Planning for a child weighs on same-sex couple

Dear Ellie: I’m a male, 29, and knew from my classmates that I was “different” by the age of adolescence.

But it didn’t bother me that much, because I had two male schoolfriends who were different in some of the same ways.

By 16, I was in a “loving friendship” with another guy who identified as gay, so I did, too. By the next year, it was a full-on gay relationship.

I have been married to my partner now for seven years. My parents adjusted to this reality and we’re close with them. His parents are still uncomfortable, but friends tell me that such feelings often change when gay couples have a child, which is the subject of my question:

My partner feels that he should be the one whose sperm is used for us to conceive a child with a woman, because he’s more the “father” choice as the more dominant male in our relationship.

That decision makes me feel left out, almost an outsider to the act of conceiving our future child.

Also, if anything should cause us to split up in future, would he have more rights to child custody than me?

Future Father or Outsider?

I’m going to focus first on the object of your question: a future child. The ideal of what he/she will need most in life, is parents who are emotionally stable and equally committed to their child’s well-being.

That’s why you and your partner need to come to a comfortable feeling for being equally responsible and committed as parents and respectfully supportive of each other.

Yes, that’s also an ideal. But should you enter into your plan to conceive a child with the uncertainties and complications you bring to the discussion now, there’s already more of a sense of difficulty than joy in your planning for parenthood.

Meanwhile, “family,” in today’s western society in particular, has been a changing construct. Part of that is the reality of two samesex parents raising children.

Some same-sex couples choose to adopt their children, which bypasses the question of a primary father.

To me, what matters most is that there be mutual respect between you two regarding the positives that each of you bring to the task of parenting.

I strongly suggest you two have some professional counselling regarding having a child together, before you make actual arrangements.

Also, depending on where you live, look into any legal matters that will affect your parenthood. There are some places in the world where paying a surrogate female to bear and birth the child is illegal.

A hopeful note: A comprehensive study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2017, showed that children raised in same-sex-parented families do as well as children raised by heterosexual-couple parents.

The review of three decades of peer-reviewed research by Melbourne Children’s found children raised in same-sexparented families did as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers.

Feedback regarding the woman who felt ashamed for not having had a date for New Year’s Eve (Dec. 20):

Reader: That woman has nothing to be ashamed of and could consider such events as a positive opportunity, any time at all when she feels left out.

When I was a student and had no date, I was invited to a casual dinner party at a relative’s home. She had invited some of her friends, none of whom had dates. There, I met a special young man.

We have been happily married for 53 years.

Ellie’s tip of the day

Same-sex parents have the same chance to raise welladjusted children as heterosexual parents.