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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to feel sorry for my brother?

383 replies

Dunkin · 15/01/2016 11:36

I've been reading mumsnet for a while so I thought I'd take the plunge and join your little online community!

I want to start off regarding my younger brother. He's a well educated, good looking and fit guy (I'm hardly going to say anything to the contrary! Lol). Anyway, he has informed my mum that he intends to go to the states soon and have children via a surrogate.

The whole thing makes me feel sad. He has no problems attracting good qualify women around his age (32) that could hopefully lead on to more in terms of starting a family but he is adamant that he wants to have children this way. He has severe trust issues around women that I don't understand. There has never been any infidelity or abuse in our family. Parents happily married for over 40 years. Me and my two other sisters are happily married with kids also. He has never been cheated on either.

He brings women to family gatherings all the time who seem all doughy eyed about him but he dumps them after a few months. He's never been in a LTR. loads of women mind you, but never anything serious. The surrogacy news has come as a shock to our family - we all think it has to do with him making the decision to retire (he's been very very successful working in finance at a young age).

I did manage to speak to him earlier this morning. He seems to be hung up on how a woman will take all his money and turn him in to a weekend dad - stories planted in his head by divorced older colleagues and friends who have been cheated on in marriage.

So my question is how do I get him to take step back and help him get over his fears about women? How do I get him to understand that women that mess you about are in the minority. Am I wrong to feel that a child needs a mother in his/her life as well as a father? Thanks in advance.

OP posts:

Hoppinggreen · 15/01/2016 12:33

He seems to have quite a negative view of women, OP you mention sisters - is he the boy in a family of bossy interfering siblings I wonder?

lorelei9 · 15/01/2016 12:33

Moly, odd comment then!

witsender · 15/01/2016 12:33

Er, how can he be a self declared feminist when he believes all women are out to nick his money? Maybe all the 'good quality' women are steering well clear, I know I would.

ImperialBlether · 15/01/2016 12:34

OP, hate to be pedantic, but it's "doe-eyed" not doughy eyed!

Like this:

antimatter · 15/01/2016 12:35

Besides as this is your first post on MN and with comments like you made so far something makes me believe this story is not quite what you are making.

SevenOfNineTrue · 15/01/2016 12:35

I'd say he sounds asexual and the 'women would take my money' is a good way not to confess his sexual status to his family.

enderwoman · 15/01/2016 12:35

I think you are totally overstepping the mark. Your brother is an adult and shouldn't have the rest of his family try to talk him out of having a child if he wants.

Maybe he's gay? Could the girlfriends be escorts or similar?
Maybe he was an OM?
Maybe he's cheated on girlfriends?
Maybe he's asexual?

I think those sort of things would make him jaded about relationships.
The bit that I would worry about is him passing on his attitude to a child (especially a daughter).

SoWhite · 15/01/2016 12:36

Well I wouldn't want to marry and have kids with him!

cleaty · 15/01/2016 12:37

Someone wanting to be single - no problem.
Someone using a poor woman who needs the money and buying her right for access to the child - not okay
Someone passing on their very negative views of women and relationships to children - not okay.

MLGs · 15/01/2016 12:39

I don't think his views about women sound very positive I'm afraid. Also would worry he would pass them on to a child.

If it weren't for this, I would say it seems sad that he feels need to use a surrogate rather than adopting. I realise that is controversial but I think of all of those children out there needing a home.

Mrsmuddlepie · 15/01/2016 12:40

There seems to be a lot of condemnation on here for the desire for parenthood (that a single woman would be unlikely to encounter on this forum). A lot of mothers can be controlling and try and discourage contact with a child's biological father when a relationship breaks down.
Ian Mucklejohn was the first UK father to arrange to have children via a surrogate mother. His children appear to have done very well with just their Dad.
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/good-things-come-in-threes-8422705.html
The world is changing and we will undoubtedly see more 'unusual' families in the future. it is not necessarily a bad thing. it seems unfair to condemn a man for expressing a desire to become a responsible single father.

BarbarianMum · 15/01/2016 12:44

But this happens all the time in all sorts of relationships - we don't vet people before they can go ahead. And children don't necessarily adopt their parents views either (luckily for me or I'd be a racist misogynist and vote UKIP)

WildeWoman · 15/01/2016 12:45

To elaborate on my point, it certainly seems like a massive ego and control issue. You have to be a bit like that to succeed in the cut-throat industry he has come from. You also need to be a little ruthless.

Is he an only son?

On paper he sounds nice (favourite uncle etc. - did he buy generous gifts perhaps?). But, I am not sure what sort of father he would make. To me, it sounds like he thinks that everything can be bought. The commodities, stocks, shares, bonds. And you can profit from them. In his world-view, the only thing that can outwit him, is a woman. Interesting in and of itself.

