"... outside the shared raising of a child (or two or three). 'A co-parent doesn’t need to be my romantic partner,' said Ms. Reid, who would like to have a child before she turns 36. She added that she spent the dinner looking for stability and shared values with the stranger rather than flirty chemistry. 'They need to be a great teammate.' Interest in platonic co-parenting is growing, with specialty apps experiencing substantial growth over the last few years. Modamily, the app Ms. Reid is using, connects people looking to start a family through dating, sperm donation or platonic co-parenting. In 2020, the app reported having 30,000 users registered to the platform. By 2025, that number was 100,000...."
From "In Search of a Platonic Co-Parent/Platforms that match partners in procreation are experiencing a post-pandemic uptick" (NYT)(gift link).
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60 comments:
You women better up your game and bring something to the table. Have you seen the AI robots they're working on? You think finding a man is hard now, you just wait 10 more years.
“ Mr. Sahuque and Ms. Lohse now have two sons, ages 5 and 3, who were conceived through I.V.F. They live on a 52-acre ranch where they each have a house surrounded by lots of space. The kids live with her “across the pasture” and Mr. Sahuque, who travels regularly for work, sees them in between projects.”
They don’t do it?
Sad and weird.
"... outside the shared raising of a child (or two or three). 'A co-parent doesn’t need to be my romantic partner,' said Ms. Reid, who would like to have a child before she turns 36. She added that she spent the dinner looking for stability and shared values with the stranger rather than flirty chemistry. 'They need to be a great teammate.'
In other words she wants an ATM card and someone to watch the kids while she goes on tinder to find more dick.
Modern women are just completely absurd.
“ The three now have a 16-month-old son, whom Ms. Berthou conceived using sperm from Mr. Boudrias-Fournier and at-home insemination.”
What does that mean? Sexual intercourse or turkey baster?
Womb farms, too? Test tube parents.
Modern modalities.
“We do it in your driveway in our heated van!”
Dave Begley said...
“ The three now have a 16-month-old son, whom Ms. Berthou conceived using sperm from Mr. Boudrias-Fournier and at-home insemination.”
What does that mean? Sexual intercourse or turkey baster?
It means a child that is born into the world to a woman who is almost certainly too selfish and self absorbed to be a mate.
They’ll also wash your dog while they’re there.
Sparklepup
Mobile grooming and insemination.
Whoa. That’s what grandparents are for.
Conception has never been more convenient.
AI
It’s not just for computer nerds anymore.
Women are refusing to live with angry man-children, but they are willing to platonically co-parent with them? Interesting.
In Anne of Green Gables, weren't Anne's adopted parents a brother and sister?
I worked in a code-slinging shop with a bunch of South Asians. It was revealed that they all were in arranged marriages that their parents had engineered, and all us American guys had been divorced at least once. They seemed to have a more businesslike approach to marriage and family life, which seemed to work better for them than our love-and-romance system worked for us.
Please see : "When Harry Met Sally"
This should make the We Need More Babies crowd very happy. Women birthin’ babies. What could be better than that?
BTW What To Expect When You’re Expecting keeps showing up on Amazon’s best seller list. I would not be surprised if Trump’s optimism isn’t paying off in unexpected little dividends. (Also, of course, all the fat reducing drugs.)
The spectrum of human relationships is a broad one, and quirks populate throughout, across the whole range. But a family with parents without affection, without love, without sex? Where's the spiritual fulfillment? I seriously doubt such an unhealthy and incomplete approach could ever be optimal for a kid - not to mention the transactional nature of the parents. These aren't parents, they're shoppers.
They don’t do it?
No Dave, they don't. Women are trying to figure out how to get free fathers for their children to share expenses and at no cost to themselves.
Well, there goes the last reason left to get yourself a woman.
If I was younger, I'd go to gay school and chart a new course.
"...“I was just being very forward,” said Ms. Reid, 33, who lives in Los Angeles and is the founder of a social wellness club.....
'Social wellness', starting with 'Ms.'. The article was written by Alyson Krueger.
Not mentioned: What does each parent do for a sex life?
I would define this as mutual selfishness.
"In Search of a Platonic Co-Parent/Platforms that match partners in procreation are experiencing a post-pandemic uptick"
That was almost a Variety headline with all that alliteration. I can maybe improve it:
"HUGE SPLOOGE STOOGE REFUGE." CC, JSM
Levi Starks said...
I would define this as mutual selfishness.
Society used to be focused on raising the next generation.
Now it is focused on coddling selfish shitheads who can't put children above themselves.
bagoh20: "If I was younger, I'd go to gay school "
Aren't all schools gay now? CC, JSM
There is a romance novel here that will practically write itself.
Ideally, a marriage is a gay affair for both the man and woman as a couple.
See "Without Love", a 1945 film for results.
Raising kids is hard work. It takes all that you have. Even romance sometimes.
of course, the secret secret, is that THIS is one of the reasons why people got married.
Affluent White Liberal Women want to end Western Civilization as we know it and keep finding novel ways to do so.
Back in the day, lots of mating irregularities were kept in the closet or known with a wink and a nod.
