I really don’t want to be writing about sperm again. Some won’t stop, however, and so I find myself once again turning to matters seminal to clear up some misconceptions about donor-conceived children.
Elizabeth Marquardt, of the Institute for American Values, has her say in The Times about children conceived by anonymous donors. She claims “children today are being raised in an era of increasingly flexible definitions of parenthood, definitions that often serve the interests of adults without regard for children.” She has spoken, she says, with donor-conceived children who are unhappy at having been told their origins don’t matter and “they are silly and deluded for thinking that some guy who went into a little room with a dirty magazine holds a key to their identity.”
Shockingly, I find myself agreeing with her—to a point.
Origins do matter, and knowing something about one’s donor can be important; not necessarily a key to one’s entire identity, as Marquardt implies, but a satisfying piece of the puzzle. One could say much the same about adoptive children seeking their biological parents. Some of the strongest champions of LGBT families, including Louise Sloan, single mom and author of Knock Yourself Up, and Abigail Garner, daughter of gay dads and author of Families Like Mine, seem to agree. Garner says, for example, in response to a reader question:
It is perfectly normal for a five year old to be curious about where she came from. Her peers are equally as curious. . . .
Avoiding this will not make it any less complicated. Be open with her now, or face even worse misunderstandings about her biological father in the future. And if at all possible, help your daughter connect with other children who were created via alternative insemination. (Family Pride [now Family Equality] and COLAGE are great places to start in search of a group near you.) Helping your daughter understand that she is not the “only one” could make a big difference in how she feels about herself and her family.
Marquardt goes too far, however, when she bemoans children who “lose the ability to grow up with their own mom and dad, whether it’s due to donor conception, or parental abandonment, or divorce.” News flash: Donor-conceived children do grow up with their own moms and dads, or moms and/or dads, or mom or dad . . . whatever the configuration of the parent(s) that changed their poopy diapers, sat through the 6487th viewing of Shrek III, taught them how to walk, talk, ride bikes, play ball, say “please” and “thank you” and generally get on in the world.
Parents, LGBT or not, who use donor sperm or eggs are not denying children the right to grow up with their “real” parents. They are instead bringing them into homes where they are wanted and loved by parents as real as they get. Biology is not in this case destiny. If the parents are smart, however, they will realize that biology does instill curiosity, and allow children to learn about their genetic origins to the extent possible, given the information available and applicable laws. As two of the women in The Times article point out, families who are open with children about their roots are less likely to engender resentment than those who treat it as a secret. Based on the people with whom Garner and others have spoken, moreover, donor-conceived children are not trying to replace the parents with whom they grew up, but simply trying to complete the picture of who they are.
One of the women in The Times asserts: “There has never been a question about who my father is: a father is someone who loves and raises you. I have always known that ‘daddy’ means love and not sperm.” What, then, does “donor” mean? More than a specimen in a cup, but less than a parent. Known donors involved in their children’s lives may of course blur the lines even more. Because of this evolving and variable definition, we as a label-loving society are still struggling to fit donors into our view of what makes a family. Marquardt views them as the “real” parents along with whomever provided the complementary chromasomes. Some parents who use donors, on the other hand, view them as nothing more than numbers in a catalog. Our children, clever souls, sense a truth somewhere in between.
Perhaps the answer lies in the definition of family as well as donor. One speaks of nuclear family, extended family, distant relatives, step-family, and friends whom one considers family, among other permutations. Why not add donors to the picture as well, however close or distant we, and our children, want to place them? Such flexibility is a strength, not, as Marquardt believes, a weakness. It is not a “redefinition” of family, but rather an extension of it. Children themselves, from the moment of birth or adoption, extend the definition of who is in their families. New spouses (legal or otherwise) do, too. Family is by its very nature an elastic concept. Stretch it a little further. It won’t break, and our children will benefit.
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I would like to umderstand why it is so important to re-define families in the way you describe.
Point is, I’m not re-defining them. Family is a group of people bound by ties of genetics and/or love. The and/or is important, as the two categories don’t always overlap. This is not a re-definition–look at historical examples of, say, Roman emperors adopting heirs, or the biblical example of Rachel, who used her maid as a surrogate. Families have always come in various permutations.
It’s the genetics and/or love I think I have a problem with, when in fact everyone a right to expect both – and get it.
The donor-conceived don’t like being donor-conceived and are saying so on thier sites.
oh stella… you have so much to learn. not everyone likes the way they were brought into the world.
i’m sure adopted kids wish they weren’t adopted. they’re thankful for their parents, but wish their birth story were different.
i also feel like a child born as a result of a rape doesn’t like that either… but hey- it’s just a guess.
I would be careful, Stella, about generalizing about the ‘donor-conceived’. There are many such kids (who I work with) who are actually not troubled by their origins, because their parents have been open and honest with them, AND (just as importantly) have provided a context and community of similar families.
Since reading this insightful post and learning about the donor sibling registry via another blogger, I have to say that my partner and I have been alternatively flummoxed and worried.
When we embarked on our route, we questioned very long whether and how this decision would affect our child.
But what pulled us through was a conversation we had with a random passer-by at a New England country store. The lady was originally Dutch, had moved to the US after WWII and had been raised in a very free-thinking environment. She was one of the first children in the US to go to a Waldorf/Steiner school. She raised her children in the same way. One of her children had since become a mormon and moved to Utah and broken all contact with her. I think the conclusion is clear: you can do everything in your power to make your child’s life a fantastic life. Ultimately, though, there are so many factors beyond your control. As a mother of a donor-conceived child, whose donor is and shall remain anonymous (information is destroyed after 5 years), I can only hope that our best effort is good enough.
And finally, when we had our first appointment at the hospital, we were not allowed to choose any criteria. We were told that homosexual couples could do this, so the child would resemble the parents as much as possible. The remark by the counselor was: in heterosexual couples, the father will often not to disclose the donor conception, not even to the child itself. I find that the press often focuses on LGBT couples, but tends to omit the fact that many straight couples are also using donor sperm and eggs to conceive…
Lula, good point. There’s disproportionate agonizing about donor sperm and eggs used by same-sex & single parents, compared to the same technologies used by opposite-sex couples.
Those parents can be “closeted” about their kids’ origins, much more than we can. What happens to the kids when parents can lie by default?
It reminds me of a straight couple I know who adopted a baby from China. They often get together with other families who did the same. The other parents are almost all white, but this couple is Asian-American, so the other kids in the group started teasing their daughter, because they didn’t believe she was adopted. The parents had to tell her, “It’s OK honey, you’re really adopted, we promise!”
My point is that this couple could have lied to their kid, but they chose not to, and now their daughter is proud of where she came from.