Peak Guardian: We’re a queer couple looking for co-parents to raise a child with

[RoyalCorgi]

This falls squarely in the "only in the Guardian" category. A special mention to:

"In our experience, co-parenting seems to overwhelmingly appeal to cis women, trans men and non-binary people assigned female at birth."

If only there was a collective word for that group of people.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/13/queer-couple-co-parents-raise-child

If only there was a collective word for that group of people.

There is. Uterus-owners (okay, two words). ;)

I jest. I would say obviously, but I fear it is no longer obvious.

Works for the I Paper and Diva, 'nuff said.

Eleanor and her lesbian partner Leo have been on the hunt for someone to co parent with for over a year. The linked article suggests that co parenting with four people might be a breeze

Poor Eleanor is very deluded

The brief insight into male fetishes 🤮

On a more serious note, Eleanor appears to have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about how parenting will work best for her and the sum total of fuck all on what would be best for her hypothetical child.

My biggest take from it all. Not one sentence regarding any forethought as to what a hypothetical child may need.

I would say it was baffling, but I’m just never surprised any longer.

Putting aside the gender hooey for a second it's a nice change from jumping straight to surrogacy. At least the value of a woman in child rearing is being recognised even if they can't quite bring themselves to say the word!

Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned, but as there are two of them, I don't understand why one of them can't get pregnant using donated sperm, and the child can be brought up with two parents.

Mind you, if they're absolutely set on the co-parent thing, they could ask Owen Jones - I'm sure he'd be delighted.

I think Eleanor would like a 50/50 parenting setup where she and her partner can hand over parenting to the dad so she can still go out and do fun things without worrying about getting back for the babysitter or getting up early after a night getting trashed.

I'm not sure the logistics of this have troubled her too much

Baby as lifestyle accessory

I think the best (worst) bit was the follow on sentence

“In our experience, co-parenting seems to overwhelmingly appeal to cis women, trans men and non-binary people assigned female at birth. Without any exhaustive studies on this, I can only guess why.

yep we definitely need exhaustive studies to establish why it’s women that are more interested

I actually know (though not well) a lesbian couple who chose to have two children with a gay male couple (a turkey baster was involved I believe). One of the gay men provided the sperm for one child and the other for the other child. The male partners lived not far from the mother and her partner. The children are now about 17 and 15 I think, have always gone between the two households once they were weaned from the breast, and in the limited knowledge I have of them seem to be pleasant and well adjusted teenagers. All four parents have been completely involved in their upbringing. So I do believe this set-up can work, but I think it takes brilliant and dedicated parents who continually have the children's best interests at heart to make it work.

Isn't the place awash with lesbians with penises? Get one of those.

yes, I think , ridiculous word soup and identity naval gazing aside, having a lesbian mother (s) and a gay part time Dad is a feasible option and very preferable to an anonymous donor.

I agree.

Why do ‘Queer’ millennials insist on behaving as if they have invented the wheel?

Coparenting with a platonic friend in lesbian & gay or lesbian/lesbian & gay/gay arrangements has been around forever.

Cynthia Nixon’s 3rd child is a famous example (her first 2 were with her ex husband and her third with her wife):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7602647/amp/Cynthia-Nixon-reveals-father-wife-Christine-Marinonis-son-Max-Michael-Growler.html

I would imagine that as long as both same sex couples are married or civil partnered it would be relatively easy to arrange parental responsibility for 4 people, as it can already be done for two bio parents and two stepparents, and this is functionally the same (1 female parent and her wife and 1 male parent and his husband)?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/form-cpra2-step-parent-parental-responsibility-agreement

Maybe the two biological females in the story would have more luck finding a male to coparent with if they widened their friendship circles and made genuine friendship connections with more men, rather than using matchmaking apps and creating online groups?

😂😂😂

Sounds like a great way to make a family - bonus: both couples get baby-free time together when the kids are at the other house and the school has 4 numbers to pick from for emergency calls!

The thought of organising the family diary gives me the shivers though.

Though Eleanor has got a few issues with biologyphobia, in fact, as an adoptive parent, for a child to be raised by both biological parents is preferable to adoption, even if the parents aren't a couple.

Having said that, I made a mildly gender critical comment at work and a younger blue haired colleague took the huff. Turns out from looking at her Twitter account she's in a relationship with a woman and keeps getting unsolicited offers of sperm (with or without a sexual relationship). Funny how she can't escape her biology (and sad, but not surprising, that men think like this).

Also doesn't surprise me that the male gay couples all want a surrogate they can discard, not a couple to parent with equally.

My DD's school friend who has two mums is being co-parented... by her birth mum, her birth mum's ex wife, and her birth mum's new female partner.

(Oh, and sorry Eleanor, it's got sod all to do with income and everything to do with men not wanting to bother with those pesky women who might have opinions and want to tell you how to parent).

'unsolicited offers of sperm' 😲

They need nannies?

I looked on their Instagram and was pretty horrified at the number of well meaning but naive posts from women with existing children seeking like minded people possible perverts with whom they were happy to share their children. OMG, I well know that single parenthood is not a bed of roses but it struck me that it was more about the loneliness of the women than the well being of the children that was the driving force.

Would have thought that opening photo would be enough to put anyone off

This sentence was very revealing though.

“One of the events was a talk on the legal side of co-parenting. Before this event, the room had been packed out for a talk on surrogacy. Then, the room cleared. Just a handful of us turned up to hear the co-parenting talk; mostly women. This was our first sign that this process was going to be much harder than we thought. “

So there was plenty of interest in surrogacy from couples needing to access a woman for reproductive service purposes whilst wanting to avoid being in any kind of further relationship with the baby’s birth mother after the birth. And that room of motivated and interested couples was not female dominated.

But in contrast, the event for would-be parents who did want to have an ongoing relationship with the baby’s other biological parent after the birth had few attendees and was mainly female couples.