly well-adjusted because of abusive men.

The oldest child I know raised by same sex parents is in their 30s. He's a grand man. They used to be my neighbours. Known him since his teens and I was in my early twenties.

He has 3 mum's and 2 step mums and he knows his bio father and has a decent relationship with him but not father and son. Dont think he calls him dad.

He's got his bio mum, and it's her egg fertilised at home with a turkey baster full of semen from his bio dad. They are friends.

He's got the two women who initially adopted him. These are his mums. They are friends with both bio mum and dad, too.

At some point early on, his adoptive mums split and got in new relationships. These two women are his stepmothers. One relationship has broken down, one hasn't. He has close contact with both.

I'm honestly not quite sure how the adoption went through, how straightforward it was back then to do a private adoption like that, but I do know that it was always the plan he was to become their son.

I’m lesbian 65, no kids , did try, glad I didn’t succeed, I was acting more on social expectations. I also would have struggled with having a boy. I soon lost touch with My lesbian friends who had kids, they were not interested in friends that didn’t have kids. I think having a good dad is a bonus, but not many around from what I see on Mumsmet! Perfect families are rare if they exist at all. Be happy & if you create a loving secure home for your daughter that’s what’s most important. Good luck .