Love makes a family, but what makes a Dad?

Love makes a family, but what makes a Dad?

Slowly but surely the stereotypes of gay life are dissolving around us and being replaced with the same modern issues confronted by everyone else.

Renovating the house, planning that special holiday, preparing for a new addition to the family.  No, not a puppy or a cat but a child, or even several children.

These days we are faced more and more with members of the GLBT community settling down, living in suburbia and wanting to do as many other suburban couples do -” raise a family.  This is getting easier than it was -” and more commonplace than you think.  Gay dads are everywhere -” you probably even know one or two.

Now as we all know, Love makes a family, but what makes a Dad?  Any sperm donor can be a biological father but being a dad takes something more.

There are co-parent dads who share the day-to-day care and raising of their child(ren) with their child’s mum or mums, committed to working together to see their child become an adult.

Some are single men and others are couples, some of the mums are lesbian, others not.  Some have gone for IVF and others just the good old turkey baster.  It covers the full spectrum.

There are surrogate dads who have gone though thousands of dollars, lots of forms and tests and travelled to other parts of the world to have a woman bear their child (usually from an unknown egg donor), who are raising their children by themselves or with their partners, with the support of those around them.

Fostering is another way some gay men become dads, sometimes part-time, sometimes for a long time.

Hopefully soon in NSW we can add adoption as a couple to the list.  It’s certainly permitted elsewhere and single men can currently adopt.

Of course there are also the same-sex attracted men who either are or were once married and who have had children the old-fashioned way.  While they face challenges in coming out to the family and discovering and accepting their sexuality, they too are active dads who love and care for their children.

GayDadsNSW group is a social network and support group for gay men who are or want to become dads.

Not just sperm donors but dads, with all the dirty nappies, sleepless nights and unconditional love that comes with raising a child in a loving, supportive, safe environment.

The group meets for an informal dinner on the first Monday of the month at the Bank Hotel in Newtown.

We also regularly hold information nights where people can come and hear experiences, ask questions and learn more about being a dad.

If you would like to know more about gay dads in Australia you can go to www.gaydadsaustralia.com.

info:LOVE makes a Family, but what makes a DAD?
Date: Monday 23 February
Venue: Twenty10 offices, 43 Bedford St, Newtown
Time: 7pm
There will be a number of speakers on different aspects of parenting and time to ask questions.
Please RSVP to [email protected] so we know how many people to expect.
For additional information please contact Anthony Brien  on 0405 147 968 or at [email protected]

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2 responses to “Love makes a family, but what makes a Dad?”

  1. I agree. ALL children should be DNA tested at birth so that they know their heritage. After all there are plenty of cases were women cheat on their partners and their children are conceived by an unacknowledged father. This is supremely unfair to the child and can affect identity not to mention medical histories.

  2. This has absolutely nothing to do with gay/lesbian parenting but although a bio-father does not make a dad, a father (and all the love/ support/ obligations/ responsibilities) should never be reduced to mere sperm.

    “Inside the Mind of the Octuplets’ Father
    February 11, 2009
    Fox News Health Blog
    by Dr. Keith Ablow
    Source: http://health.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/02/11/inside-the-mind-of-the-octuplets-father/

    Lost in the media storm surrounding Nadya Suleman, the mother of new octuplets born through in vitro fertilization, is the father of those babies.

    Incidentally, the octuplets’ father is also the father of Suleman’s six other children, who were also conceived via in vitro fertilization.

    According to Suleman’s mother, Angela, the octuplets’ father, is one of her daughter’s -œadmirers.

    Reportedly, the name David Solomon appears on four of the first six kids’ birth certificates. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that the octuplets last names would be Solomon. But, no one knows for sure if David Solomon is actually the name of the hopefully-not-so-proud father.

    Whomever donated the sperm that resulted in Suleman giving birth to a total of 14 children likely feels he bears no responsibility for the chaos these children will experience in life. After all, once he provided his sperm to doctors, they were the ones who presumed Suleman to be a competent person and used that sperm to fertilize her eggs. They acceded to her wishes to implant the resulting embryos in her uterus. They tended to her during the pregnancy and delivered the children into the world.

    What possible moral failing could be assigned to a man who merely provided the genetic material for a sterile laboratory procedure sanctioned by the law of our land, a procedure that has helped bring millions of beloved children into the arms of good and decent parents?

    I believe the octuplets’ father does bear a moral burden for providing the sperm used in this birthing calamity. The 14 children fathered by Suleman’s sperm donor were born to an unemployed mother with psychological problems and no apparent insight into the consequences of her actions. But they are also the offspring of someone she apparently knows, and that person apparently has even less concern for the human lives he helped create.

    Imagine having a self-centered mother who is using you and your 13 siblings to feel less lonely (because she’s angry she was an only child herself) and having been fathered by someone who has no particular interest in how or why you were created or what happens to you. If that sounds like a prescription for low self-esteem, not to mention potential depression or drug addiction or an anxiety disorder, it is.

    The Suleman case exposes gnawing ethical questions that are not asked frequently enough about the whole process of sperm and egg donation.

    At what ethical cost does a society decide to sever every meaningful connection between millions of human beings and their offspring? When the medical system is shown to be capable of the kind of reprehensible, misdirected creative impulse evident in the Suleman case, doesn’t it begin to support the notion that donors of sperm and eggs have some responsibility to make sure they aren’t helping to create chaos and suffering? Must asexual reproduction be, by its very nature, amoral reproduction?

    I say no. I hold the sperm donor in the Suleman case just as responsible as she is for the tears to be shed by her children. He had to participate as an actor in this strange drama for it to go so horribly awry. It was his sperm. His. Part of him. If that means nothing to us as a culture anymore, then we may indeed be losing ourselves in our science.

    Discuss this case on Dr. Manny’s Facebook wall.

    Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, -œLiving the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at [email protected].”