Well who didn’t see this one coming.
I’ve heard many men complaining that their children ignore them when they become adults. Men, of course, have begun blaming motherhood for this. I guess men presumed that when they bogarted their way into the nursery, that it set up some kind of reverse debit system. Whereas kids were then supposed to be more involved with their fathers as they grew older, since men paid so much more attention to children today then their fathers ever paid to them. This should have been obvious, right?
Sadly this isn’t the way it works.
Mothers don’t invest the time they do in their children because they are looking for some ultimate payback when the kids reach maturity. Instead, it is the inutero bonding that sets the stage for the mothers’ love which follows. Which is why the mother/child bond is unique. Most women already intuitively know that bond is the only ‘payday’ a mother ever receives. Since you can be a good, bad or indifferent mother going forward and it guarantees you nothing in the way of future contact, visits or even telephone calls from your kids. Actually some of the best mothers I know rarely see their kids. As once their children have left the nest (or launched as gender neutral proponents now like to say) many move half way across the country or even to Europe and have such full lives there is quite simply little time to visit with their mothers. Maybe once or twice a year if that. Yet their mothers are content, as they know their children are doing well...
This mother/child bond exists, even for the mothers who give their children up for adoption. Which is why when a mother is giving a child up for adoption, hospital personnel generally won’t even let her see the baby or hold it after it is born…as the result could be the mother changing her mind once she is confronted with the reality of the child. But even if she never sees her child, she can be content as a mother if she knows her child has been given a good home and upbringing, one that she couldn't provide...that's a mother's love.
Not so with a sperm donor as it's a totally income driven process, the donor could care less who receives the sperm or what is done with it. Actually they could be using the deposited sperm for a scientific experiment for all a donor knows.
Anyway men attempting to compare the mother/child bond with the experience of a sperm donor are doomed to failure, as this latest nonsense attests. To be honest, I don’t believe there was ever any large amount of children conceived via sperm donation trying to contact their ‘fathers’. This was men trying to equate themselves with mothers, who gave up children for adoption. Clearly a bond exists between those mothers and children as anyone with common sense could attest to. It is NOT the same with sperm donors. This was a bunch of foolishness to begin with, instigated by men, always trying to act like the world revolves around them. The process of donating sperm does not equate with nurturing a child inutero, bonding with it and giving birth to said child from your own body as mothers do.
Please.
No bond is formed because a man discharges a bodily fluid into a dixie cup while looking at pictures of naked women.
Sorry but there is no comparison here between a sperm donor and a mother.
This was men trying to be at the center of the universe in all things once again.
Sigh...the endless struggle continues.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20706484-2862,00.html#
Herald Sun
Kids ignore chance to meet donor dads
Kate Jones, medical reporter
November 06, 2006 12:00am
DESPITE new laws and a statewide advertising campaign, no Victorian children conceived by donor sperm have tried to find their biological parents. (emphasis mine: they mean biological fathers, as a mother cannot be a sperm donor. This is more of men trying to equate themselves with mothers. I'm sure many adoptive children wish to meet their biological mother.)
More than 100 young Victorians, who have turned or will turn 18 between July and December this year, are eligible under the new consent laws to apply for identifying information about their biological parents.
The laws came into effect on July 1.
But so far, the Infertility Treatment Authority has yet to receive one application from a donor-conceived child.
ITA chief executive Louise Johnson said many children may not be aware they were conceived with the aid of a donor, "or the time may not be right for them," she said.
It is thought 30 to 50 per cent of donor-conceived children are not told about their true origins.
Next year, more than 200 donor-conceived children will be eligible to contact their biological parents. Donors also have the right to apply for information about children.
Providing there is consent, a donor and child may contact each other.
The ITA has received 10 applications from donors wanting to know details about offspring and 16 donors have voluntarily supplied their information. (emphasis mine: I'm sure that should be interesting. AND if the 'father' conceived 16 or 60 kids with his deposits, I'm sure he'll now lead a rich full life with all his 'children' congregating around his home come the holiday. What a lot of nonsense.)
18 comments:
I saw a study on this phenonena which was mentioned on the Family Scholars blog. What I found when I went back and actually looked at the research, it showed that children were curious about the donor (who wouldn't be curious about such a thing) but not particularly interested in a relationship. It was pretty neutral thing for both the donors and the children. However, the research was spun as children having this deep yearning for a relationship with the donor, which the research just didn't show.
