A state lawmaker has introduced a bill aimed at preventing an unmarried woman from coming to Utah to give birth and pursue adoption without informing the biological father of her plan, a problem highlighted in a Friday Utah Supreme Court ruling involving an unmarried Colorado father.

House Bill 308, sponsored by Rep. Christine Watkins, D-Price, would require pregnant women to give notice by mail or publication to out-of-state unmarried fathers if they plan to give birth and place infants for adoption in Utah. ...

"I am very sympathetic to fathers loving their children," said Watkins, who has two brothers and four sons. "A lot of fathers don’t want to give up on their children. I thought, ‘You know, let’s give these guys a chance.’"

Utah’s current law says that once a birth mother consents to an adoption or relinquishes her child, that decision may not be revoked. Watkins’ proposed bill changes that, too. If a biological father successfully asserts his parental rights, a birth mother would have 30 days to then revoke her consent to the adoption.

Labels: adoption, children, Fathers, single parenting, unmarried parents, Utah

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Wife and Number Two daughter should not be left unattended in used book stores. That’s how we ended up with the latest additions to our growing array of used (and all but used up) books: What a Young Wife Ought to Know (1901) and a companion volume, What a Young Husband Ought to Know (1897). Both were part of a “Sex and Self” series on how to live a successful Victorian middle class life. ...

Mrs. Emma F. Angell Drake, M.D., the book’s author, was, according to the cover, a professor of obstetrics at Denver Homeopathic Medical School and Hospital. The book carries an endorsement by no less than Elizabeth Stanton, prominent in the abolitionist effort and later prominent in women’s suffrage. I was expecting a casual hoot, looking for antiquated if not dangerous medical advice for women. It was in 1901, after all, that the best of medical attention more or less killed President McKinley after he was shot. I found some of that, but I also found a burgeoning feminist sensibility. Throughout this book the young wife is the equal of the husband, never a mere counterpart.

Dr. Drake has advice on everything, from how to assemble a trousseau before marriage to making wise choices in furniture once a woman is wed. She warns against “ruinous displays at weddings.” Keep it tasteful, and above all affordable. That won’t get into today’s pages of People but, then again, that’s probably a good thing. Some of her advice frankly grates. Drake has ungenerous notions on heredity and how to avoid the faults and transmit the virtues connected to it. It’s pretty clear with which classes she thinks most of those faults lie. Equally grating to some will be her assertion that the locus for what the young wife should know and where she should put her knowledge to use is the home. There she finds her true greatness.

...Dr. Drake sought to produce successful women. And successful women do not derive their happiness by being petted and placated. To do that, she asserts a sexual equality between men and women that surprised me, upsetting my assumptions about the period, and she insists that enforcement of that equality falls upon the woman as she takes responsibility for herself and, among other things, coolly examines a prospective husband.

For the record, I would not have liked filling out the questionnaire Drake envisioned for prospective suitors, but when it comes to my own two daughters yet at home, I may hand it to their future intendeds.

• Do you bring to your bride the same purity that you expect from her?

• What companions have you, whom you would not care to bring to your home or introduce to your wife?

• What in your life and habits have you hidden, and would you still hide from her?

• How many hours of thought have you given to the wise, earnest fitting for fatherhood?

Labels: culture, Fathers, feminism, gender, Marriage, men, motherhood, women

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In their 2011 State of Our Unions report (When Baby Makes Three: How Parenthood Makes Life Meaningful, and How Marriage Makes Parenthood Bearable [pdf]) W. Bradford Wilcox and Elizabeth Marquardt found, like other researchers, that parenthood is typically associated with lower levels of marital happiness among contemporary couples. But that is not the whole picture by any means, as they explain in the following excerpt from the report, subtitled, "Family Size, Faith, and the Meaning of Parenthood".

Given the negative association between marital happiness and parenthood, one might expect that the least happy husbands and wives would be parents of large families. Not so.

In a striking finding, it turns out that the relationship between family size and marital happiness is not linear, but curvilinear (see Figure A1). In other words, according to the Survey of Marital Generosity, the happiest husbands and wives among today’s young couples are those with no children and those with four or more children.

