Gays and having children-Help!

I wouldn’t consider marriage. One of you may eventually meet someone who you are in love with and want to make a lifelong committment together, and then, well, you are married. Divorce would be much harder on the child than just growing up knowing Mommy and Daddy don’t live together, never have, and this is a completely normal (in your family) situation. I wouldn’t even set up house together (although you might while the baby is very small and prone to waking up in the night - but move out before toddlerhood happens, when adjustment is somewhat easier).

I’d try to find a living situation where you are close enough to visit (maybe a distance where a seven year old could move between houses easily) but not one where you are so close you don’t have your own space.

(My three year old can open the deadbolt and head over to the neighbors. Once in a while I pick up the phone “hey, is my kid at your house?” My take would be that is too close.)

[list=1][li]Forget about what other kids might think - they will tease or they will not tease, regardless of whatever justification they might find. Besides, your child would have a mother and a father, at least at first; additional accessories (and we do know how to accessorize) would come later.[/li]
[li]See a lawyer, get everything in writing, blah blah blah.[/li]
[li]Figure out what to do about that long distance thing.[/li]
[li]Do what your heart tells you.[/list=1][/li]
A good friend of mine in Seattle is 30, single, gay, doctoral student, and in the process of adopting (starting by foster parenting) through the state of Washington - hasn’t run into any problems yet.

Esprix

This may sound a bit over-traditional but I think that the existence of a loving relationship between parents is important for a child. Loving gay couples have, in most cases, proved to be excellent parents but gay parenting is not really the issue here. The same question would arise if you were hetero - is it a good idea for two people who do not love each other to plan and have a child? I don’t think that what you’re proposing is doomed to failure but the fact that there is no love between you and this woman is a consideration.

I want to strongly echo this sentiment.

The other big issue I see is that the child should has a stable relationship to grow in, and it looks like you won’t really be providing this. I would council you to hold out until you have one. Parenthood should (in my mind) be entered into only when one has the best relationship one can have - other factors (money, etc.) are far less important.

FYI - I am the proud (and exhausted) parent of a 1 year old (along with my spouse), and I have close friends (2 men in a long lasting stable relationship) who recently succeeded with a surrogate and are expecting in April.

I hate to be the one raining all over the parade here, but are we talking about a person here, or a shared piece of real estate?

SImply because you desire a child, doesn’t mean that you are right for the job. I wouldn’t mind being a tough left-handed starter in the major leagues, but it isn’t in the cards for me.

I am being as non-judgemental as possible here (Being that judgementalism is a sin these days), but is a child best served by the sort of relationship you describe and the sort of environment that would be created?? Or, is it the interests of the (so-called) adults being served by the creation of a child. Even if both parties here are responsible, loving and kind people, I am not sure that children to be the pawns in a “lifestyle decision”.

This isn’t to say that gay people wouldn’t be better parents that two idiotic and irresponsible straight people, but no one is saying that they should be parents either.

Hate to be the nay-sayer here, but suck it up. Life ain’t always fair, and just because you are capable of doing something doesn’t it mean it ought to be done.

If your friend needs to be a mother, why not adopt a child from the third world? At least this way you can be somebody’s salvation instead of the child being some sort of emotional filling for a desire that she feels she is entitled to having placated.

Please don’t attack me as being hateful or insensitive here. I am not that kind of person. I am just trying to be honest and present a valid point of view that seems to have gone unpresented in this partucular forum. Good luck!

Except that single friend can go out and get a spermcicle and have child with absolutely no legal father. Having a father that is a good close friend where there may not be romantic love, but their seems to be a good deal of the other kind of love, seems a better option. And, in fact, my girlfriend who was conceived by a single straight woman and her mom’s gay friend wouldn’t want to think she’d be better off if she’d never existed (and she isn’t even screwed up).

As an adoptive mom of such a child, I’d like to inform you that this is an insensitive comment. I did not adopt my son to “save” him from anything. I adopted him because my husband and I felt a child was an important part of our family - an emotional filling of a desire that I felt (well entitled is a strong word - I’d have never stolen a child) needed to have placated. Just like single woman and gay guy.

Don’t worry, I won’t attack. I want all opinions, not just those that are favorable. But, yes, I am talking about a person and not a piece of real estate. This isn’t about two people that want to play house for a couple of months. And I can’t say that our reasons aren’t entirely unselfish. How could they be? But we are both very concerned that we don’t make a quick decision based upon emotion only.

