Is this the future of parenting?

[Tinark]

From someone who raised 2 natural children, 3 adopted kids and (anywhere from a few weeks to a few years each) dozens of foster kids, not to speak of the hundreds who made our home their second home, children need and deserve good parents and stable homes. The problems usually come because parents are selfish and put themselves first. This is just another example. Just "wanting a child" is not enough. If you are not willing to sacrifice your wants and desires for the good of your child then you should not pursue parenting. I know too many cases of mothers who put boyfriends ahead of their kids because of "her needs", sometimes to the point of ignoring abuse, even sexual. Selfishness destroys all relationships, and if you have not learned how to out others first then you will make a very poor parent. The primary duty of parenting is raising healthy, well-rounded children to maturity. You can't accomplish that if you have never made it there yourself. You are there to meet your child's needs; they are not there to meet yours.

Just last night a discussion accidentally led to the revelation that a child's life gets dragged around by the parents'. Typically the children don't get a vote on life-changing decisions and they are frequently slaves to their parents' whims. We should abandon the old concept that "children are resilient and can survive much". They shouldn't have to "survive" anything that is a choice. Surviving isn't thriving.

Oh, and yes, my wife is a child therapist.

I'm not convinced that those who want to utilize this method to become a parent are not willing to put their children first. For whatever reason, they haven't had any luck or ability to find a stable partner to commit to and live with for the rest of their lives. I'm not seeing why such luck or ability is a crucial parenting skill. Do you believe any your children or foster children who have relationship problems should be denied the opportunity to become parents on that basis alone?

If anything, it seems like a step up from the option that women have already had for decades to inseminate themselves and become a single parent.

 

[Morpheus]

I'm not convinced that those who want to utilize this method to become a parent are not willing to put their children first. For whatever reason, they haven't had any luck or ability to find a stable partner to commit to and live with for the rest of their lives. I'm not seeing why such luck or ability is a crucial parenting skill. Do you believe any your children or foster children who have relationship problems should be denied the opportunity to become parents on that basis alone?

If anything, it seems like a step up from the option that women have already had for decades to inseminate themselves and become a single parent.

Consider this. Many become single parents due to selfishness and foolisness , typically in youth; yet in this age choosing to bring the pregnancy to term at least shows some consideration for the child. Many others become single parents through the death or abandonment of the other parent, so there is no inherent selfishness in that scenario. Yet I have known some young women who intentionally went about getting pregnant just so they could either try and trap a young man, or just because they had baby cravings. In both cases the young woman became pregnant for selfish motives. I will stipulate that there are some cases where older women, or even men, still desire to have a child and their motives are no less selfish than a couple wanting children; but a single-parent household, no matter what the reason, is less than ideal. Historically people in the last condition would adopt when possible. At least with adoption, from the perspective of the child's well-being, the child is exchanging one bad situation for, hopefully, a better one. Although there are terrible two-parent families, and some excellent single parents, I can imagine no case where a woman would intentionally choose to be impregnated by an anonymous father's sperm so she could have her own child without the "burden" of an interfering father, where that woman wouldn't be doing so out of extremely selfish motives. And selfishness is corrosive to relationships. In other words, that child would be born to meet the mother's needs. Once that backward relationship begins it usually continues for life. Kind of a Cinderella thing.