In the past years, anonymous sperm donation served as the saving grace of women hoping to have a child of their own. Now, donors do not have to be hiding in the dark and women can freely choose the perfect parenting partner, thanks to uprising co-parenting sites.
From being a tool for casual socialization, networking sites have just added another function to its belt -- serving as an avenue for hopeful parents. Co-parenting sites are gradually becoming popular for helping singles match with their ideal sperm donor. Sites like coparents.com and co-parentmatch.com are mostly free of charge, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Co-parenting websites do not require both parties to become romantically engaged. In fact, some of the members of these websites are same-sex couples looking for the ideal sperm provider.
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Starting a Family Thanks to Sperm Donation— CoParents.com (@coparents_com) March 3, 2017
Searches in one of the sites read like “Sydney Chinese seeking white lesbian couple for a Eurasian mixed baby” and “Tallblue from Sydney" looking for a donor who would fulfill an “incredible life goal.” The site coparents.com was filled with these posts from over 100,000 registered members residing in United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
Elective co-parenting used to be more prevalent among heterosexual individuals and couples but as years passed, there has been an increase for homosexual singles. A research from Centre for Family Research at Cambridge University surveyed 105 participants and came up with this finding in 2015, CBC News reported.
The research notes that most of these individuals are single, well-educated and financially secured. Average age of people pursuing parental arrangement is 33 years old for women and 38 years old for men.
Sociologist behind the United Kingdom-based study, Tabitha Freeman, said that this modern approach to parenting “raises a whole new set of questions about the well-being of children.” Apparently, parental arrangement was affected by societal factors, like delay in adulthood.
During the Baby Boomer generation, one of the priorities of what considered as adult (aged 20 and above) is raising a family. In this new generation, this priority does not come until the person reaches 30 years old. Their focus are getting an education and establishing a stable career, Freeman explains.
"They wake up maybe at 35 and go, 'Oh shoot, I forgot I should have been looking for a guy or a girl because I want to have a kid', " the sociologist said. Nonetheless, Freeman believed that raising children without the notion of romance and marriage can be a progressive movement.
What are your thoughts about casual co-parenting? Let us know what you think about this parental arrangement by commenting below!
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