Sad story re gay parents - what do you think?

[Nettee]

here

Don't know what the right answer is to this one can see all the parents' point of view. And such a shame the good friendship has fallen to pieces too. Not even sure what would be best for the little boy - a proper relationship with his dad or a stable family life with one home and two parents and a known biological father.

I owuld assume he is, Aitch, or otheriwse they surely would not let him have the boy for any period of time at all. or let him bath him as a newborn, or change him, etc.

they, I assume, knew absolutely everythng there is to know about babies and children, adn teenagers, and school issues, and bullying, and nutrition, and oh, a million other things about beng a parent before they decide dto have achild?

or did they, like the ast majority of us, learn on the job? like the father wants to...

what right do they have to say that he cannot do that? and they can?

that's exactly where the crappy 'oh, but you can't have access now, you haven't been feeding him for the last 3 years, you don't know how to settle him to sleep, you don't know how to comfort him at 3am' arguments come from, becasue he has not been allowed (ffs!) to look after his own child, and learn how to do these things.

I agree the father is probably entitled to have rights like any other non-resident parent.

The women can't have it both ways here - they could have chosen to use an anonymous donor, but instead their choice was to have a known father who is emotionally and practically involved in the child's life...which is not necessarily a bad way of doing things, but it means they don't get to dictate all the terms of exactly how much he's 'allowed' to be involved.

It's not really an issue about 'gay parents' - suppose the mum was in a relationship with a new man who happened to be infertile, and they'd done the same thing? It would be legally the same. The fact that her new partner is female is not really relevant here (or only in that you could argue maybe it adds to the need for the father to be involved as a male role model?)

Honestly it seems odd to me to ask your ex-husband to be a sperm donor so you can have a child with your new partner, regardless of genders .

well EXACTLY re babysitting etc. that's precisely the sort of relationship that one would hope would develop over time, esp when the child himself gets to express the desire to stay overnight etc. my kids have perfectly loving relationships with people with whom they spend a great deal less than five hours a fortnight, adoring even, so the idea that the relationship would 'wither on the vine' is a bit melodramatic.

anyway, like i say, i actually know people who parent this way and going to court would be the betrayal to end all betrayals. they see the kids fairly often and they come and stay over and go on days out with them, but this just didn't happen until they were older. prior to that, they babysat and hung out with the mothers at their house, which sounds like it could have been achievable in this instance had he not been arguing for exclusive access.

actually, that is something i do find confusing... i have another pal whose kid's dad insists on time on his own with the child, in order to promote bonding. tbh it has the opposite effect, she'd be much more relaxed if her mum was in the vicinity.

I dont understand the anger against the "step-parent" comment.

Its a legal term. No insult intended .

Legally , unless the bio-mothers partner ADOPTS the child , then from that point of view the child has one mummy. .
As far as im aware , same sex couples dont automatically get the same legal rights over " children of the relationship,".

Yes , the law needs amended to sort that, but this is why this case is important . The courts decision could set precident.

I think the couple in question were very foolish to use a friend as sperm donor if they didn't want said friend to be involved in the child's life. I don't blame them for wanting to raise the child as theirs without a third parent on the scene, but they were naive in the extreme to imagine that this would be doable with a friend rather than a total stranger.

I do feel for them as well though. I have a number of lesbian friends in long-term relationships who would love to have children but really struggle with how to do it: donor insemination can cost thousands, which obviously isn't the case with average (fertile) straight couples. And even if money isn't a problem some people find the highly medicalised approach very intimidating and/or distressing and would rather arrange something informally. But then if you're using a friend as a sperm donor of course there are his feelings to consider: and clearly some quite atavistic feelings can kick in when a man realises that a child is his biological offspring. They may not have considered that this might happen and as such not drawn up any kind of formal agreement.

This was unwise of them, and it's heartbreaking to know that this is now causing heartache and conflict in the poor baby's earliest years. But IMO it's simply not possible to say that one side or the other is being unreasonable here.

The fact that the couple are lesbians is irrelevant. Of course the child should be able to have contact with his father - it is no different to a heterosexual couple conceiving a child and then splitting up (indeed they used to be husband and wife as I understand it). If the women had wanted a more traditional family set-up they should have used an anonymous donor - with all the legal protection that would have presumably given them regarding lack of contact. This seems to be a case of wanting to have their cake and eat it.
What do the children of lesbians call their parents? They call them mum of course, both of them - at least the ones I know do.

i wouldn't assume competency, tbh. there may be a reason why they only let him have the baby for five hours at a time. your reckoning, clearly, is that they are mad and bad. perhaps they actually have their child's best interests at heart? we kind of take as read on here on a daily basis that mothers have their child's best interests at heart when it comes to whoever will be caring for them, what reason do you have for abandoning that in this instance? because they are gay?

Aitch, are you saying that the women don't want him to have more than five hours contact because he is incompetent?

My reading is that they just don't want him involved very much. They want to be a "traditional two parent family"

What would happen to the child if the lesbian couple split up ?

oh i have no idea at all re competency, Hully. none whatsoever. i was just curious as to where pp's certainty as to competency had arisen.

here's what their QC says in that article, btw. he was never a sperm donor. sounds like they all wanted the same kind of thing as our pals, actually more of a brilliant uncle but called dad. hence why i think it would have been smart of him to have held back on the court action until the boy would have been able to ask to stay over himself. if they were all friends, why on earth would they have refused?