Gays and lesbians married out of duty...and they had babies.
Many Catholic nuns running 'orphanages' actually raised their own babies, as fathered by Fathers.
State religions have long prompted duty to God and Country in the breeding enterprise. Here, some individuals are recreating the duty concept two by two.
I love this line:
"She added that she spent the dinner looking for stability and shared values with the stranger rather than flirty chemistry."
Maybe if she spent all her dates that way she'd actually meet someone who would be a real partner; you know the old fashioned kind that you marry and have kids with.
At least the odds seem to favor the kids never growing up with parents who hate each other.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
"At least the odds seem to favor the kids never growing up with parents who hate each other."
... or love each other. Sad.
Does the corporation offer franchising (e.g. friendship with "benefits") opportunities? Carbon credits? Redistributive change schemes? Do the bylaws require both officers consent to abort unproductive "burdens"?
It's kinda like they start with the divorce agreement and then work forward from there.
I am Laslo.
Following up on tcrosse at 12:41 on the utility of arranged marriages, see The Namesake, a 2006 film. The first part of the film is about an arranged marriage in India, then the couple moves to America. The last part of the film is about the romantic problems of their kids. The contrast with the minor problems of the parents' arranged marriage is striking.
I'm not wishing that my marriage was arranged, mine worked out better than fine--but not so for all my kids.
Makes me wonder what the kids will turn out to be like since kids learn and mimic parental behavior. Sounds pretty sterile to me.
Seems same dating rules would apply for "co-parent" as "marriage partner". Everyone is on best behavior at 1st date, maybe 10th date, maybe 30th date, before you see the Real Person emerge.
I've dated people for several years with whom I would never have consciously chosen to "co-parent" a child, much less marry.
To keep with the splooge stooge theme-“it takes a spillage”
They sound like married couples who have had amicable divorces. Still, I agree it sounds sterile to grow up knowing your parents don't love each other.
Not everyone is lucky enough to grow up with parents who love each other. I do understand people who recognize they are in the unlucky category, have waited to find love and failed, and still want children. They recognize their limitations and are trying to inflict the minimum of damage. They aren't any more selfish than people who get married based on chemistry and think that is love.
At least they are getting away from this "single parent" model, AKA a woman trying to do everything on her own.
Guardians a la couplets.
What a mess. The sexual revolution was a huge mistake, for everyone.
Jordan Peterson said we really don't know the effects of having women in the modern workplace, as we've only been doing it for sixty years. I am afraid we're finding out that they aren't all good effects.
All things being equal, children do best in a stable home with a mother and father present in the household. How messed up are these kids going to be?
Conscious non-coupling.
A sad phenomenon, but probably better for the kids than being a child of divorce. Let’s revisit in 15-20 years.
Also sad is the hate for this woman in the comments—as though there isn’t also a man in the equation. Where’s the hate for him?
"Also sad is the hate for this woman in the comments—as though there isn’t also a man in the equation. Where’s the hate for him?"
Because you just know he'll be paying all the bills.
Joe Bar: "Jordan Peterson said we really don't know the effects of having women in the modern workplace, as we've only been doing it for sixty years."
We won't ever know, at any social-science level anyway, because any academic who tries to study it will lose his funding, his chance at tenure, and, if the lefties can figure out a way to do it, maybe even his freedom. CC, JSM
If she can hang on for a few more years, there should be an AI humanoid that can check all boxes she needs checked.
This is a rather disturbing article. The only aspect of it that I find at all encouraging is that it is complete fiction. Still, it would be worrisome that this "Alyson Kreuger" person has such weird fantasies, if she actually existed.
Anecdotal awareness of these scenarios (patterns?) related to diaspora South Asian arranged marriage --
Indian couples divorcing later, in their 50s/60s.
Pakistani women opting for lifelong spinsterhood.
Youngish (nearing "expiration date") Pakistani couples getting married, but living separately without divorce.
Craig Mc said...Because you just know he'll be paying all the bills.
How a couple shares their finances is nobody’s business but theirs.
How a couple shares their finances is nobody’s business but theirs
...and the courts'.
All relationships are transactional. Marriage is simply a business arrangement. It's contractual.
I feel sad for these thirty something women. I keep thinking of the TV series "Thirtysomething" ie Timothy Busfield. What you thought you wanted at 30, could be radically different by the time you hit 50. For the men, this is a good deal, a man in his 50s is still attractive, and the romance door has not closed. For the women, by the time she's done with raising, and the kids are gone, and now she wants to start looking for romance, 50 is too late, and options have dried up. I just don't know if there is much of a dating market for women in their 50s who should have prioritized romance in the 20s and 30s, peak attractive-ness years for a woman. The concept of a biological clock is in play, but an attractiveness and peak ability to conduct a romance clock also exists as well.
Sounds like the Neanderthal Parallax novel by Robert J. Sawyer, a Neanderthal visitor from a parallel world where Homo sapiens became extinct and Neanderthals became the dominant species arrives on our world. The Neanderthal society is sexually segregated, with men and women interacting for only a few days each month, and reproduction being consciously limited to ten-year intervals.
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