I don’t think I mentioned this before but she has a doctorate in music education and I have taught music to kids for over 10 years. We have spent a lot of time around kids and find them wonderful. I think that plays a part in this. I feel I would make a good father. I had a father that loved me but was rather detached from my life. There is a part of me that wants to be the father that mine never was. I would have loved for that to happen in a traditional sense but thats just not the way the cards were dealt. I would never just marry some woman and keep my homosexuality a secret for the sake of having a kid. So basically, that doesn’t leave many options in the “traditional” sense. Yes, adoption is an option. I’m not against that either as I think it is a noble thing.

Someone mentioned the prosepect of a child brought up by two people that don’t love each other. In our case, we realized we aren’t in love with each other but we have a great deal of love, admiration, and respect for each other. I know a lot of married couples with children that can’t say the same thing.

Look, there is no such thing as a perfect parental situation.
Some people are great parents in the oddest situations.
Some people in so called “normal” situaltions are crappy parents.
My personal opinion is that after you seek legal advice and maybe see a councilor (just to give you both an objective opinion, not that I think you need a councilor)Do what your heart tells you. Either with this friend or without. (situations can change) Having kids is scary. No doubt about it. But the world can use more people that are raised with loving happy parents who THOUGHT about bringing them into the world, rather than just getting pregnant and thinking about it later.
ya know?
good luck
have you thought about names ???

Ditto. :slight_smile:

It’s not really insensitive to point out that there are altruistic as well as selfish reasons for adopting a child.

And I don’t mean “selfish” as a value judgement on you, I mean it semantically - of benefit/interest to self.

I imagine both reasons for adopting a child can be equally rewarding.

For heaven’s sake don’t think about names! Once you do, the kid is as good as born and all possibility of emotionless decision making is as good as lost.

I’m torn on this question. On the one hand, I’ve just got two cats with my partner. Even that has made me think “Good Lord, I’m going to be emptying out this litter tray for the next fifteen years”. The idea of committing to a child with someone you don’t even love and have no particular inclination to make a life with gives me the shudders.

On the other hand, however, I think that this is a situation where a child will come into being always knowing that both parents wanted and desired them. Furthermore, there is no chance of divorce or acrimonious “mummy and daddy don’t love eachother” situations… because there was no marriage to begin with! From that point of view, this is the very essence of stability.

Reviewing what I’ve just said, I’m coming to the conclusion (contrary to what is being said by some others) that this would be far harder on you and the mother than it would be on the child. Both “hands” above lead me to this. So the question is not so much whether the child will have a happy life, but whether you and the mother will.

And on that score, only you and her know the answer.

Good luck.

pan

As far as taking the non-traditional marriage route - it can work and work well, but as in any relationship communication is key.

My husband and I have been married for 17 years (we’re 34). I am bi and he is gay. We both also maintain relationships with other people. He was out of the closet when we married, but had never reconciled the fact that he wanted at least one child.

At this time, we have a daughter, 10, that we are raising. She has not experienced any hassle or teasing in regards to our orientations. However, we live in a very liberal community (Boulder), and for a time, the two of them even attended a weekly coffee klatch for gay dads and their kids.

In your OP you said you didn’t think you would marry the woman because it would be “hypocritical”. I’m not sure I see why. As long as you aren’t denying who you are by trying to live as a monogamous heterosexual couple how are you being hypocritical?

This is a hijack - but most social workers won’t approve a homestudy if a couple does not have selfish reasons to adopt a child. Adoption work in the past 30 years has discovered that people who adopt solely for altruistic reasons tend to be very bad parents.

There has to be a selfish part.

Maybe, I should have worded it better. What I should have said is: I think it would be hypocritical to try to live as a monogamous heterosexual couple. :slight_smile:

I am curious **Commander Fortune **, how did your family react to this arrangement?
One of my concerns is that our extended families would welcome this child, for I think it is extremely important that the child feel loved by all involved, and not just perceived as some sort of “scientific experiment”.

Musicguy I respect your candor and desire for straight feedback, and for these reasons I think your fathering a child in the context you have described is an extraordinarly bad idea. Your sexuality is entirely beside the point in both the near term and probably the long run as well.

From my perspective the main item on the agenda is procreating a child that will not have a mother and father on site a majority of the time. It is true that many children are raised by single parents due to a confluence of circumstances, but this is not normally a desirable situation. Many single mother scenarios are highly stressed for resource and time management reasons, but work OK until a male child gets to be around 14-17 at which point all hell breaks loose. This does not happen in all circumstances but it happens with greater regularity if there in no alpha male on site and the child is the oldest male in the situation and is larger and stronger than his mother.