"Mr Howard said the father had been the mother's "best friend" prior to the boy's birth and, even now, she and her partner are happy for him to visit their son at Christmas and other times.

The QC denied the mother and her partner were bent on excluding the father from having "any kind of relationship" with his son.

He added: "Notwithstanding their sexuality and that they acknowledge to that extent that they are an 'alternative family', the mother and her partner hold very traditional views of family life and would not have chosen to bring a child into anything other than an intact, two-parent, family.

"The ideal upbringing for a child is a stable home in which the parents love each other and had together chosen to bring a child into the world. This is the upbringing which the mother and her partner always wanted to create for this little boy.

"Their choice of familiy life for their chiild should be respected.

"They were always of the view that their son's best interests militated against him spending very much time away from them or from his home.

"The intention was always that the father, who was at one time their close friend, would generally see the boy in their company by sharing in activities and family events.

"The breakdown of the friendship has had the result that the boy is spending far more time away from his primary parents than they had anticipated. This is something which they have had to accept but it represents a significant departure from their initial plans for their son's upbringing.

Mr Howard added: "To this particular couple, the concept of 'three parents, two homes', repeated so often by the father, is very alien and it has never been something they would consider.

"They cannot conceive of their child being shuttled, physically but more significantly emotionally, between two homes and it is something that they
believe will harm their son and cause significant emotional damage.

"It has never been my clients' case that this boy does not need a male parent. Nor was it their case that his contact with his father should be limited to 'identity contact'.

The mother and her partner had never viewed the father as a "mere sperm donor" and the QC added: "They decided to proceed with a known donor, and one who was their friend, in order to provide their child with a father with whom he could form a limited but important relationship.

"There is considerable anxiety at the prospect of further destabilising their core family if contact (with the father) is extended beyond its current level."
Recognising the importance of the case, the three Appeal Court judges have now reserved their decision until an unspecified later date."

god that's long. mostly it's the article from the second para down, i just didn't want to miss any of the statement out.

So really the lesson to be learned here is

If your a lesbian couple and want a two parent family ..

use an annonymous donor , and pass no info onto the donor about the child.

Lillian - I don't agree, I think this is a different situation to a couple splitting up after conceiving. A better analogy (for a hetero couple) would be if the husband was infertile and they agreed that a close male friend of the wife would donate sperm, on the agreement that the baby would be raised with the husband and wife as mum and dad, and a sort of 'godfather' type involvement by the donor.

If in that instance the 'godfather'/donor had suddenly announced that he wanted recognition as the father, said he'd always wanted that arrangement, and started wanting plans in place for him to have overnight contact with the child I can see how the couple would be upset. I can also see how the (infertile) husband in that context would feel deeply hurt at being described as a 'step-parent' or 'pseudo-parent'

I would also feel that they had been unwise to make such an arrangement in the first place rather than using anonymous donor sperm.

yes that seems a lot more like it, ohthehuge.

That is my reading Hully. Lots of families don't fit that-mine for a start. There is nothing wrong in being different from traditional-it can be better-the more people who love the DC the better.

I think that you have to fast forward and imagine how you are going to explain it to the baby in 18yrs, or so time, bearing in mind that he may be very like the father. I'm not sure how you tell him that his father loved him and wanted contact, but you wanted to exclude him because you wanted to be the only parental influence and you were jealous.

I am guessing they want themselves to be "equal" parents in the child's eyes and worry that if he is "Dad" as opposed to lovely male friendy person, one of them will get sidelined and feel like she has a less important role.

Lesbian couples I know are joint Mummies with a daddy aound (or not).

Feel sorry for them all, but the child ,mostly.

Seriously, aitch, you just asked me (i assume) that? I wouldn't think you would stoop that low, tbh.

Why would you assume incompetence - is it because he is a man?
I tend to assume parents (not just mothers) have their children's best interests at heart.

In the absence of any other information, why would we not assume that?

"the more people who love the DC the better"

he's not talking about removing his love if he doesn't get his own way on this, is he? that would be rather petty.

i haven't assumed incompetence on the part of the man, silverfrog.

i'm trying hard not to assume anything, tbh. hence the big cut and paste. i'm keen to stick to the facts as we have them.

Ohthehuge ...nope its different... when a hetro couple marry any children produced by that couple , during the duration of the marriage are assumed to be "children of the marriage", legally the are the husbands , even if they are from donor sperm.

There needs to be a law made to protect the rights of same sex parents , in the favor of the children.

but would that be the australian model, which seems to be that only two parents are allowed on the birth cert? that father was tippexed off, despite knowing the child for ten years and paying maintenance. which seems... weird.

i take it we don't have any info re maintenance in this instance? that would be a bit of a clincher i think, in favour of the father.

tbh, I can't really be bothered ot engage further with this (unless you are prepared ot retract the suggestion that i am somoehow anti-gay)

I think it is a very sad case. and I think the mothers were bonkers to not use an anonymous sperm donor, if all they wanted was, erm, a sperm donor.

i made no such suggestion, silverfrog. you are reading things that aren't there. i was tryign to work out why the mn massive was treating this differently from the usual assumption that mothers have their kids' best interests at heart and fathers, well... not always.

oh silly, me. we were discussing the competency angle. you reacted to that, and suggested that maybe I was assuming that the mothers did not have the best intersts of the child in mind, because, perhaps, they were gay - that wasn't written by you at all?

oh well.

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