Wannabe dads left behind in IVF debate

Fathers struggle to be put on the same pedestal as mothers.

by Katherine Feeney

Blogger

Healthy, heterosexual women in Britain are using donor sperm to have babies. This is not unusual. Single women have used IVF to have children for years. However doctors are now reporting cases that break with the mould of middle-age motherhood sans-man in one very interesting way. Of the hundreds of women asking doctors to help them gain a child via artificial insemination over the past five years, at least 25 were virgins. This is enough to give rise to remarkable headlines touting the rise – or is it resurgence? – of the Virgin Birth.

Unsurprisingly, these women, and the idea, has been criticised. Conservative religious groups oppose the idea of children being brought up in any way that's not "traditional" (forgetting the less than usual alleged origins of a certain Galilean carpenter). Other opponents site the age as an area of concern – some of the virgins were in their 20s, and "too young" to make such a life-changing decision (is there a right age to reproduce?).

However, support for these would-be mums has also been registered, with at least one doctor saying these single mothers are "emotionally and financially stable", and perhaps in a better position to rear a healthy, happy child than those who arrive at sole-provider status via a nasty relationship breakdown.

Clearly, the virgin-birth issue is controversial. Is it ethical, is it sensible, is it necessary? All of these questions are worth consideration.

But there's another question that relates to this debate that needs to be discussed what if the virgin wanting a baby was male?

But I do wonder how serious we are about supporting fathers who want to make a difference? Indeed, how supportive of fathers are we at all? I ask because I wonder – if it was a bloke who wanted to have a baby by himself, because he was ready to be a loving, nurturing father, would he be supported, or scorned? Scorned, probably, and possibly painted as a pervert. What a shame.

"Try as I might, I'm still seen as secondary to my wife when it comes to the kids," one father of primary school-aged children tells me. "Whether it's as obvious as being virtually ignored during parent-teacher interviews, or simply the subtle lack of eye contact with me when someone's asking us what we're up to for the school holidays, the message that she's seen as the primary care-giver, or the 'real' parent, is continually sent, and received."

He's talking about an unconscious mother-bias that still steers our society. It's apparent in the lack of consideration given to single men who genuinely want to become fathers, or single fathers who are left raising a family.

The mother-bias is, in fact, becoming apparent to me and my husband as we await the imminent arrival of our baby daughter. Questions are put to me first, not him. Shop assistants approach me, not him. Comments from near strangers suggest parenthood matters more to me, than him. Yes, I am the one carrying the child, but we are both responsible for her. Both of us are committed to cultivating an upstanding human being once she's born. While a child in our care, she is ours, not "mine", not "his".