Are fathers irrelevant?
It probably wasn’t the typical Memorial Day weekend activity — beach, barbecue, parade — but I was involved in a threesome.
Get your mind out of the gutter — it wasn’t that kind of threesome, although it does involve sex but, sadly, not two hunky men attending to my needs (what? You thought they’d be two gals? Hey, it’s my fantasy threesome, not yours).
No, this threesome is about choice moms, and it’s taking place over at Singlemommyhood and the Advice Goddess and, now, here.
Let me guarantee you, none of my threesome fantasies would ever include a choice mom. I wouldn’t even date one, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Yeah, I know I just wrote about choice moms, but I then I got a tweet from Singlemommyhood — “Thanks for the sperm, but I’ll take it from here.”
OK, tweeting something like that gets someone’s attention; it certainly got mine. It’s provocative, if a tad antagonistic toward men. Kind of like a guy tweeting — Thanks for the sex, but you’re just a piece of ass to me, so I’ll take it from here.
Feel good?
As it turns out, the mom who wrote that isn’t a choice mom; she’s divorced, like I am. But, that’s an odd attitude to promote in a discussion about
supporting choice mothers, isn’t it? 
For those who don’t know, a choice mom, according to “Choosing Single Motherhood” author Mikki Morrissette, is:
“someone who proactively chooses motherhood, despite the lack of a
lifetime partner. … (someone) choosing to be a mother, rather than choosing to be single.”
Widows and divorcees don’t count, and I have
to guess gals who get knocked up without planning to get pregnant and decide to keep the
baby don’t count either. Choice moms — to their credit, actually — give a lot of thought and planning into their decision to have a baby, something more of us should do. The one thing that doesn’t get all that much thought is Dad; not whether a child will do OK without one, but whether a child deserves one.
I have my own feelings about choice moms — I don’t think it’s in a child’s best interest, and that’s what we should be concerned about, right? The child, as yet unborn (which is different than divorce, which also may not always be in a child’s best interest, but no one gets married and has kids while hoping to get a divorce). If a woman absolutely can’t imagine her life without a child, why not adopt or be a foster mom? Unless it’s for purely selfish reasons, which, really is why we have kids in the first place — we want them; no one else except maybe the grandparents-to-be cares whether we have a baby or not.
Just because we can do something, should we? Even if you’d be The Best. Mother. Ever.
But back to that tweet. I wonder if some choice moms feel a bit pissed at men, even on a subconscious level. Morrissette insists on her Web site that choice moms don’t hate men. That’s nice. Yet if a late 30- or 40-something woman chooses to have a baby on her own because she hasn’t found The One in time (in 20 or so years), it would seem that the reason she even had to consider raising a kid by herself is because all the men — aka losers, playas, jerks, Peter Pans, commitmentphobes, etc. — she dated failed her somehow.
If only they’d been better men …
And that’s just as well, because if that’s the potential Daddy Gene Pool, it’s better to just walk away. Fast. And then ask herself why those are the kinds of men she’s spending time with.
Unless I’m way off mark, I think most choice moms would have preferred to have a partner with whom to have a baby. I think most of us want to fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. Maybe that changes post-baby because according to a recent survey cited on ChoiceMoms.org, choice moms are happy flying solo:
The majority (90%, 261) of mothers reported that they were not currently in a relationship, with 29% (76) of these women stating that this was a conscious decision. When asked how important it was to them to meet someone in the future, the most common response was that it was not very important (50%, 130). Ten percent (25) felt it was very important, 30% (79) felt it was quite important, and 9% (24) felt it was not important at all.
Granted, that’s a small sampling, but still; the majority of choice moms don’t care all that much about meeting a man? Hmm. Another area where choice moms and I aren’t aligned, but, fine — more men for the rest of us! Gals, act quick, before they change their minds! But, if I were a man, I wouldn’t date a choice mom; our values are too different. As a dad’s daughter and as a mother of a son, I think men matter, and I think fathers matter.
And so I wonder what the child thinks about being fatherless, as a child and as an adult. If you’re a choice mom, aren’t you sending a message, however subtle, that a father isn’t all that important (because if a woman truly values fathers, she’d at least start off giving her child one, not just a sperm donor)? An opinion piece in the New York Times yesterday cites a new study by the Institute for American Values (yeah, I know; ultra-conservative). You can read the results and accept or reject all or part, but it does offer some issues to think about.
Yeah, this isn’t the biggest issue in the world, although, who knows — maybe it will be one day. There will likely be more scenarios in which a woman discovers her hubby-to-be was fathered by the same sperm donor. Then what?
But it begs the question — are fathers irrelevant? As imperfect as my dad was when I was growing up, he’s given me so much — his humor, his love of ideas, his butt …
The Advice Goddess asks women, what if you can’t have it all?; good question (as well as a discussion about whether children from single parents have too much baggage to make them date-worthy). Singlemommyhood celebrates a recent choice mom event and three 30-something girlfriends passing around a donor’s sperm, the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Sperm” (well, in these recessionary times at least they’re being thrifty).
There’s nothing wrong with choice moms supporting each other — all parents, married or single, gay or straight, need support. But encouraging more women to become choice moms? Why?
- Guys, would you date a choice mom? Is there a difference to you if a woman is a single mom because she’s a divorcee or widow, or if she decided to have a baby on her own?
- Is a woman being any more selfish if she wants to have a baby on her own than as part of a couple, or does it even matter?
- If you’re a choice mom, do you have any lingering bad feelings about not finding The One in time?
- If you’re the child of a choice mom, how do you feel about fathers?
Photo © Skydivecop – Fotolia.com
The upside of being a choice mom
It was Sunday morning, too early to have eyes open, but for whatever reason we woke up together, slowly, dreamily, our bodies close enough that I could feel his morning hard-on.
