As woman who had no man in the house from age 11 onward, this makes me unbelievably sad:
"Going the sperm-bank method is definitely not my first choice, but I am not willing to give up my dream of having a child just because I can't find Mr. Right.
As a single woman barreling into the steep back end of my childbearing years with no husband in sight, I am not indifferent to the desire for a child. But unlike the single woman described above, I am also not indifferent to the needs of a child for a father in the house.
To grow up without a good father who is under the same roof as the child and available for both quality and quantity time (quality moments don't happen on a schedule) is a tragedy. To purposefully create such a tragedy (in order to meet one's own emotional needs!) is immoral.
As the article briefly mentions, adoption is another option. Adopting a child who would suffer and die in another country, or an older child who is not as readily-adopted as an infant/toddler, is a noble act--to have a loving mother without a loving father is far preferable to having no family at all. But I have the terrible suspicion that the majority of women taking the adoption route are looking for a spot in the line of people waiting for newborns.
When I read articles about this problem, I always hear a chant running through them: "Me, me, me... I, I, I."
I try to be sympathetic here, and I DO understand--the call to reproduce is both biological and emotional. I think of my own father and the impact I know he had on me for the few years he was in my life, and I would love to have a baby who shared his lineage and on whom I could bestow the rich heritage he gave me. And I would love to experience the joys Sarah writes about so beautifully.
But at the expense of the child who wouldn't even exist were I not intentionally bringing him or her into the world to meet my needs while suffering the absence of a father?
Empathy is at war with judgment, but how can there ever be justification for such self-centered cruelty?
