AIBU to feel sorry for my brother?

[Dunkin]

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.

So is surrogacy for money always wrong?

And why is it wrong? Because it is only something women can do? I am trying to understand the argument, but ?I think I don't quite get it. To employ a woman to clean your house/look after your children/fight in a war/out out fires is OK. Yet the same woman, who hasn't got one of those jobs and is willing to be a surrogate to earn money, should not be employed to do so because it is unethical.

Clearly I'm highly offended by your view of surrogates as if they are all poor and vulnerable and being taken advantage of.

Some women do become surrogates just because they want to help those who can't carry themselves such as people who have had cancer or people without partners and to give others the joy of having a child. They aren't all vulnerable, poor women being advantage of and having their womb used for money. So get down off your high horse!

Oh and also I know a woman who is a surrogate because she loves being pregnant/giving birth but doesn't want anymore children.

There are slightly more health and safety and genetics issues involved in surrogacy arrangements than house cleaning arrangements, though. It's harder to get emotional about cleaning a house.

They aren't all vulnerable, poor women being advantage of and having their womb used for money.

But many are, and there's not really a way of policing it.

?It is very easy to get emotional about fostering a child though. Or being a full time nanny to a child. And there are health and safety issues with lots of jobs - eg fire fighter/army. Should women not do those either?

Im more concerned about what happens when the child grows up.

They start off accepting what you give them because they have to, but if he cant deal with a partner for more than a few months in case she starts trying to "get his stuff" or take advantage of him, how well will he cope with a 6yr/9yr/12yr old child who starts demanding things?

There are rules on selling your organs, too. I think it's fair enough there should be more stringent tests before someone is allowed to kindly sell a kidney, or carry a baby, than before they agree payment for cleaning a house.

I wouldn't go so far to say surrogacy for money is always wrong.

But certainly the idea that a wealthy misogynist from a wealthy country, can just go and buy a woman to have a baby for him, and effectively buy out a mothers rights to that child, (and if it goes wrong I doubt she would be in a position to have proper legal advice etc) doesn't really sit well with me.

Are you OK with that scenario?

'expatinscotland - Having cancer does not justify using poor women to get what you want.'

What a lovely sentiment, cleary, considering some women are not 'poor' and do it because they want to. At any rate, it's no longer an issue for us, DD1 died. But hey, ladies, if you had cancer treatment that made you infertile, or you are infertile, you need to 'just adopt' or get a dog.

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.

Have you adopted one of "all those children out there needing a home"?

Some women do become surrogates just because they want to help those who can't carry themselves such as people who have had cancer or people without partners and to give others the joy of having a child. They aren't all vulnerable, poor women being advantage of and having their womb used for money.

The tiniest amount of research will show you very clearly that this rosy view of surrogacy relates to a tiny (and ever shrinking) percent of surrogacy situations.

Oh - I have no problem at all with the idea of rules and safeguards etc for the surrogate and child. It is just that someone seemed to express that "surrogacy is unethical" as a blanket statement, and I just think that life is never quite that simple. But actually, if it was easier it would all be easier to put proper safeguard in place for everyone.

He does sound a bit strange, and absolutely not a feminist.

I also suppose he may be gay, so I think you should all back off.

It is doe-eyed (i.e. big, melting eyes like a female deer) NOT doughy-eyed, which conjures up some sort of Michelin-man face image.

I don't think you can KNOW he has never been abused.

It could have happened any time, any where.

Even if he insists he has never been abused you can't KNOW he hasn't. People are ashamed about it.

I think doughy-eyed is a confused mash up of dewy-eyed and doe-eyed.

It is controversial, I know. but if your ethical viewpoint is to do the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, which is most ethical? To buy yourself a dog? Or to pay a surrogate mother who might otherwise be unable to feed herself and her existing children, thus gaining the child you want, giving that child a positive life and helping the surrogate and her family to improve their situation?

I know nothing is EVER that simple. But I think sometimes people are blind to the shades of grey.

But anyway - this is way off the OPs topic.

hmmm

if a woman had trust issue/failed to meet Mr Right and went it alone, I think she would get a very different reaction

Look something is a bit odd, but there seems to be something of a knee jerk reaction to this on this thread

Oh silly me - of course surrogacy is all about helping poor women struggling to feed their kids!

if a woman had trust issue/failed to meet Mr Right and went it alone, I think she would get a very different reaction
Well she might not have to purchase another human to use as an egg donor and human incubator for a start.

Some women do become surrogates just because they want to help those who can't carry themselves such as people who have had cancer or people without partners and to give others the joy of having a child. They aren't all vulnerable, poor women being advantage of and having their womb used for money.

The tiniest amount of research will show you very clearly that this rosy view of surrogacy relates to a tiny (and ever shrinking) percent of surrogacy situations.

And the reason it's ever shrinking is because it's so much cheaper and easier to pay poor women far less, easier to get out of taking the baby if it in some way doesn't reach the high expectations of the buyer and anyway, if the woman dies in childbirth... at least they won't have wasted too much money and can have another go.

SOME women choose to do this, but generally those women do it for people they know. MOST women involved have the choice of this, slave wage cleaning jobs abroad or prostitution, what a wonderful world we've created for women in developing countries.