Figure A1 reveals that about 18 percent of wives with one to three children are “very happy” in their marriage, compared to 26 percent of wives with no children or four or more children, after controlling for differences in education, income, age, race, and ethnicity. Likewise about 14 percent of husbands with one to three children are “very happy” in their marriage, compared to 25 percent of husbands with no children or four or more children, after controlling for socioeconomic differences. This means that the parents of large families are at least 40 percent more likely to be happily married than the parents of smaller families.

What accounts for the surprisingly higher levels of marital bliss among parents of large families, given the obvious financial, practical, and emotional challenges of raising a large family in contemporary America? This finding seems to be largely a “selection” story, in which particular types of couples end up having large numbers of children, remain married to one another, and also enjoy cultural, social, and relational strengths that more than offset the challenges of parenting a large family. In this case, the Survey of Marital Generosity suggests that fathers and mothers of large families are partly happier because they find more meaning in life, receive more support from friends who share their faith, and have a stronger religious faith than their peers with smaller families.[1] ...

Or take meaning. Figure A3 shows that the parents of large families—especially mothers—are more likely to strongly agree that “my life has an important purpose,” compared to their married peers with smaller families or no children. Meaning undoubtedly flows from the additional texture that each child adds to both parents’ lives, but it’s also likely that men and women who have a strong generative sense that their lives are endowed with meaning are also more willing and interested in having many children. ...

Couples with large families—specifically those who are more likely to have a strong faith, a sense of meaning in life, and the social support of religious friends—also seem able to handle the challenges of parenting a large family without witnessing a drop in marital quality. The cultural and social resources at their disposal seem to make them happier spouses than peers who do not have these resources.

Labels: children, culture, family size, Fathers, Marriage, motherhood, parenting, religion

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...Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Dads and the Changing American Family focuses on the generations that came of age after the 1970s, when power was, in a sense, being transferred from fathers to daughters. Daughters gradually emerged as the, on average, more tractable sex in school and in other settings that mattered to post-industrial skill acquisition. Our Fathers, Ourselves implies — and it should be said here that it is an implication lying at the edges of her book rather than a fleshed-out argument — that a generation and more of enabling fathers may have incited their daughters to this success. The end result has been as dramatic as it has been unexpected: the daughters are now out-professionalizing, out-earning, and academically outperforming their brothers in the competitive races of this century.

Drexler’s book uses a mix of quotations from her interviews with adult daughters who reflect on the roles their fathers have played in their success, scholarly material, and her own often folksy commentary. This mélange makes for a loose, sometimes rambling style, albeit with suggestive nuggets interspersed throughout. Chapters are divvied up according to fatherly patterns — fathers who listened and fathers who encouraged risk-taking, for example. She interviewed 75 women in total, adult daughters in their twenties and thirties, for the most part (some were older), whom she identified, by their sheen of confident savoir faire — in other words, their appearance of having the capacity to make life work out for themselves, to be resourceful, and to have their eye on some sort of ball. Drexler uses the word “sextant” to suggest navigational skills. A fair proportion of the women in her interview set were earning six-figure salaries at young ages.

One could quibble here interminably about Drexler’s selection criteria and methods; about the impossible-to-untangle entanglement of nature (innate disposition) and nurture (in this case, fatherly influence or lack thereof); or indeed about her definition of success, let alone her ability to identify it from the stuff of appearances. But, leaving such quibbles aside, as a human-interest story rather than as science, her study is worth considering for what it does have to say about power, gender, generational transfer, and the races we run. It flirts with tremendously timely issues — like why girls are outperforming boys at this historical moment.

Labels: boys, childhood, children, culture, Fathers, fathers and daughters, gender, gender differences, girls, motherhood, parenting

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...My daughter Liliana, who was 8 when we were playing the board game, tossed off this remark as she stuck the tiny blue husband pin into her car: "When I grow up, I don't think I'll get married. I think I'll just get some sperm."

