Regular readers know that there have been some shifts around here in how we’re thinking and talking about our donor. After several years of focusing only on our immediate family (and I believe rightly so), we feel things opening up around this topic, in good but sometimes intense ways.
I watch like a hawk when anything along these lines comes up in discussion, in real life, or more often, online. One theme I’ve noticed is that often when a parent voices some sort of worry about what to say, or how their kids might feel about the donor in the future, usually someone offers the reassurance that “lots of kids don’t even care.” Maybe your kid won’t wonder about their donor. Maybe your kid will never ask or care about donor siblings. Maybe you’ll get lucky. (Similar themes come up in adoption discussions).
In the past, when I have thought about the donor or donor siblings, I often pulled out the same reassurance for myself. We can only do what we can do. We didn’t really have another choice. There’s a lot of love in our family and that is enough. Maybe it won’t matter anyway. We’ll handle it when it comes up. Reinsert head into sand.
The idea that this is something we have to handle has been bothering me. Like the fact of the donor is something outside our family, and if we think hard enough about what to say, learn our lines, and handle it perfectly, that then the fact of the donor in all of our lives will just disappear. If we say or do just the right things at just the right time, maybe then our kids won’t care. We’ll be the lucky ones.
But the donor (or at least the fact of his existence) isn’t outside our family. He’s connected to each of us, in a somewhat distant but direct way. The fact of him (and of any donor siblings) is part of our family structure, not something off to the side that has barely anything to do with us.
I realized the other day, that I no longer cling to the hope we’ll be the lucky ones. We do not have a family where big stuff gets brushed under the rug. No. We sink our teeth in and figure it out. I want our kids to do whatever work they need to do to understand what it means for them to be donor conceived, whether it’s a big deal for them, or not so much. And I want them to tell me all about it, because it’s interesting, and because I love them to pieces and want to understand their lives. (And I know my daughter; I don’t think we had much of a shot at “maybe she won’t care” in the first place).
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I need a “like” button.
N recently posted..Rain on a sunny day
As always, I appreciate how thoughtful you are about your parenting.
I also want to note that homophobia is one of the big problems here — it’s not (just) about all of our individual neuroses. There is nothing inherently worse (or better) about having a donor be part of what creates your family. People’s need to reassure themselves seems to be a need to counter all the external homophobia that says (even in a whisper) that they have done it “wrong” and that their children will suffer as a result. It’s totally understandable that we have internalized some of the homophobic messages, as long as we keep reminding ourselves that they are not true!
Have you seen the movie The Kids are Alright?
yes yes and yes! I truly believe that openness and honesty are so freaking important with these kids of ours. I have friends who refuse to discuss the donor with their daughter. At this point she is only 2 so she hasn’t asked but they say he is not a part of their lives and they won’t discuss it with her. I feel bad for that little girl of theirs.
An excellent, excellent point, as usual. Thank you for writing about this. I’ve also found myself thinking, “maybe he won’t care,” even as we chose an open-ID donor anticipating that our son might, very much. I’ve recently come around to thinking (this has been influenced by conversations with wonderful adoptive parent friends, whose adolescent daughter has a relationship with her birth mother) that our son will care simply because he wants to understand a part of himself. The donor-conceived part. This may or may not figure large in his psyche, but I’m sure he’ll think about it. I don’t think his curiosity will stem from feeling his family is inferior. In fact, I imagine he’ll love us very much (and hate us sometimes, too!) I like to think it’s not an either/or situation, that talking about (his) donor conception does not cheapen or degrade the beauty and strength of our family, but is rather additive. It’s and, not but. I clearly have a post in me about this! Before I write a tome, I’ll add that Lesbian Dad (Polly Pagenheart)’s continuing take on “The Kids Are All Right” has reinforced this line of thinking: http://www.lesbiandad.net/ I LOVED what she had to say in her review and her most recent post. In part, she says the movie speaks to children of lesbian families not so much r.e. their being-raised-in-a-gay-family reality but rather via their DI-conceived reality. Interesting that these would be separate, if related, issues. I hadn’t quite thought about it that way but I think it’s a valuable distinction. She’s drawing these conclusions from talking to COLAGE involved kids. Good stuff.
Just want to point out that COLAGE just released a guide for DI-Conceived kids: http://www.colage.org/programs/art/.
We’re having lots of discussions around our house about our donor and all of the siblings out there because our donor died recently. We are now in touch with his parents and siblings and all of the girls’ half-sibs. Lots of discussions among all the half-sibs moms’ re: talking about the donor, having contact with the half-sibs’ families. What I’m taking away from it is: maybe our girls will care, maybe they won’t, but we are going to give them all the information they need to make that choice for themselves.
z. recently posted..Little Houdini
Thanks everyone for great comments!
@z We’ve been reading the COLAGE guide around our house lately and I just want to say how grateful I am for the organization.
@malea and @mama deux: And I’m very curious to watch the Kids are Alright. There are obvious things that raise red flags for me about the movie, but I have heard from so many people that it is a movie that will have you thinking about issues long after it is over.
@Cindy And I do think there’s something to the fact that we really do have to defend our families — this is the homophobia piece. So we have to find a way to protect our families and strengthen them, but also find the openness to deal ourselves with the choices we have made around donor conception (or however we have created a family) so that we can be there for our children. I think that the more we are able to combat homophobia and legally protect our families, the more stable we are and the more we can feel able to help our children with these issues.
I love talking about this stuff!
I’ve honestly never wished for our kids to “maybe not care” about their donor conception or genetic history. I acknowledge that they might not, but assume that they probably will, to some degree or another. Our approach has always been to talk about the donor as if he is someone who the kids SHOULD care about (not that we show any concern with their current lack of interest, but we speak highly of him, with love and respect). We don’t want them to ever feel as though we would be offended by their interest in him. We’re interested in him, too!
One thing that’s been really neat to observe is how our older kids (twins, now seven), who finally seem to understand the concept of donor conception and the fact that their donor is an actual person, speak about the donor with their younger brother(s). Our three-year-old is much more fluent in donor-speak than his big brothers were at his age, and I think it’s just because his brothers know how to talk about it with him in a way that makes it easier for him to understand.
Another thought I’ve been having lately: the fact that there is a separation between having a sperm donor and NOT having a father. I think sometimes I connect these two truths about my kids’ existence in my head, but I’m realizing that my kids do not (at least not yet). They see them as two different, very distinct realities. I think a fear that a lot of queer families have re: the donor, is that the kids would come to think of him wistfully as their “missing father,” and this is one reason why some families choose not to speak about the donor with their kids (“he’s not in our lives; he doesn’t matter”). But even at age 7, my kids realize that there’s a lot more to being a FATHER than providing some sperm. When friends ask them about their dad, or ask why they don’t have a dad, they never jump to the “I don’t have a dad; I have a sperm donor” response. Rather, they say, “I don’t have a dad; I have two moms.” They don’t see the sperm donor as a potential father or as a reason for why they don’t have a father.
Recently, a boy the same age as our twins moved into our neighborhood from a different state. He is less familiar with the local queer culture, and was rather taken aback to learn that my wife and I were married. He asked our kids, “how do two women have babies together, anyway?” And one of them answered: “oh, it’s easy: they can either adopt babies or they just use a donor. It happens all the time.”