To be annoyed by the term sperms donor?

[Thousandsandhundreds]

Recently I've noticed lots of people calling bad fathers sperm donors. My friend jane who has had a falling out with her dad has taken to calling him to her donor. She will say "oh my bloody sperm donor has done ..." He was present throughout her childhood, she turned low contact as an adult due to a big argument

I've always felt it was a bit odd but never said anything as her personal choice of defining her relationship.

Recently her and a group of friends were having a moan about one of the groups exhusband. Jane said "he's just a sperm donor at this point" and the group started to refer to him as her donor rather than exhusband

Eventually at the school gates this mum said to someone else "my kids donor is such a pain" in a jokey way but in earshot of her son

When alone.I said she maybe shouldn't call him that in ear shot of her kid, she said I was uptight and pointed out its fairly common.

I explained that my daughter is donor conceived (which she knew) and that we didn't want her to think a donor is a negative thing. Her donor isn't a bad parent, he is someone who entered into a specific arrangement which didn't including parenting. In my head thats very different to someone who was part of the family unit then didn't fulfill their role, and is simply a poor parent. My daughter for example has conversations about her donor, and hangs out with other donor kids as her situation of having limited medical info, the bio parent link etc is something id think of as specific to donor kids

Since then I've noticed that it is common online, and amongst some of my younger friends.

Since then its clear that they think I was being picky.

Aibu to think its odd to refer to your child's parent as a sperm donor if they aren't?

It's trashy and makes me cringe 😬

YANBU - it's not helpful to equate bad parent to someone who has donated sperm to allow others to become parents.

Definitely unreasonable in front of the DC but if a woman needs to let off some steam about a useless, deadbeat father then she can call him whatever she likes in private as far as I'm concerned.

It doesn’t bother me, but maybe not infront or the DC. If a father has checked out of parenting then he may as well be a sperm donor.

Yes my dad left home when we were all young. He can be referred to as SD by my mum and sister.

i do not use the term as I find it distasteful. To me he is just an absent father.

Shouldn't do it in front of the kids, but a man who has given up being a parent to his children, never sees them, doesn't pay for them, doesn't care about them etc is just a sperm donor basically. You don't call him a father because he isn't one. He has no right to be called that.

Easier to say sperm donor than 'that twat that pretended he wanted kids, then got scared and fucked off'.

I call my childrens father sperm donor Tommy friends and family. He hasnt been part of their lives since they were 2.6 years old & 8 months old. Their 7 and 5 now. He is a sperm donor

What’s the difference between a sperm donor and a man who has no involvement in his children’s lives. They amount to are the same thing.

I call my kids two dads sperm doner because they haven’t been there for my kids at all.

@SmallThingsEverywhere

A father who decides to check out of parenting isn’t a sperm donor, he’s just an absent, rubbish father.

Calling absent fathers sperm donors sort of relinquishes them from any sort of responsibility.

It is a contractual difference I guess. An official sperm donor is exactly what however my father who left the home when I was little managed some sort of parenting for a few years before he decided to check out.

That just makes him a bit of an unfortunate human being.

Exactly that

But a sperm donor is purposefully helping to create a child, that they know they will be abandoning. An absent father also abandons a child. Calling them an official sperm donor makes no difference if the result is the same.

I do see where you are coming from. But I call my biological father the sperm donor as he left my mother whilst she was pregnant. He literally was just a sperm donor who had zero involvement in my life and in my opinion can be called nothing else.

A sperm donor is someone who made an agreement with the mother, before conception, that they wouldn't be involved in the child's upbringing.

So calling absent dads 'sperm donors' is not only unfair to actual sperm donors, it completely lets the arsehole absent dad off the hook.

"Yeah, I was just a sperm donor. Even she says that. Totally sorted."

Are you saying that conceiving a child and then walking out is morally the same as donating sperm to a clinic which is then used by, say, a lesbian couple?

I guess it depends on the individual then and how they feel is a suitable way to describe an absent father. I feel like an official sperm donor knows from the offset the contractual arrangement where as an absent father is just that. A bit of a dead beat but your father nonetheless.

This

My son is also donor conceived OP, YANBU

@DashboardConfessional

Guess you put it in a better way than me but yes morally they are different terms

I have never heard anyone speak like that, but yanbu at all, you need better friends!

I have a friend whose DD was donor conceived and so I do understand why it upsets you.

However, the constant policing of language to try to wring the last vestiges of creativity and humour out of it is sad. English has always evolved and changed and is really brilliantly full of idiom and dialect.

We can all choose to be offended by pretty much anything anyone says that doesn't align with our own thoughts and views.

Obviously there is a huge difference between the two uses of the term sperm donor but we really shouldn't go around policing how other people speak when they're not trying to be deliberately offensive to you - the key word here is deliberately. Just because you find it offensive doesn't make it a fact.

I think it's unfair on actual Sperm Donors & the children of those SD's

in front of the child/ren.

• Father (not Dad).

out of earshot if the child/children

• crap/shit/useless father.

• Deadbeat Dad
• absolute wanker
• whatever else really

but not SD, that's just unfair on men/children actually IN that situation. They don't 'abandon' their child, they donate their sperm so others can be parents.

totally different.

It’s distasteful and a bit trashy but I get their point if the Dad is a total deadbeat.

Some men say a lot worse about the Mother of their children, trust me. DH bumped into a former colleague once who referred to his ex as ‘cunty Mccunt face’ so it was ‘that’s if cunty mccunt face let’s me see my daughter’. DH didn’t know what to say.

DD1 referred to her absent father as sperm donor many years ago as he barely bothered with her from a young age. I always called him dead-beat dad or dead-beat.