How we reap what we sow! Liliana was old enough to know the story of her own origins, and it goes like this: When I turned 39, still single, I resolved to become a mother on my own and bought eight vials of donor sperm. But then I met her father, Sprax, and he agreed to help me have a baby the old-fashioned way. We went through many ups and downs, even splitting up for a couple of years, but finally realized that we loved each other, got back together and went on to have her baby brother. When Liliana was almost 4, we got married.

So there I was -- the former single mother by choice, the typical Massachusetts type who deeply believes that there are a hundred great ways to make a family and that life can also be wonderful without one -- and I found myself responding to my daughter: "That would be fine if you just get some sperm, sweetheart, but you know, being married is actually really nice, too."

What happened to me? What happened to the independent woman who, by the time she married for the first time at age 44, felt no particular need for a piece of paper from City Hall?

It is this. Day in and out, through lunch-packing and play date-making and bath-running, I am struck by a surprising truth: Though the raising of our children constitutes the central activity of our family, it is the love between Sprax and me that constitutes its ineffable core.

That sounds like a traditional religious point of view, but we are not religious. I've come to this understanding simply as an observer of my own heart and the family dance. It is, apparently, just an emotional fact of life -- at least, of our life.

Labels: children, culture, donor conception, Fathers, Marriage, motherhood, parenting

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How were parents portrayed on screens of various sizes this year?

Does that tell us anything about our expectations for parents out in the real world? (Disclaimer: I don't really think any of us get our role models from TV parents. Still, in the aggregate, film and TV are mirrors of what we want to see. And even without that academic spin, it makes for an interesting end of year lens to use, particularly when you line all these shows and movies up and see how god-awful most screen parents are...)

Thelma Adams has been thinking about this, and the former film critic for US Weekly compiled a year-end list for amc's filmcritic.com that she titled "Top 10 Most Memorable Movie Moms of 2011." Scanning them I found myself squirming at what passes for motherhood in Hollywood.

Labels: culture, Fathers, motherhood, parenting, single parenting

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...We should applaud that -- dad's an equal partner, exactly what women want! Yet as a society, we still aren't used to seeing dads being so hands-on with their kids in public. The stereotypes are challenging. All dads -- whether stay-at-home, single, co-parenting or full-custody divorced dads -- are likely to hear comments rife with judgment, such as, "Are you babysitting today?" or "Giving Mom a break?" if they're out with their kids. And they are suspect if they volunteer in classrooms, hang around parks while their kids play, or try to join in a playgroup, typically made up of moms. As one stay-at-home dad tells Andrea Doucet, a Brock University sociology professor and author of Do Men Mother, "It's kind of bad for men to be interested in other children."

But divorced dads often experience another layer of judgment and gender-based expectations. "When men parent as single parents, they're expected not to be as good at it," says Dr. Wendy A. Paterson, dean of the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. School of Education at St. John Fisher College in New York and author of Diaries of a Forgotten Parent: Divorced Dads on Fathering Through and Beyond Divorce. "We don't trust men. A lot of women, and they don't even understand they're doing this, take on all the mothering and they 'allow' the father a peripheral role or an 'invited in' role, and then when the father isn't as big a part of the lives of his children, they get blamed for not participating."

It isn't unusual for divorced fathers to hear comments like, "How often are you allowed to see your daughter?" As Sam Magee, a divorced co-parenting dad, writes, "despite having a solid full time job, a regular salary, and no concerning habits of any kind, people were stunned that I got 50% custody. 'Wow, that's a lot,' people would remark. 'Every weekend?' They were shocked that I was actually going to be a consistent and active part of my son's life post-divorce."

When people react that way with words, they react that way with behaviors, too. While they may have been fine letting their young daughter have a sleepover when a guy has a wife, not many feel the same when he gets divorced. Now it seems creepy.

Labels: children, culture, divorce, Fathers, gender, motherhood, parenting

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...I don’t have children yet, but plenty of others in my cohort — the first in which nontrivial numbers were born hyphenated — do. And reproducing while hyphenated brings inevitable quandaries. I was curious to see how my peers have handled them. So I asked around. What I found was a whole gamut of solutions. The name-blending pioneers now have grandchildren whose names embody an intriguing mix of the traditional and the maverick.

I encountered several women who kept their own hyphenated names when they married, but gave their children the father’s surname. This scenario seems to deviate the least from the mainstream: after all, many other women with single surnames do the same. ...

Same-sex couples face their own quandaries, since there is no tradition to follow. Cora Jeyadame (née Stubbs-Dame), 37, a first-grade teacher in Newton, Mass., was determined to share a name with her child, and to think ahead more than her own parents had.

“It’s a one-generation solution,” she said of hyphenation. She and her wife, whose surname was Jeyapalan, spliced their names together into an entirely new, hyphenless amalgam.

How did they decide on the name? “I actually put it out on Facebook,” she said: “ ‘I challenge you to come up with good combinations.’ ” The winning entry, Jeyadame, is the legal surname of Cora and her 4-month-old; her wife uses it socially.

Naming decisions raise novel questions for hyphenated men. There is little precedent of husbands changing their names at marriage or giving up the prerogative to pass their names on. Traditional practices grew out of a male-dominated culture and a need for simple rules. But there is another, less obvious motive: to hold men accountable for their offspring.

“How do you attach men to children?” said Laurie K. Scheuble, a senior lecturer at Pennsylvania State University who has done several studies on naming practices. Names are “a very functional and practical way” to do so.

But perhaps, in an age when men wear BabyBjorns, it is no longer always necessary. When Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, 32, an English professor who lives in Portland, Ore., married Laura Rosenbaum, he toyed with the idea of a creative synthesis.

Labels: children, culture, Fathers, feminism, gay couples, heteronormativity, men, parenting, women

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Labels: children, culture, donor conception, Fathers, masturbation, men, pornography

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American women face an increasingly tough marriage market, Kate Bolick writes in her recent article in The Atlantic, “All the Single Ladies.” Women continue to outpace men in educational attainment, employment rates, and earnings, with the result that many men are seen as unmarriageable, while the shrinking population of desirable men is increasingly promiscuous. Bolick wants to know what a single lady is to do about it, and her answer is female companionship. ...

In Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage, a detailed study of low-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas describe how poor, unmarried mothers choose their child’s last name. If the mother’s romantic relationship is intact and satisfying, the child may be given the father’s name; otherwise it will be the mother’s. Thus in a limited but important sense, this segment of society is not only matriarchal, but increasingly matrilineal.

The full implementation of this pattern, so to speak, is seen in the Mosuo community in China, which Bolick also briefly discusses. The Mosuo have a matrilineal and matriarchal social structure and do not practice marriage (though many are monogamous). Women head households, while men lead an apparently carefree and subordinate existence in homes ruled by their mothers or sisters. Sexual contacts between men and women are initiated and terminated at the will of either party, and do not affect family and residential arrangements; the children resulting from these contacts belong to the mother’s household.

Matriarchy and promiscuity sustain one another. For as long as women expect support from the fathers of their children, male promiscuity will lead to distress and declining fertility as women fail to find committed partners. This is the world Bolick inhabits along with other New York singles. But when women give up on men’s playing an important role in the household and turn to one another instead, accepting the financial and emotional costs of raising one another’s children, promiscuity becomes, in a sense, safe. It also becomes inevitable, as men, who become increasingly less likely to meet the standards set by female heads of household, are no longer willing or able to sustain long-term commitment.

Labels: children, culture, Fathers, gender, gender differences, Marriage, men, motherhood, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, sex, women

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The federal government this week announced a new round of funding -- nearly $120 million -- for programs across the country that promote marriage or fatherhood, an initiative that began under President Bush and has now been continued by President Obama.

The Administration for Children and Families, (ACF), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced Monday that it was awarding $119.4 million in grants to 120 organizations -- $59.9 million for 60 marriage programs and $59.3 million for 60 fatherhood programs.

Among the recipients are religious organizations, state departments of family services and nonprofit groups. The maximum grant was $2.5 million, which several organizations received, and the lowest was $338,000 for Youth and Family Services in El Reno,Okla. ...

The programs have garnered support on both ends of the political spectrum -- some conservatives support the marriage initiative while some liberals favor the fatherhood programs -- but critics are still skeptical about their effectiveness and question whether they're worth the cost.

"I think there are some things government does well. This is not one of them," said Shawn Fremstard, a senior research associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "The problem with both is they're very soft in terms of what they try to do. It's mostly subsidizing very general services that don't have much of a connection to the labor market."

Labels: children, Fathers, government interest in marriage, Marriage, marriage promotion, poverty

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Q: What is Oh Oh, Baby Boy!?

A: Oh Oh, Baby Boy! is a full color, hardcover children’s book that celebrates engaged fathers and the boys they once were. To learn more about the book’s production specs, and concept, visit:
http://ohohbabyboy.wordpress.com/about/

Q: What do you mean by “engaged fatherhood”?

A: To me, engaged fatherhood means full participation and involvement in the shaping and implementation of a child’s upbringing. Equal partnership, and a foundation of respect between parents are vital components.

Labels: culture, Fathers, men

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Ben also admits that 15-20 of his biological children have made an effort to contact him

Labels: children, culture, donor conception, Fathers, Marriage

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...One of the biggest takeaways from your research was that sperm banks and egg agencies present sex cell donation to potential donors in very different ways. What was so different?

Both sperm banks and egg agencies call this a donation, even though the women are being paid and the men are being paid. The difference is that the egg agencies are framing the egg as a gift from one woman to another, and so they look for altruistic women who want to help infertile couple have families. They frame sperm donation as an easy job for men. There are a lot of jokes and cartoon drawings of sperm in advertisements that say "make some cash," but they're not talking about recipients; they're not talking about families.

Did you discover a difference in how men and women feel about donating after they’ve done it? If so, how does the marketing play into that?

One big thing is that the egg agencies encourage recipients to send thank you notes and thank you gifts to the donors. And the result of that is women talk with a lot of pride about being egg donors, and having given this gift. They feel good about their donations and about the creation of a family. That was true of women who were older and younger, women who had kids and didn’t have kids.

With the men, no one is sending their sperm donor thank you notes or giving them gifts. The men used sort of alienated or objectified language. They described themselves as being resources and assets for the sperm bank. In that sense, sperm banks don’t spend a lot of time with donors talking about recipients or thanking them for what they're doing. ...

You also found that sperm donors think of themselves as fathers but egg donors don't think of themselves as mothers. Why is that?

Because there is so much emphasis on the recipients in egg donation, egg donors don’t think of themselves as mothers. They give this egg in the hopes of giving another woman the experience of motherhood, so they point to the recipients as the real mother.

Sperm donors -- because there's not a lot of talk about recipients -- have it in their minds that they are fathers to all these children that are out there. Men and women are each providing half the genetic material for an embryo, but they think of their relationship to the offspring in very different ways. ...

Egg donor after egg donor, in different parts of the country, used this phrase: "Just an egg." They'd say, "What I'm giving is just an egg." They're distancing themselves from the label of mother, because otherwise they would be the worst kind of mothers -- they would be the kind of mother who sold their child for $5,000. They have a pretty vested interest in saying, "I'm not a mother. I'm not a mother. I'm not a mother."

Labels: children, culture, donor conception, economics, Fathers, gender, gender differences, men, motherhood, women

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...But within a year the London Sperm Bank has become the biggest in the U.K. In that time it has had more than 3,000 applicants, whittled down to 124 top-notch donors, who have produced more than 2,000 vials. This clinic alone has enough stocks to supply half the annual treatment cycles in the U.K. Half a dozen new donors attend each day. They have performed something of a miracle. (And I first wrote they did this “single-handedly,” but this field has such an unhappy relationship with sleazy jokes I will not go there again.)

How? One simple principle, says Kamal Ahuja, the scientific director of the London Women’s Clinic, a large IVF centre that also owns the London Sperm Bank. They understood that the man was more than just his sperm. “We talked about what the men wanted. We humanized them. The response was staggering.” ...

What do women want? She tells me heterosexual couples are looking for a close match between donor and husband. But for single women and gay couples, what is their No 1 priority?

