The Archers: The Crook, the Vet, His Wife & Her Lodger - discussion #80

[DadDadDad]

In full acknowledgement of PseudoBadger's great achievement in providing the previous 79 threads over the past 4 years (and credit to R4 for this thread's title)...

Discuss TA (The Archers). New posters encouraged - it's not (too) cliquey here and plenty of regulars are happy to answer questions.

One rule: no spoilers (ie no mentioning future plot teasers from Radio Times listings etc) - there's a separate thread for that.

So, is Phoebe pregnant? will Anisha dob in (dobbin - geddit?) Alistair?

PS I don't presume to take on PB's role permanently - hopefully the job of starting new threads will rotate among regulars until she returns

Long term lurker, but I don't normally post. Is it just me or does anyone else find the party that Adam and Iain went to a really really weird birthday party to hold for a small child?

Flop - I found it strange too. Didn't Brian refer to it as the Surrogacy Tea Party 😀

The thought of two men getting a woman to carry a baby, give birth and hand it over to them sickens me.

Fleetwood
Why does it sicken you? How do you feel about a M-F couple using a surrogate? Why would a gay couple be worse? Do you think that Ian's yearning to have a biological child is 'lesser' because he is male / gay?

(You don't need to answer, as TA thread is normally quite fluffy so this may be getting into too serious territory, but thought maybe you should examine your views).

Surrogacy is a very controversial subject. Especially surrogacy abroad. Poor women renting out their uterus and suffering major health risks, whilst brokers cream in the profit, so that wealthy couples can have biological children. It doesn't sit well with me either. I don't find the idea of altruistic surrogacy very believable either and I think there must be lots of vulnerable women getting exploited in this country too.

I find the idea of surrogacy as a job very uncomfortable. It's a bit hands maids tale.

However, I can also understand why some women would be happy to do it altruistically.

It is a very complicated area morally. Is having your own biological child a right? Does that right mean a woman's body can be commodified? If a woman carries a child that is not biologically hers should that give her greater rights to the child if she changes her mind?

It's a real mine field but I'm hoping we don't end up with Adam and Ian going down the road and then a big legal battle because she won't hand over the baby. I'm not sure the archers is the right place to try and deal with these issues (particularly given the cackhanded way they dealt with DV)

And agree, that party must have sucked for the birthday child!!

I'm not sure about the morality of surrogacy for ANYONE actually. Thinking about the number of unwanted children in care and also just the size of the population in general.

I know that there is no way I could do that for anyone, the biological urge to breast feed and nurture my own baby would be too strong. IME and IMO.

I feel similarly about doctors' enabling 60 year old women to give birth.

I find the idea of paid surrogacy more than uncomfortable, for me I put it in the same category of commercial organ donation, paid sex etc - something that is just morally wrong. Altruistic surrogacy is different, I can imagine doing it for my sister/theoretical gay brother, and if some woman are happy to do it for strangers then that's fine.... but I still found the tone of that party uncomfortable the whole "ooooh, there will even be some surrogates there, pity x surrogate is already pregnant.... let's go and talk to her friend again" a bit uncomfortable. I think it's the idea of a number of people who want a child, plus two people who could theoretically help them presumably being very politely mobbed....

Teen - I have examined my views and will expand on them when I get home and have my specs but homophobia isn't influencing my feelings

I think the issue with two men paying a woman for the offspring of her uterus isn't homophobia, it's about the commercialisation of female bodies and men purchasing infants from (maybe, probably) impoverished women. The fact that it's two men rather than a man and woman isn't particularly worse but it compounds the 'male exploitation of female reproductive labour' element.

Adoption would be a much better option. Adam was far more enthusiastic about that route. It would allow the SW to explore the issues around adoption. We could hear about the difficulties involved, the highs and lows of the process etc. It would be great if, although the process was long and difficult, ultimately we saw a positive outcome with Adam and Ian bringing up a child who faces some challenges but can be happy and secure with his/her family.

I stopped listening at the beginning of the year (new year's resolution) but I caught a few minutes of the omnibus.