She will essentially be raising the child by herself and regardless of whatever pleasant thoughts you may have about being an influence in the child’s life you will quickly be put to the sidelines. Regardless of how much she respects you she will be the mother and you will be the sperm donor. Don’t kid yourself that this is all going to be rational and reasonable after the fact. After having a child people (especially mothers) get very proprietary about their children and their role as parents. If you are not sharing her life on a day to day basis your role will be that of a visiting uncle at best and your influence on
the child’s life will be commensurate.

If you’re going to do this don’t fool yourself. Regardless of your best intents you will making a child for her not with her. If you are comfortable with that and the complications that may ensue enter fatherhood at your own risk.

Aside from concerns already addressed, like is it fair to the child and such, I do have a some questions that I didn’t see in the previous posts (of course, I skimmed through a lot of them so I may have missed them).

Remember, the law tends to lean in favor of the mother. If it came down to a legal fight, she would most likely retain custody. Things change, people change. As it stands divorces are more common than not, and there are almost always related problems. What happens if she eventually does find another man to share her life with? What if you don’t like him? If she marries him, what kind of difficulties will that present? She will be bound to him for the duration of their marriage. Supposing during that time her financial situation changes because of him, and the quality of your child’s life is diminished?

Or what if you both agree that the child should be schooled in a certain place, but after she marries he has to move across the country for job reasons? What if your child is gay, but is bullied into repressing that? What if you feel that your child isn’t being raised the way you want? Are you ready to handle these kinds of conflicts?

I’m not against this, in fact I think it’s great. In fact I am even considering actually shelving my gay lifestyle and getting married and having a family, however warped that sounds. But that’s another subject all together. But there are some serious long term implications. What are you willing to concede for the happiness of your child?

What I think I’m trying to say is that nothing stays the same, events affect us, people affect us. But like my father says, once you have children you always have children. And both parents with always be involved whether you like it or not. She says she thinks you would be ideal for the father. Do you think she is ideal for the mother? How much do you really know about her?

To be honest, I don’t have all of those answers for you. I do think though that no matter what the situation, you can’t possibly prepare for every possible scenario. I can try to weigh the decision though on what I know and what I feel.

This part I’m not sure I understand.

Well, we dated for quite a few years and have remained close friends ever since, all in all for about 14 years. We see each other whenever possible and we talk frequently. We have been through good times and bad but never lost any respect or compassion for each other. I think we know each other about as well as two people can. This is actually one of my least concerns. I couldn’t think of someone I would rather be the mother of my child. If I didn’t trust my instinct 100% on this, I would never even entertain the though of any of this. Having said that, there are many more questions than answers at this point that will have to be resolved. So I think we are just going to take it a step at a time, knowing full well that if if we come to a question that we can’t agree mutually on, we back away. That seems to be the best game plan at this point.

Our families reacted better than we ever would have given them credit for, even my blatantly bigoted older brothers eventually came around. Of course, both families had plenty of time to gradually adjust to our differentness as we were a (non-traditionally) married couple for 7 years before we became parents. When we announced my pregnancy, I recall everyone being very excited.

I have never sensed that she was percieved or treated any differently than any of the other children in the extended family.

From the sound of it you two may just be ready for this. You’re very right, you can’t prepare for every possible outcome. I was just trying to give you some more ideas of things that could go wrong, to make you at least visualize some of the negative possibilities. Who knows, everything could go so smoothly that you’ll wonder why you had any doubts at all!

About the repression thing, that would have been contingent on her getting married and her new husband pressuring your child into repressing his/her orientation. Could be for social or religious reasons, could be malicious or not.

Well, if you do choose to go ahead, Yay! I do suggest that you look into the legalities, like what would be expected of you in a child support ruling, so that you and she know what will be expected of you in the event something changes. Money issues have been the demise of many friendships and it’s better to define them early, or we might see on “Judge Judy” or something. :slight_smile:

And I do appreciate that. That is why I posted here, to hear arguments that I haven’t thought of. Thanks!

I would hope that she would marry someone who had as open a mind as she does. I would find it hard that she would allow something like this to happen, although I suppose anything is possible

That is very true. As far as “Judge Judy”, that’s a nightmare I don’t even want to think about :slight_smile: