I need opinions and advice re. friend having a baby by herself

[elbows]

Because there’s so much ‘emotion’ to a drunken hookup.?

What I hear is: it’s not what you would ever consider, and for some lack of visible ‘acceptable to you’ emotion, you feel she might prove to be inadequate as a parent. In your opinion. How fortunate she doesn’t need your approval.

I can perfectly see why she’s not sharing her emotions to you. Who are you to decide who is worthy, who is doing it ‘the right way’.

You think your opinion should have weight in such an issue because you might be pressed to babysit, etc. Are you for real?

Tell me, exactly how much input would you let your friends have in your reproductive choices?

My advice: More lovey, less judgy!

[Magiver]

@astro

It’s absolutely her right to do it and the OP should not be judging that on a moral or ethical basis. On a practical basis there might well be several perfectly logical reasons why this might not be a great lifestyle choice, but they are not overwhelming enough to override her right to do as she pleases on this issue.

Personally the notion of a 42 year old woman scrambling to make a baby and raise it by herself conjures up a host of problems related to her advancing age as the child grows, difficulties of single motherhood, and the distinct possibility (if she’s a difficult handful in relationships) that the child will grow up without a positive male role model. Even if all these are true none of them trump her right to have a child.

Nobody said she didn’t have a right to do it. And how dare you judge the logic of a 42 year old woman scrambling to make a baby on her own with no male role model.

[Magiver]

@purplehearingaid

Has anyone one here even spoken to the friend in question or any they’re just going by what the OP told you ??? How the hell can people judge a person just by the words of one person ??? HUH ???

Don’t like my opinion too bad. Unless you’re calling the op a liar the basic premise speaks for itself.

[even_sven]

@Magiver

She can’t handle a normal relationship and used people to get what she wanted and she wants to take on the full time responsibilities of a child by herself. Given how easy it is to raise children and how little time it actually takes I see nothing but smooth sailing on the Niagara River.

How do you know she “can’t handle” a normal relationship? The problem here is not that she can’t get a man, the problem is that she doesn’t have time to let a relationship develop naturally. We don’t know if she was deceptive to the guys she dated or if she laid it all on the table. But I would guess if she were being deceptive, the OP would have said so.

[LSLGuy]

I think that had the OP included more of what’s in post #43 in the actual post #1 we’d have had a more successful thread. As it is, a lot of us projected our preconceived (hah) notions onto what little meat was in post #1. Not so good.

IMO his relationship with the woman is pretty deep and long-standing. IOW, he’s got a pretty good insight into her long term values & behaviors. ISTM that she’s demonstrating “baby fever”. She wants one in the worst way, and nothing else much matters. It’s a fixation. And to the degree that’s an accurate assessment, our OP is properly concerned. For her, for the child, and for his longstanding role as her support system.

GrumpyBunny’s glib advice to butt out & write off the relationship at the first sign of backlash hardly seems like a caring and charitable approach. And she wasn’t alone in suggesting it.

What any of us owe our IRL friends is our honest and considered opinion, diplomatically delivered. Heck, that’s even what SDMB is really all about.

My take: It’s not the OP’s place to say she *can’t *have a kid. It *may *be his place to say that in his opinion it’s not a good idea.

Further, if we correctly understand that she tried to shanghai two random guys into being unwitting sperm donors, she needs to get an earful about that immoral and perhaps even illegal behavior. That may be the lever to get her to see that she’s losing perspective on this and the desire for a kid is transitioning from healthy desire to unhealthy obsession. At a minimum it needs to be part of steering her to the safe and aboveboard option of getting sperm from a bank.

Finally, the OP himself can also lighten himself up about this. The absolute worst that happens is an aging psycho bitch pickles off an autism spectrum kid & raises him/her to be neurotic & miserable. Just one more face among the few hundred thousand similar kids to be born in 2016. Not desirable, but not the end of our, your, or their world either.

Conversely, the absolute best is she gets over “baby fever”, gets a proper sperm-bank donation, births a healthy kid, turns into a fine mother and raises him/her in a loving way including the OP & the other interesting families to appropriate degrees. The kid ends up well-adjusted and happy.

Which will it be? Heck if any of us know. If only the best potential parents in only the best circumstances had kids, the world population right now would be a few hundred thousand, tops. Not 7 billion. Humanity muddles through somehow. She will too. Relax.

[Magiver]

@even_sven

How do you know she “can’t handle” a normal relationship? The problem here is not that she can’t get a man, the problem is that she doesn’t have time to let a relationship develop naturally. We don’t know if she was deceptive to the guys she dated or if she laid it all on the table. But I would guess if she were being deceptive, the OP would have said so.

If she doesn’t have the time for a relationship then where is the time coming from to raise a child?

[Cazzle]

@Magiver

If she doesn’t have the time for a relationship then where is the time coming from to raise a child?

She doesn’t have time to delay childbearing while she develops a natural, healthy relationship because, at 42, she’s going to be lucky if she’s still on the right side of fertility and every month that passes makes it more unlikely. This should not be confused with not having time to date due to being over-committed with work/hobbies/volunteering/etc.

[astro]

@even_sven

How do you know she “can’t handle” a normal relationship? The problem here is not that she can’t get a man, the problem is that she doesn’t have time to let a relationship develop naturally. We don’t know if she was deceptive to the guys she dated or if she laid it all on the table. But I would guess if she were being deceptive, the OP would have said so.

The vibe I got from the OP is that she was being somewhat manipulative and/or deceptive. I can’t see normal, responsible adult men wanting to be lifetime bio-daddies with a person in a short term relationship, and the OP indicated she had gone to bat twice trying to get pregnant. Unless she was using mind control on these guys I’m guessing it was going to be “accidently on purpose”. It sounds like these two guys dodged a huge bullet.

The two relationships she’s recently been in seemed very much to be about getting pregnant as quickly as possible. From what she said, it didn’t appear to be about two people building a life together and eventually creating children. It just seemed to be about her desire to have a child and she didn’t really respect the guys or consider what they wanted. So I wasn’t particularly surprised to see them fail.

[even_sven]

@Magiver

If she doesn’t have the time for a relationship then where is the time coming from to raise a child?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? The kind of “time” that she doesn’t have time to date, going down the occasional wrong path, until she finds the right match, and then go through all the stages of courtship between “I like you” and “I want to raise a child with you and be committed to you for at least the next 18 years.” Even in the best of cases, you are looking at about a year between meeting someone and trying for a kid. ANd she isn’t likely to end up in the best of cases. And even a year, at this point, can be the difference between being able to have a baby and not being able to.

I assume she has 18 years ahead of her to raise a child. She just doesn’t have an indefinite number of years ahead of her to conceive one.

[monstro]

This just in…

Sexual/romantic relationships are nothing like mother-child relationships.

She’s 42. Maybe she ain’t got time to be dealing with the drama of a relationship. And maybe she only seems to attract the kind of guys that bring lots of drama. Alternatively, maybe she’s too picky or too independent to want to be saddled down with any ole guy. She likes the dance, but then she gets bored.

But it’s different when you have a child. A child isn’t just “any ole guy”.

Maybe she’ll be a horrible mother. But there are too many horrible mothers with hubbies/boyfriends and too many excellent single mothers out there to conclude how this one particular woman will be like, at least based on the OP’s word.

[Magiver]

Further news Bulletin. She wasn’t born 42. She’s had 20+ years to work this out. Now she’s endangering the health of her future child because of her age because she so desperately wants to bear a child.

She has not acted honorably but more out of desperation and that’s not a healthy start to such an important relationship. She may turn out to be the greatest parent who ever walked the face of the earth or she may struggle with the situation because she has unduly burdened herself.

She is certainly not starting with her best possible foot forward and she’s going out of her way to make it so.

[puzzlegal]

So,… Basically, I think it’s irresponsible to plan to have a baby without lining up a second parent. Yes, stuff happens, and often people have to be single parents, but being a parent is really hard, and takes a ton of time and energy, and the odds are just better if you at least start out with at least two parents.

Still, you say she is finacially secure, and that helps a lot. And God knows there are worse things you can do than be a single parent. And at least the baby will be wanted and presumably loved. I certainly wouldn’t break up with a friend over a decision like that. And it is an intensely personal and significant decision.

I think it odd that you would be less uncomfortable if the baby came from a drunken one night stand. I agree with others that you need to re-evaluate why you feel that way. If she’s going to embark on single-parenthood, doing it with sperm from a consenting donor is surely better than tricking some guy into knocking her up. Maybe that’s not what she was doing, but it’s what it sounds like from your post. THAT is something I might break up with a friend over, as that seems deeply selfish and deceptive, and could mess up the guy’s life.

I think you are unlikely to talk her out of it, so there’s no point in trying. It would just destroy your friendship, to no gain. Unless your goal is to destroy the friendship, I guess, which seems possible from your second post. But even if that’s the case, this seems like the wrong way to do it. Break up honestly, if that’s what you need to do. And if you remain friends, I hope you enjoy the baby.

[Urbanredneck]

@JacobSwan

Thanks for all the replies so far.
.

I think you are onto something. Sounds like she is a “user”. She uses you as her “gay friend” crutch so she doesnt need a husband. Sounds like she just uses these guys just for their sperm/dna.

Thing is unlike her exes, if the relationship with her child doesnt work out she cant just divorce her kid. She will be dealing with him/her until they are 18, or maybe 22 or maybe forever.

As for your relationship, unless you break it off right now start getting ready to be a co-parent and start baby proofing your house for when she needs to drop the kid off.

[Shodan]

@even_sven

Are you being deliberately obtuse? The kind of “time” that she doesn’t have time to date, going down the occasional wrong path, until she finds the right match, and then go through all the stages of courtship between “I like you” and “I want to raise a child with you and be committed to you for at least the next 18 years.”

She’s 42. She’s had twenty years of that kind of time, and couldn’t find anyone to commit herself to.

Now she is trying to saddle herself with a significantly larger commitment for the next twenty years at least.

Gosh, what could go wrong there?

Regards,
Shodan

[amarinth]

@Shodan

She’s 42. She’s had twenty years of that kind of time, and couldn’t find anyone to commit herself to.

So, to both you and Magiver, what’s the correct age to do this. Obviously, you both think 42 is too late. 32? 37?
Or is it never? Find a partner or never have kids?

[Annie-Xmas]

This is none of your damn business, unless you think she is going to be an abusive or neglectful mother. Absolutely none whatsoever.

It amazes me that the same anti-abortion people who think “Gas parenting is child abuse because a child “needs” a mother and a father,” also support single motherhood over abortion. The way some of the most radical feel, the woman should be forced to give birth (abortion is wrong) and then give the child to the “right” couple (married, straight, and Christian). After all, she had sex outside of marriage, so she is clearly unqualified to be a “good mother.”

ETA: My sister the lesbian ending up raising eight daughters. When a friend of theirs ended up pregnant after being raped, she decided to have the child and raise it with her long-time partner (now wife). When she asked the anti-abortion crowd what she should do, they all said “Oh, have the baby, but give it to a real family.”

[GrumpyBunny]

@Annie-Xmas

This is none of your damn business, unless you think she is going to be an abusive or neglectful mother. Absolutely none whatsoever.

Tsk, tsk, Annie. You’re being glib. Because what on earth would women know about making reproductive decisions?

[even_sven]

@Shodan

She’s 42. She’s had twenty years of that kind of time, and couldn’t find anyone to commit herself to.

Now she is trying to saddle herself with a significantly larger commitment for the next twenty years at least.

Gosh, what could go wrong there?

Regards,

Shodan

Funny, I don’t see a lot of scorn for men who chose to wait until their 40s to start a family. Indeed, it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Is the banker who marries his trophy wife and has a couple kids in his 40s a feckless loser who couldn’t get anyone to commit?

[Acsenray]

@Magiver

Further news Bulletin. She wasn’t born 42. She’s had 20+ years to work this out.

@Shodan

She’s 42. She’s had twenty years of that kind of time, and couldn’t find anyone to commit herself to.

She couldn’t get a man so obviously she’s too defective to be a mother?

[WhyNot]

@Magiver

Further news Bulletin. She wasn’t born 42. She’s had 20+ years to work this out.

@Shodan

She’s 42. She’s had twenty years of that kind of time, and couldn’t find anyone to commit herself to.

Right. She’s spent 20+ years trying to play by the OP’s rules (your rules too, apparently). And that didn’t work out. So she should keep playing by your rules until her ovaries shut down? What’s that definition of insanity, again?