Having a Baby with My Gay Best Friend – WWYD?

[pehkis]

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster – be gentle!

I’m in my mid-30s, single, and have always wanted to be a mum. My best friend (let’s call him J) is gay, also single, and has always wanted to be a dad. We’ve been friends since uni, practically family at this point, and recently we started seriously discussing co-parenting.

We’re both financially stable, live in the same city, and have very similar parenting values. We’d do 50/50 custody, raise the baby together but in separate homes, and aim for a really amicable, supportive co-parenting relationship. We wouldn’t be romantically involved (obviously), but we’re incredibly close, trust each other completely, and neither of us wants to wait around hoping to meet ‘the one’ just to start a family.

Has anyone done this? Any co-parenting experiences, good or bad? Am I being naïve thinking this could work without a partner in the traditional sense? Also, any practical/legal considerations I should be thinking about?

Would love to hear thoughts – handhold and tough love both welcome!

Errr….the child ?
What happened to “ best interests of the child “?

I think parents who stay together and shouldn’t are frequently far more selfish and unacceptable.

Co- parenting by two happy independent parents who parent well together is far preferable to many situations with children in the same house with both houses parents.

Raising children comes in many forms and love from parents alongside a respectful, happy environment/ environments is what matters.

Go for it op.

Maybe you should.

And a practical thing to think about is how much do you earn now, likely earnings in future; and how similar are your incomes and how high cost is it for housing is it where you live? Or where you might want to live in future? Parents often move where they live a few times in their kids lifetimes, for work, schools, family needs, etc. You might have a child with some disabilities that require specific accommodation. There needs to be as much flexibility as you can manage. But in practice that can be difficult to make happen as two households in tandem.

Basically your friend likely might earn more due to looking after the baby less, being a man and being paid more, or or having a more lucrative job that you do. Or all three of those.

And then you become the poorer household over time. Making every day differences to your standard of living that kids eventually notice. That doesn’t tend make you feel great if you’re also putting in all the hours to raise your baby on your own.

Then even more importantly where you each live now might in time feel too small or not near a good school or job or family support or whatever you each need. You (rather than the higher paid co parent) might find you can’t afford to live where you want.

And if your coparenting friend can afford the move to a higher cost area because he has the bigger income, becomes the parent near the great school or whatever. Nobody willl argue that’s the wrong thing for him to do. And you’re not in control because you’re friends, not life partners anyway. You don’t get any vote.

But if you’re the lower income household you may find that you can’t afford to move there too to join him. Suddenly high costs of housing and living and relative income disparity mean either your child is commuting a very long way very regularly to see the other parent. Or means that your child will go to live for the majority of their time with the other parent.

I'm in that set up (although the dads are a couple) and we're all settled and happy. Our son is 9 now.
I've got loads of advice but the main things I'd say are:
Don't go 50:50, it might sound fair on the adults but it isn't on the child, we do roughly 5:2.
For the first 6 months baby is (pretty much) always with mum
See a solicitor
Don't use a clinic
Talk about how you see the boring things working (deciding on schools, what if child is ill etc)
Live as close to each other as possible

Good luck

And it's all very peachy and twee until one of them has a partner who isn't enamoured of this picket fence and apple pie arrangement that has a child shuffling between houses and friends.
Or until the child realises it's just a plaything of two 'parents'
Or one wants to move, so the 50/50 parenting becomes impossible.
Or one has more children who are not veering between two homes and the poor child that is, wonders why

😄

I agree with others, if you want a baby now do it with donor sperm so it’s your baby. Your friend can use a donor egg and a surrogate.

It’s hard enough to have a baby when you’ve got a supportive partner. I can imagine it’ll be a lot harder on your own but even harder still with this 50/50 arrangement. What happens if you have a cessarean (which a third of births are); you will find it really hard to even move around for the first six weeks; I could barely get up and DH had to hand me baby for feeds. How is this 50/50 arrangement going to work? If he is a drive away you won’t be able to drive for that period. He needs to be prepared to move in or donor sperm and do it on your own but have complete control. I’d opt for that as it just sounds very messy and like sooner or later this is all going to blow up. Imagine 3am, baby crying for hours, on your own and crying yourself, then having to get baby ready the next day to see your friend when he hasn’t struggled through any of this with you; you’d resent him bucketloads!!

Yes, that’s not really true though is it. What a strange post.