My only fear would be that he would see a child as a mere purchase. A possession. I'd worry about affection. I'd worry that if the purchase wasn't rising in value, that he would in fact abandon the child if the child didn't live up to his expectations of it.

He wants complete and utter control over every aspect of his life. He doesn't just want this, he needs it.

While I'd like to envision a future of the wealthy man exploring the world with their child, without the stress of financial or marital woes, I'm not sure that he would be capable of that.

But, 'tis neither here nor there if his mind is made up!

MatildaTheCat · 15/01/2016 12:45

Maybe he is one of those people who is just happier not in a relationship. Trust issues are a worry, though. He sounds bright enough to have considered all the various worst case scenarios.

There was a woman on here yesterday considering having a child alone and almost everyone was urging her to consider the cost of a child. This chap seems to be getting a much harder time. I get that the situation is very different but men can't get pregnant so he doesn't have many options assuming he doesn't wish to adopt.

firesidechat · 15/01/2016 12:46

I don't really understand this. Most people get their ideas of relationships from their immediate family, most importantly their own parents. It seems odd to have the ideas he has if his own family had happy, positive relationships.

In the working environment you describe I would have thought it much more likely that he would have first hand knowledge of these men shafting their wives and partners than the second hand tales of these men being shafted. He isn't coming across all that well and maybe womankind should be thankful that he is turning his back on them.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 15/01/2016 12:47

Someone who is so extremely avoidant in their adult attachments may well have difficulties managing the emotional demands of a child, and may be rejecting or dismissive of the child's emotional needs when they become too demanding. It's really not a good scenario especially as he will be the sole parent therefore the relationship will be mor intense.

firesidechat · 15/01/2016 12:48

Er, how can he be a self declared feminist when he believes all women are out to nick his money? Maybe all the 'good quality' women are steering well clear, I know I would.

That stood out to me too witsender. Oddly inconsistent.

LovelyFriend · 15/01/2016 12:48

He's a self declared feminist.
Well he needs to check himself!

How feminist is his idea that he thinks he has the right to buy a baby and hire a woman to carry this baby and then walk away from it because he's 'paid her' to?
Where is he getting the egg from? Perhaps he feels it's his "right" to just buy one of those off the shelf too?

I echo what MelindaMay says about the ethics of surrogacy upthread.

he's really not a feminist - he sounds quite misogynistic! And a selfish twat too.

maybebabybee · 15/01/2016 12:51

Your brother sounds like an arse. He is not a feminist.

ExasperatedAlmostAlways · 15/01/2016 12:51

Well at the end of the day plenty of single women choose to go down that route so why shouldn't a man. Its his life and his choice and I don't think it's fair of you to try talk him out of decisions he's made as a grown up. You can't really dispute his reasoning, plenty of men do end up weekend dad's (my dad was one and hated it and feels ge missed out on so much when it was my mum that cheated and left him). Personally, I'd keep quiet and just show him support in his choices.

Devilishpyjamas · 15/01/2016 12:56

I read your OP & thought 'gay' as well.

Apart from his family which seems to have a certain interfering vibe about it, he's a trader in the City - so socialising & working in a pretty misogynistic & homophobic environment. Being gay is a possibility anyway (as is being a controlling arse I guess). I can see why it might be difficult for him to come out.

Atenco · 15/01/2016 12:56

"Mrsmuddlepie" I was a single mother who at the start would have liked to erase my dd's father from her history. However I didn't and when she turned twelve her still useless father became very important to her. I have a friend whose mother was an OW and her father died before she was born, so she doesn't even have a photo of him. This has caused all manner of grief.

Apart from the use of poor women as incubators, the other problem with surrogacy is when the child is born with a disability and nobody wants him or her.

roundaboutthetown · 15/01/2016 12:57

His apparent obsession with money and "being shafted" does not make me feel sorry for him, tbh, OP. He needs to broaden his horizons, meet people outside his little financial bubble, and not be such an arsehole.

Fwiw, I didn't meet anyone when I was working in the City that I didn't think was more interested in money and ego trips than fidelity and family life. I didn't, however, then come to the conclusion that all men were unfaithful, misogynistic bastards who would shaft me one way or the other and that I would rather be a single parent!

YouBastardSockBalls · 15/01/2016 12:59

He doesn't like women.

Either he's gay, or a misogynist. Or both.

He doesn't have a wife because he can't find anyone who's of a good enough 'quality' for him, so he's going to go and buy the use of a woman to provide him with a child.

Doesn't exactly scream 'feminist' to me......

ohdearlord · 15/01/2016 12:59

Is there any kind of assessment or screening process for people who want to become parents through surrogacy in the US? Akin to adoption. Or is it more like ordinarily becoming a parent and assessments are only done if there's a perceived risk or actual problem?

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