From what heard Ian and Adam want a surrogate baby, but Adam doesn't, but this is payback time for Charlie. Also reminiscent of the Mads woman who turned up brandishing a Turkey baister a few years back. Cue Ian going 'oh have I never mentioned I shared a house with an annoying chain smoking pensioner for four years?,.

And Roy is dating a meerkat.

Teen - why it sickens me. A man, gay or straight, can't have a baby without a woman (I know you already know that!). If he's straight, he can have a relationship with a (hopefully fertile) woman who also wants a child and they can raise it together. If they split up the mother is usually the primary carer or it's 50/50. But a gay man (or men) using a surrogate is exploiting a woman's fertility and then, when she's produced the much-wanted baby, she is expected to either disappear or stand on the sidelines and let the men raise her child.

She might be fine with that, the men might be fine with but I'd put money on the child not being fine with it. I felt this way when Michael Jackson, Elton John and David (forget his surname) had children by surrogates. Removing the mother is just wrong and I imagine the child will carry a huge sense of rejection.

Sorry scriptwriters even having Pip kicked by a cow doesn't make her more likeable.

I thought Elton J and David Furnace? and the surrogate had some contact, but l might be wrong. They are certainly likely to have nannies etc who provide 'motherly' contact. And they do seem tobe in a steady longterm relationship (hope l've not jinxed them by saying that!!).

Michael Jackson's children's mother was/is around. Less sure that wasn't a bit dysfunctional though.

I'm not sure what l make of it all. I just see/hear Adam not being sure, lan jumping around all excited and not really noticing and/or caring Adam isn't fully on board.

And a cow kicked Pip. Shame .... l'm trying to show concern, really l am.

They are certainly likely to have nannies etc who provide 'motherly' contact.

Nannies do not and should not be providing motherly contact.

True. But maybe slightly different here birth mother not around. I could have wordedthat better, maybe meant 'providing a female role model', yet can hear you al say ho'd want nannying to be a desirable model. TBH l am struggling to care at all about these fictional characters- and the real celebs too for that matter.

Oh dear, clearly editing of posts before sending isn't something l can get enthusiastic about either.

Auldheathen I employed nannies for my son. I am shocked at the idea a nanny , no matter how good they are , can be considered as a mother figure. That is a huge and unrealistic burden on the nanny and desperately unfair to the child.

I just don't think TA has the skills to handle a surrogacy storyline. I think there are many issues to do with feminism and how women's bodies are viewed, and there is no way on earth that the archers would explore those issues. I couldn't care less if the recepients are gay or straight, it is the womens rights angle that is my concern. I would rather they covered the adoption storyline.

Totally agree birdsdestiny- especially after the DV sl was handled so badly

I agree. A surrogacy story will be badly done.

What is puzzling is the current plague of locusts theme for the Dopeys- why are they getting misfortunes rained on them?

To be clear- it doesn't make me feel sorry for them or dislike them less but to paraphrase
to lose one piece of vintage farm machinery which you haven't paid for may be regarded as a misfortune; to be kicked by a cow looks like a heavy handed plot device

You can stop clutching your pearls, Lass. In last post l said female and not mother. You can make any choices you like re-child care, as can anyone. Vague comments on a thread about soap land (by a poster with a very vague brain just now) is hardly a comment on anybody else's real life.

"stop clutching pearls...." such a hackneyed expression.

Curious why if soaps and caring about fictional characters are so beneath you why you bother posting on a thread set up for no purpose other than to discuss a soap?

She might be fine with that, the men might be fine with but I'd put money on the child not being fine with it.

A child is better off with a good mother, but not all mothers are good at being a mother. And before the 20th century, plenty of children grew up without their mothers - even now, childbirth is still a risky thing to go through, even if the mortality rates aren't what they were 100 years or so ago. And children still grew up, and I don't think every single one grew up totally screwed up. Some will have, but then so have plenty of people who have grown up with Borth biological parents there right the way through.

A&I would be better off adopting, though. And even better yet if Adam admitted to them both that he''s using the child thing as a sticking plaster over their relationship - so as it is, whichever option they end up with is unlikely to end well.

Growing up without your mother because she died is very different to growing up without your mother because two men engineered it that you don't have one.