I have a friend whose family situation is somewhat related to this.
A and B were exes but friendly and single.
B wanted a baby and A provided the sperm.
Baby is born and has long term AN.
B now single mum with input from A. Don't think 50:50.
My friend C meets A and initially not sure but now they are married with one DC.
B decides she wants another baby an approaches A but in the end goes for an anonymous donor (suspect the words Over My Dead and Body left my friend's lips).
So many things to think about. B has always been single - I don't think she thought she'd get back with A but having two children, one with AN, put paid to that.
So you need to think what if your life moves on and what about your friend?

Get a dog and share that.

This isn’t a sensible way of raising a child - there will be heartbreak for some or all of you in the years ahead. Will you really want to let him have your brand new baby 50% of the time? The maternal bond is strong. I couldn’t have done it

I do agree that 50/50 is the wrong approach for tiny babies. You haven't addressed this in your answers (I mean, fair enough, I'm not the thread police) but I would encourage you to think that through:

If 50/50 isn't best for baby, that means you become the primary caregiver
If you're the primary caregiver and you don't want to live with J then, in effect, you're a single parent for the first couple of years

So how do you work?
How do you manage every single night feed?
What if you get PND?
What if you get sick, just normal sick?
What if the baby has additional needs and actually needs someone to be home full time with them, how do you navigate that?

In other words, if you accept 50/50 isn't best for baby, know that YOU are the one taking the hit as the primary parent. A lot of men are SHITE once a baby comes along (see: every fecking thread on MN). there's no guarantee J will be different.

I'm not saying don't do it, I am saying only do it if you're prepared for the worst case scenario which is you doing everything...

And, if the thing stopping you living together is the ability to negotiate tidiness levels, how on earth are you going to negotiate co-parenting?

Why would they?? If you make a big deal out of it and constantly cry ans tell them their set up is 'wrong' then they might. If you just get on with it and live your lives then I'm sure they'll be fine.

That’s total nonsense, They won’t all be fine.

Again, why is it not in their best interests? Just because 2 parents live under the same roof does NOT equate to a happy child, let me tell you. There are other ways to be a family, it's narrow-minded must-do-it-like-this thinking of adults that makes the problem, not the set-up.

How is having 2 loving parents not in the best interests of the child?

Is having 2 loving parents not ideal? Okey dokey, I'll be sure to Google that, hang on...

Nope, seems most 'research' suggests that is definitely a good parenting technique.

I don't know own this particular situation. I do know several couple who have children and live separately. Tbh the most successful one is the parents that live in the same street so kids easily pop back and forth

If you really are close friends then it seems ok to me but as others have said, I think you should plan to live together for the first year and have an agreed plan for what happens next. I don't think you should live together beyond the first year because baby will notice the change.

please don’t do this. Are you honestly going to send a three day old baby to it’s father’s house because it’s his turn and then have them back four days later.

If you want to do it read A Primal Scream. It’s about the trauma of children being adopted at birth. They live with their mum for nine months hearing her voice etc and then lose their mum at birth This is what you would be doing to this child.

@Donttellanyoneimwingingit most kids start off with two loving parents who decided to share their lives together. Obviously that can go wrong and then a child can end up unhappy.

But here are two people who don’t intend to share a life together. They are only sharing the child. Being friends isn’t the same as living in a home planning your whole lives together.

It might work - but there are many reasons it might not.

It certainly isn’t something to walk into without a heck of a lot more consideration than “love will ensure our happiness.”

So? Surely the act and the turmoil of the parents splitting and that emotional uncertainty / possible antagonism is why kids are unhappy? Not having two places to live. Adults are the ones who make the situation untenable, not 2 houses.

Also I think you're placing way too much nobility onto people's reasons to have a baby - you're making out like people who are married are making an earth-shattering decision, only thinking about the precious child but having children is always because the parents want a child. It's almost always because they want to have a kid to love for their own happiness and fulfilment. Why on earth is love between two friends seen as inferior to 'romantic' love? It's still love. Romantic love fails all the time.

The patriarchy and societies' fear of breaking the norm have a lot to answer for.

Why?

It could work, I'd be wanting to live very very close to each other (like on the same street if not next door) and also make a plan for when DC is a baby. It may (I'd go so far as to say will) be very hard (impossible) for you and, most importantly, baby to be separated when they're small especially if you breastfeed so I'd recommend more of a visitation type care up to age 1 or 2. Even after that, don't discount the pain of being separated from your baby/child.