Contrast that to the very emotionally tangled relationships between adoptees and their mothers (sometimes called birth mothers or biological mothers). Instead of indifference, you either have rage (how could you have abandoned me!!!) or intense attachment, even if the don't consciously remember their mother. Usually some combination of both. Mothers who put children up for adoption ROUTINELY suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome--anxiety, flashbacks, depression, emotional flatness--even when they had "mentally" accepted that motherhood was not right for them at the time. It's the exceptional mother who doesn't experience these emotions, not the rule. In addition, the research on adoption is much more savvy about the attachment disorders that many adoptees have experienced, despite the fact (particularly in the 60s and 70s) that they kept getting told that their adoptive mother was their real mother. Many seemed to know deep inside that something was not right, and they just didn't feel the same bond.
As a mother, I know that I have a deep visceral connection to my children. I know I could identify them by smell alone (research has actually confirmed that most mothers can identify their children by the smells on their clothing--something few fathers can do no matter how involved.) Mothers by process of pregnancy, birth, and infant nurturing simply create a much more complicated bond, for better or for worse. That's one reason that when mothers are abusive (it does happen), children seem to feel far more angry and betrayed. Or even when the mother simply failed to protect them from an abuser (even when there was little to nothing they could do.) Children (and adult children--which is all of us) are far likely to blame her as much if not more than the father. Because honestly we honestly have higher expectations from our mothers, whether we acknowledge that openly or not.
I'll buy that silver. I'm 38 years old and I havn't seen my father in almost a decade. At my age, I still yearn to know him, I still miss him. I wish I could have learned allot from him. He could have tought me many things. Things that range from farming, relationships to simple things like on how to fix something like a leaky faucet. Yeah, I can teach myself those things, but that's not the point. The point is having a relationship with him, and doing things together as a father and a son. I think until the day I die I will constantly yearn for his teachings and the relationship.
Did you fail reading comprehension in school or something bloggernoggin...
Silverside just stated that the research showed just the oppposite. That most kids are just curious about their fathers, not interested in a relationship at all...
"the research was spun as the children yearning for this deep relationship with the donor, which the research just didn't show..."
Exactly my point.
Btw, I include egg donors in the mix as well when I talk about sperm donors...As clearly the relationship between the donors and a child is the same with egg donors as it is with sperm donors.
Which is absolutely nothing...I mean it would be equivalent to having a relationship with a used kotex or condom or something of that nature.
Totally ridiculous...
Interestingly enough they didn't even mention egg donors in the article; which they generally don't when they are spinning this sort of thing. As I believe they are trying to make a connection with sperm donors and mothers who gave children up for adoption.
It's more disinformation for the public.
"As a mother, I know I have a deep visceral connection to my children..."
AND that's what men are jealous of...and trying to portray sperm donors as having with their children in this article...more propaganda.
BTW Silverside have you noticed all the flutter lately in the news about making egg/sperm donations illegal????
Suppposedly they are concerned about the children?????
Although for years when people were using donor sperm to create families, nobody said a word. Since using donor sperm has been going on since the 50s.
It was okay because generally married couples were the only ones using the technology. NOW that single women (mostly straight, but some gay) have started using it to have families suddenly it's a problem, everyone's concerned about the children...
I was just reading on Family Scholars that anywhere from 30,000 to 70,000 families are created anually using donor sperm but only 3,000 using donor eggs...so clearly it's women who will be hurt the most making these technologies illegal...
As soon as women start benefitting from something then it needs to come under the microscope and be examined for harm to the greater good...
Total bullcrap...
Actually if they are going to crack down on someone's procreation choices, why don't they start making all these idiots out there who create babies from one-night stands illegal...pass an unauthorized reproduction law against those useless morons...as at least the people using sperm or egg donors to create families are being planful in their choices, not just running around having babies willy-nilly because they are too drunk or lazy to take proper precautions, like wear a damn condom that takes a whole 3 extra seconds to put on...
Actually, a very close relative is now near the end of her pregnancy now a donated egg. As far as I'm concerned, it's her baby. She's been the one going through hormone swings, pre-natal visits, morning sickness. She'll be the one to go through labor. When the babies born, her presence will be indelibly imprinted on her babies. Instinctively, they will be calmed by her voice, her heart beat, her "smell" if you will--because her presence is the one they have known on an unconscious level all along. And she also plans to nurse, so that will be another bond they will share.