“Height,” Jegede says. If it was a choice between good career and height? “Height,” Jegede says. And what if it was a choice between education and height? “Height,” she repeats. “That is one of the first things they say. There are situations where they like all the characteristics, but he’s not quite tall enough for them. I get excited when we get a guy who I think women will like. I think, ‘Oh, I hope he’s got good sperm’.” ...

Launceston’s girlfriend was comfortable with it. But is he sure it won’t disrupt the life of any future family of his? “They wouldn’t be my kids. I’m confident any children created would be the children of their parents. We had the chance to write a letter to any unborn child, I phrased it like that in mine, ‘I helped your parents’.”

In the U.S. some donors have fathered hundreds of children. Most countries, including Canada, have no limits on sperm donation, but under U.K. laws, each donor is retired after his sperm has been used to create children for 10 families. And he has no financial or legal obligation to any offspring. What, though, if that child saw him as a father, and wanted a deeper connection?

“Sure, why not?” Launceston says. “I can give advice. I doubt that I’ll replace any father figure they already know. Look at me. I’m kind of immature. I’m wearing socks with dinosaurs on.”

Launceston is a great ambassador. But my afternoon with him and Jegede makes me speculate whether the London Sperm Bank has unearthed something new: a breed of man who likes the idea of sharing his genes without the desire to bring up children. The prospect of an adult offspring getting in touch for a companionable relationship would be appealing. A kind of donor-godfather. It’s an untested but optimistic vision. They are banking on the future being good.

Labels: children, donor conception, Fathers, gender, men, United Kingdom

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This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear.

Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.

So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children. Experts say the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer. ...

Experts said the study was a significant contribution to hormone research because it tested men before and after becoming fathers and involved many participants: 600 men in the Cebu Province of the Philippines who are participating in a larger, well-respected health study following babies who were born in 1983 and 1984. ...

The study did not examine specific effects on men’s behavior, like whether those with smaller drops in testosterone were more likely to be neglectful or aggressive. It also did not examine the roles played by other hormones or whether factors like stress or sleeplessness contributed to a decline in testosterone.

Other studies have suggested, though not as definitively, that behavior and relationships affect testosterone levels. A study of Air Force veterans showed that testosterone climbed back up after men were divorced. A study of Harvard Business School students found that those in committed romantic relationships had lower testosterone than those who were not. Another study found that fathers in a Tanzanian group known for involved parenting had low testosterone, while those from a neighboring culture without active fathering did not.

Labels: children, culture, Fathers, gender, men, parenting, testosterone

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...My generation created a sense of procreative entitlement that I don’t think is culturally healthy. Rather than get married and then having kids–a two parent home being best for children–some now decide that their deepest yearning trumps restraint, and they do whatever it takes–ranging from the technologically unsophisticated at-home artificial insemination to renting wombs and genetically altering embryos for eugenic perfection–to achieve their heart’s desire. People can argue over the propriety of that, and while I think it would be a good thing for people to realize they can’t have everything in life and adopt in cases where they aren’t married and want children, the horse is out of the barn on the cultural trend. Still, stories like this show that the Reproduction Industry desperately needs some regulations if we are to maintain at least a modicum of order and decorum.

Labels: bioethics, biological parenthood, children, culture, donor conception, Fathers

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Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for “bad mothering” that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, “haggling” over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.

Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother’s conduct was “extreme or outrageous.” To rule in favor of her children, the court found, “could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference.”

Labels: children, culture, divorce, Fathers, law, motherhood, parenting

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Seven years ago, when Sabrina Morgan, 33, was single and desperate for a child, she found herself chatting to Kam Wong, 41, a gay man who was longing to be a father, in an online fertility forum. 'I instantly thought he was genuine, down-to-earth, laidback and flexible,’ says Sabrina.

'We exchanged pictures. It wasn’t about sexual attraction, obviously, but it was important what he looked like. I asked him if he had any history of baldness and loose teeth. It was part humour but it was also my way to steer towards more serious questions, like does he have any genetic health conditions.’

For Kam, who is in a long-term relationship, contacting Sabrina was about more than being a sperm donor: 'I adore children. The desire to have my own has always been with me. Because of my sexuality I thought it might never happen. The urge grew stronger in my thirties until one day I researched options. When I met Sabrina I was very nervous. This was my chance to fulfil my dreams.’ ...

