Ask Lemmy

Just out of curiosity, how have you survived a full month on .ml?

A child with one loving parent is better off than a child with any number of disgruntled uninvested parents.

A single mom who goes through all the effort that IVF requires is someone who REALLY wants children. That's someone who will appreciate the gift of parenthood and make sure that they don't waste it.

I'm more concerned with the children that were forced to be born against their parents' wishes. Those children will be seen as a burden that was forced upon their parents. They will be resented, and more likely to be neglected or abused. They will grow up never learning what love and kindness is, and they will take that hatred and spread it into the world, or give up on themselves and turn to drugs, or an abusive relationship.

My take?

It's none of my fucking business how other people procreate, how about that?

It takes a village to raise a child, not a "mother" and "father" specifically. I do not idolize the hetero nuclear family.

One of my friends and mentors did that. I used to nanny for her twins and they've grown up to be bright, ambitious, adventurous young women. I'm proud to know them.

Two of my sisters are doing that, and they're lovely kids and will be surrounded by people who love them and will help them grow. So I think that's absolutely fine.

One person making an informed choice and accepting the consequences beats idiots having kids because they're too dumb to use protection.

Besides that, it's not my business.

Kids primarily need loving parents, friends and a nice evironment to grow up in. The exact gender of their parents and if they have 1, 2 or 3 doesn't matter that much. Everything in life has its unique challenges. But I think a kid with 2 traditional, yet unloving parents isn't better off than a kid with one or two mothers who love it. So it's giving your kid what they need, that is important. Not how you "produced" them, or if you're a man.

I think it's none of my business...

I can't imagine how it's any of my business.

I think it's tougher for children to be left by one parent, than having a by-choice-single-parent. I think role models of any gender don't need to be your parents.

Lesbian parents have been around for a long time. Some men can be pregnant and give birth. But I assume you mean the issue being that they'd be alone, not the lack of a male parent. Being a single parent when you weren't expecting to is hard. But of you're prepared and equipped for it, go nuts. IVF is given to awful married parents. The parents' aptitide isn't a factor for couples, why should a standard suddenly exist for single people?

My mom died when I was 12, but she was ill and not really participating in my life for much longer. There are some things that I missed out on because I didn’t have a maternal figure, but they’re pretty minor. For example, I learned as a 29 year old with D cups that there’s a difference between a sports bra and a bra without an underwire (exercise is much more comfortable now). People might disagree, but I don’t think that’s a huge deal not to know, and almost any adult woman as well as many men would have been able to tell me that, had I thought to ask.

I guess I’d say: if you’re raising a child alone or with a partner of the same gender, just get a comprehensive health/sex Ed teacher. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much of a need for any specific gender in child raising.

In vitro is expensive, and few women can afford to raise a child alone. I doubt it will still (yet!) have an impact on the population. Simply put, more financially well-off women will reproduce. The absence of a father in the first three years of a child's life usually leads to the development of a dominant personality, a person with a commanding and energetic temperament. :)

My take varies by case, but I don't think that children should be raised by a single person. Otherwise it could turn really nasty, like the child being alone most of the time, unsupported by any able-bodied adult (as their mum goes to work), effectively becoming the housemate for their breadwinning parent.

The situation is different however if the single woman is well supported by her family, living with them, and at least one of them is able to take responsibility for either bringing money in or taking care of the child as the mum is gone.

I'm sure it will be tough for the mother in question, raising a child is not easy especially alone. But for many people who want children, it gives them a chance to achieve a huge goal in life. From the societal side, if the average birth rate is way below 2 per woman, the practice should be encouraged for purely practical reasons