“Mmm,” I moaned, pushing my butt a little harder into his soft and hard spots.
“Mmm,” he moaned back, as his hands made their way from my hips to my breasts and body parts were being aligned.
And then, a cry.
“Mama! Ma-MAAHHH!”
I shot up out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to check on the baby.”
“He’s fine. Come back to bed, and let me check on a few of your things …”
“Hold that thought; I’ll be right back,” I said, as
I blew him a kiss. 
By the time I came back, nobody was coming
— the magic moment was gone.
Several years later, and Rob and I divorced.
Coincidence?
Hmm.
Well, there were a few other issues— a lot, actually — besides a series of child-related coitus interruptus “incidents” that led us to split. But I clearly remember those exhausting, stressful Married With Baby days. As T ponders in her post this week, it makes you wonder if
parenting with small kids leads to divorce.
I don’t think so.
If anything, unrealistic expectations, marrying for the wrong reasons and our own emotional baggage from the past probably lead to more divorces than raising a kid does. And we get so disappointed and frustrated with our partners so easily, over little
crap, too, like laundry and loading dishwashers. I mean, c’mon! But, having children impacts a couple in ways you can’t possibly anticipate,
no matter how many stories you hear, books you read or experts you follow.
Until you’re in the trenches, you really have no idea what having kids is all about. And at that point, well, your options are pretty limited, and so like most good soldiers, you just keep trudging along, hoping your “battle” strategy works.
That’s if you even have a strategy. But since 47 percent of parents say pregnancy “just happened,” it seems that there are a lot of new parents who don’t have a game plan. “Just happened” isn’t a strategy that’s going to hold up in the heat of marital-parenting battle. especially since almost every couple feels stressed, conflicted and unhappy the first year or two after a baby is born.
Can that be avoided?
Yeah — if you’re a choice mother.
Not that I’m suggesting you become one.
I can understand the incredible sadness a woman might feel if she hasn’t met The One before her biological clock goes on the fritz. Still, I just can’t even imagine having a baby on my own when it’s so hard when there are two of you!
But it does have an upside.
Many choice moms love not having a partner around — they can do things their way and not have to deal with anyone else’s issues other than their own and their kid’s. You can always send your kid to his room and take away his Xbox when he misbehaves; can’t do that if you’re pissed at your hubby.
So maybe it makes sense to have a baby on your own; you avoid experiencing that post-baby stress and unhappiness with your partner and you can do the laundry and load the dishwasher whatever damn way you want! Have the baby first, and just have a guy show up later — when you’re happier, healthier and ready to have sex again.
Well, that’s what Lori “Marry Him” Gottlieb did — you can ask her how well it’s going …
Not every man wants to raise someone else’s kids.
Plus, men develop a Daddy Brain, kicked in by a pregnant woman’s hormones. By keeping dads out of the equation, we moms might be messing up a man’s capacity to fully love his kids — or someone else’s. And dads and kids both end up losers.
Am I happy now? Yep.
Do I love having a kid? Yep.
Was being Married With Baby hard? Yep.
Would I rather have stayed as an intact couple if we could have worked out our crap? Yep — parenting solo is harder.
What about you?
Photo © Delli-Pizzi- Fotolia.com
Divorcees don’t fall head-over-heels in love
A young couple, hand-in-hand and dewy-faced in love, stood in line at Peet’s before Sara and me the other morning.
“You know, that’s one of the things that sucks about divorce,” she said, gesturing with her head to them.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Divorcees still hold hands.”
“No, I mean love.”
“Divorcees still love! I do, anyway.”
“I mean that kind of love, that can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other, love-stuck, obsessive, eye-gazing, falling head-over-heels kind of love, like when we were younger.”
“We still fall in love like that. Plus, I absolutely cannot keep my hands off of Sean,” I sniffed.
“No we don’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because its true, that’s why. We know too
much now, and there’s too much at stake
because we’re moms.” 
“Well, yeah, but we still fall head-over-heels in love.”
“Have you, now?”
Hmm, well, I had to think about that. I’ve fallen head-over-heels in lust — no question about that. Lots of times. But love? Not really.
Is Sara right?
Maybe.
We all learn from breakups, and most of us
have a fair share of them before we get married. But a divorce is the Big B, Breakup with a capital B. No way you can go through a divorce and not have it shape the way you feel about men, love, the idea of “happily-ever-after,” life itself and ourselves. It’s easy to turn bitter and that flavors every new relationships; or we get bitter — and frustrated — after we start dating again, and if you’ve been married a long time, dating again at midlife is always a shocker.
It’s like waking up on an alien planet without a Transporter to beam you back home.
Sometimes, we can’t keep the past out of the present; we compare whomever we’re with who our ex, either fearing ways in which they’re similar or looking for ways in which they don’t quite measure up.
And let’s not forget fear — we’re afraid we’ll get hurt again and have to go through all that all over again, when we’re older and exhausted just by the idea of trying to meet someone! So we keep a little of ourselves back, tucked safe behind a slightly hardened heart; each time we “fail” at a new relationship (it feels like failure, even if we shouldn’t think of it that way), a little more gets hardened and a little more gets hidden.
Divorcees don’t delve head first and fall fully madly, wonderfully foolishly into love.
Especially if we have kids. They add all sorts of complications into the mix, the major one being that we don’t want to drag them through another breakup. So we are really, really, really cautious — and we should be.
Anyone we fall in love with has to not only be someone we love and who loves us back, but someone who’ll be nice to our kids, even if they don’t love each other (but we’d do anything we can to make that happen!)
So, is Sara right — can we ever fall in love like we did when we were younger if we’ve gone through a divorce?
Photo © david brown – Fotolia.com
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