Tomorrow sees the launch of pollentree.com, started by Patrick and Rita D’Alton-Harrison, ex-lawyers from north London. Rita had the idea after a number of single female friends asked for legal advice on sperm donation. 'One had looked into IVF but found the prices extortionate so turned to the internet to seek a donor. I was horrified. That’s when we had the idea to create a safe environment for women like her to explore all parenting routes.

'We can’t believe the number of young, straight women joining our site who say they are simply not prepared to wait for Mr Right. The attitude seems to be, “I’m not going to compromise with a relationship just to have children.”’

Catherine started her online search after a break-up from a three-year relationship with a man who didn’t want children. 'I’d just turned 39 and thought, “I don’t have time for this to happen again.” In a worst-case scenario I would seek an anonymous donor, but I’ve always thought a child needs a father. At the very least I wanted a donor who would visit regularly.’ ...

Leila’s first 'date’ in her co-parent search, was Paul, a 43-year-old pilot. 'We met at a Café Rouge for drinks. It felt more intense than a date. You are choosing someone who will pass on traits to the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with – your child.

'He was clean-cut with dark hair and green eyes. He told me he was a strict Catholic and had had only one serious relationship, with a girl from his church, who didn’t want children. He ached to be a parent and this was the quickest way he could make that happen.’

After three meetings they set a date to do the deed. 'You’d think that would be less weird than having sex. It was more weird. Picture it: there’s a stranger in your bathroom masturbating while you go for a walk around the block. When you get back he hands you a pot and leaves. You’re left to do the female bit, which is messy and uncomfortable.’

A pregnancy test 10 days later came out negative. After finding the encounter with Paul so awkward, Leila decided to try natural insemination (NI) – a euphemism in fertility forums for full sex – with her next potential suitor, Carl. 'I can see that could be unthinkable for a woman who is gay, in a relationship or has been assaulted ,’ she says. 'But I’m single. I don’t have barriers about sex.’

Labels: culture, donor conception, family structure, Fathers, more than two parents, parenting, sex, United Kingdom

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Ask Simon Watson exactly how many children he has and he struggles to come up with a precise figure. He has two sons, aged 15 and 13, from a failed marriage, who live with him, and a six-year-old daughter from a later broken relationship, who lives with her mother. Beyond that, well, it’s anyone’s guess.

The 37-year-old divorced former business manager thinks he has a further five children, aged between two months and six years, living in Britain and another eight in countries including Australia, South Africa, Poland and Spain.

He admits it could be more. Not that this troubles him unduly, as he plays no part in their upbringing — emotionally or financially — and has absolutely no desire to.

‘If, when they turn 18, they turn up at my door wanting to know who I am, then they would be more than welcome,’ he says blithely. ‘But I am not their father in the true sense of the word and never will be.’

So is Simon Watson one of those feckless dads, who sire offspring with a variety of women and then promptly disappear from their lives ‘Oh no,’ he says, ‘I’ve never been naughty and certainly not in that sense.’

Actually, it’s much stranger than that. Simon is a freelance sperm donor who offers what he jokingly calls his ‘magic potion’ over the internet to women desperate for children.

They make contact on various chat-room forums, where women — unable or unwilling to use licensed fertility clinics for whatever reason — post adverts seeking sperm donors or respond to his posts offering his services. He says the majority of his clients — more than 50 per cent — are lesbian couples, around 40 per cent are single women hoping to beat the biological clock and the rest are heterosexual couples where the man is infertile. ...

‘I never wanted to be involved in the lives of these children,’ says Simon. ‘But I have a responsibility to them, if they want to know who their biological father is. But I’m not expecting them to throw their arms around me crying “Dad”.’

Furthermore, what’s to prevent his offspring meeting one day, unaware they are related and forming a relationship?

The Human Fertilisation And Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulations state that donor sperm should result in no more than ten births to reduce this risk. But Simon helps on average one person or couple a week — sometimes donating sperm more than once to these clients, typically two or three times. In total, he has helped hundreds of women.

Labels: children, donor conception, Fathers, United Kingdom

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