I am very grateful to the unknown woman who made this donation. We all know that egg donation is a far different matter than playing around with a paper cup and a porno magazine. It's painful, requires shots of drugs to produce multiple ovulations. The jury is still out on whether donating can cause infertility problems or even ovarian cancer in the future. Yet despite that, some woman made these sacrifices so that someone (a married couple in this case) could have children of their own. I salute you, whoever you are. You have truly made a sacrifice that was purely altruistic for which you will personally benefit no one iota. However, having gone that far, I doubt this woman will ever demand "rights."
It's not a male/female thing per se. It is strictly definable by difference of contribution. My relative, her anonymous donor have contributed well beyond masturbation. Sorry, I don't see masturbation as conveying any automatic rights. It cost you nothing. It's nice you helped someone have a child, but come on. It took 3-5 minutes with no inconvenience to yourself whatsoever. You aren't increasing your risk of prostate cancer. Nobody pumped you full of drugs to increase the concentration of sperm in your semen.
My personal bias is to favor the people who do the work, who make the sacrifices. Not people who try to pretend that five minutes of fun with no responsibility ever following is just the same. It ain't in any other aspect of life. Why should it be in human reproduction?
I have all the respect in the world for dads who love and support the woman who is bringing forth a child. A man who works hard at his job and is attentive and loving. That's what makes him a father in my book. Walking the walk. Not the mere act of having sex.
"I have all the respect in the world for dads who love and support the woman who is bringing forth a child. A man who works hard at his job and is attentive and loving. That's what makes him a father in my book. Walking the walk. Not the mere act of having sex."
I'm glad you clarified that silver, I feel better now knowing that I'm one of those.
Um, I haven't seen much evidence that you have had much love or support for the mother of your kids, B. Come on, now....
Of course S, I still care about her. But the reality is that when you see someone constantly do things "Like a ship without a rudder" and hurt themselves and people around them (including my daughter) you would tend to distance yourself. It hurts me to see the ship without a rudder effect, so, I don't want hurt anymore and that's why I've kept myself at arms length.
Oh please you phony.
Silverside don't pay attention to anything this guy saids. He's full of it...
You're a headcase bloggernoggin and that last comment proved it...
AND don't think I don't know it was you who posted all those filthy comments all over my blog...knock it off or I'm going to contact your ISP. You are not supposed to be using that sort of language, your ISP can stop your service for a while if you continue flouting the law.
"You have truly made a sacrifice which is purely altrustic..."
Unfortunately that is not the case with many egg donors. As just like sperm donors they get paid to donate eggs. The level of difficult in donating eggs vs. donating sperm is addressed through the higher amount of compensation that an egg donor receives vs. a sperm donor.
I think both are equivalent however and should be treated the same, no difference, except the level of compensation, which is already addressed in the free market.
I don't think an egg donor has 'bonded' to an egg donation and thus should have no rights or special treatment anymore then a sperm donor would have with any children created from their genetic contribution...
The bonding occurs inutero so, in my opinion, however the egg and sperm combined in a mother's uterus is irrelevant. She will treat all of her children the same whether they are her DNA material or not, whether the child is from a one-night stand or an angel sneaked into her window in the middle of the night and an immaculate conception occurred. The resulting fetus can expect the same inutero bonding to take place and the same welcome from it's 'mother'...which is the women who has carried the fetus to term and bonded inutero with the child...which is why I'm against paying surrogate mothers but not against paying egg donors...taking a child from it's surrogate 'mother' is equivalent to buying a child from it's mother. They have already bonded and this is harmful to both...buying a donor egg or donor sperm is not the same, it's raw genetic material nothing more...
Well, NYMOM, it looks like they have finally found you. After being such an annoyance to the men's boards, you have made yourself into a high-value target.
http://tinyurl.com/y6dd87
How long will it be before a record query at the Suffolk County Recorder reveals your home address there in Mastic?
Well as Abraham Lincoln once said about being ridden out of town on a rail, "if it weren't for the honor of the whole thing, he'd rather walk."
Get a life already, that's my advice.
nymom, why did you suddenly make your blogger profile unavailable? Worried, huh?
I didn't make my blogger profile unavailable...I just upgraded to blogger beta so maybe it has something to do with that.
It's a free country so what do I have to be worried about???
Like I said previously I suggest you find something more useful to do with your own life instead of worrying so much about mine.
Post a Comment