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?

I’m saying the result is the same. In both situations both fathers could be called sperm donors.

It's even worse than "baby daddy" and that's saying something.

It's inconsiderate, but it's just another example of people not thinking things through really, isn't it?

It's a lack of empathy to what it's like to actually be a donor/ donor conceived child/ parent, probably because they don't have experience with it and so aren't connecting the dots.

I'd just sigh and move on, you can't change people being this way.

(I say this as someone currently going through the donor process).

No they couldn't.

The man who conceived a child and then walked out did not 'donate' his sperm to the mother in order that she could have a child. He's not a sperm donor, he's a father (albeit a bad one).

Exactly. And @SmallThingsEverywhere used the terms "abandon" for both!

I'm donor conceived and it doesn't bother me and even if it did, they can still say it. Words can have different meanings in different contexts as I'm sure your DC will understand as you raise her to be smart and robust enough to handle that rather than to feel annoying/upset/offended by remarks that aren't about them.

I find it pretty weird.

My DD's biological father wrote her a lovely letter about why he was donating sperm, explaining who he was, and saying he hoped she'd be a really happy person.

We talk about him to DD - we know he's a car mechanic, liked maths at school, and has hayfever which she's inherited! We know he respects the women in his life. We also explain to her that she will have inherited some of his traits, and we have a bit of a sense of what he might look like.

To me it's really important she knows that someone was kind enough to help her be born, and kind enough to write the sort of message he wrote.

I would hate for someone to compare that to a dad who doesn't bother with his children.

I would hate for someone to compare that to a dad who doesn't bother with his children.

They're not really comparing it to your nice sperm donor though, are they? They're using it in a different way about a twat they slept with who has contributed nothing for the child beyond siring it. It's about their relationship, not yours. It's really no different to saying my ex is a pig and you getting offended because you own a pig and its delightful. You know what they mean and don't need to read any more into it. If it helps, you can be glad that your sperm donor is lovely and they're 'sperm donor' isn't, so you're not beset by their troubles.

Yabu

It's an identifying term for a deadbeat father. I don't know any altruistic sperm donors in real life but significant numbers of deadbeat dads.

I find it distasteful that these men expect to retain the title dad/father when they do nothing and pay nothing to deserve it.

Sperm donor nicely highlights the extent of their contribution.

I guess it's using donor as an insult that bothers me.

Like I say I've never mentioned it before, but did this time because it was in front of the children

For me they are miles different and it's like calling someone talking about being a widow or calling their husband deceased when they are alive but simply divorced. Its just different things. I agree with the comment that calling someone q sperm donor sort of removes that responsibility and accountability from them. I also dislike it being used as an insult as If sperm donors are crap dads and bad people (especially in a time when there's shortages of donors). Id hate for my daughter to pick up on that negativity around donors, and think that reflects her situation

I'm glad that there's a mix of views here because it seems to be something that some people have never heard of as being used in the insult way

I guess I've never heard the term sperm donor used in this said without anger, insult or judgment. I've no intent on policing its use and am also not offended.

In other circles its a neutral term, or a positive term. However my friends are definitely using it as an insult/ like its a terrible thing to be and synonymous with awful dad rather than as a term for a donor set up

I think I can understand the term used more in one night stand situations where child might be in a similar circumstance when born

@Pinkdelight3 - of course they're comparing the two. They're using the same words!

It just seems weird to me - a 'sperm donor' is already a term that has a meaning. It's not a synonym for a deadbeat dad. Only reason you'd use it as a synonym is if you're either unable to grasp what a sperm donor is, or if you think it's insulting to imply someone is one.

It's been around for a while I think, but I would prefer to call them absent fathers. I think if you use that term it makes the lack of responsibility ok.

But it really isn't like this.

I know people who've grown up with quite considerable trauma because their dads left, and that trauma has to do with them wondering what they did wrong that their dads didn't stay, or thinking they must have been a disappointment.

That is totally different from a child knowing their biological parent was a responsible, caring person who made an agreement to donate sperm before they were born.

There’s no father in neither scenario though

Of course there can be a father in a donor scenario. Does a couple who uses donor sperm for genetic or infertility reasons mean there's "no father"? It's not only single women who use them.

A deadbeat dad reneged on a commitment to be a parent. Sperm donors make an altruistic gesture and help to conceive children that mostly also have two parents. It’s not the same at all.

It's trashy and makes me cringe and also wrong unless these women aren't getting child maintenance payments because women who conceive through sperm donation don't get CMS payments from the bio father.

a sperm donor has no father/ child relationship with their offspring so yes it’s the same in that sense- everything else around it is more feelings and emotions

The man who was present at my conception is in no way any kind of "dad" or "father" to me, and those words cause me actual pain and embarrassment bordering on shame if I try to any man in those terms. I didn't even really meet this man until I was about twelve (don't remember meeting him as a baby) and he never took to me, just did some more damage.

Sperm donor is about the closest fit I can get for this man, so I will continue to use it. I wouldn't say it in front of small children, though. It's just factual.

Don't some offspring meet the sperm donors nowadays, though?

Usually much later as teens or adults. I thought it was becoming fairly normal for this to happen.

Jay Blades uses 'the man who contributed towards my birth' to describe the man he feels hasn't earned the title dad, which is clunky but does the trick.

Yes it’s trashy and gross. People on another thread had a big problem with Johnny Depp call his ex “that white I donated my Jizz too” - well he’s just keeping to the same standards as people who think it’s alright to call fathers sperm donors.

I get it if he’s just run out when they were a baby and isn’t in their life (but it shouldn’t be said in front of his kid ffs), but if it’s just from a divorce or if they left him then that is truly distasteful.

I don’t like it op. Absent father/dead beat dad is more accurate. It’s not same at all as sperm donor. He’s not abandoned child the legal agreement was he would never be parent.

This. I agree with the OP. The use
of sperm donor in her examples are negative. Whereas true sperm donors are doing something altruistic. Using sperm donor as an insult is just wrong.