Stories of Donor-Conceived Kids with Gay Parents- Why “family break-up” doesn’t explain their struggles

Study the Studies- What We Know About Same-Sex Parenting is a worldview wrecking ball for the “all children need is love” crowd. We received some objections within a few hours of publishing Study the Studies from those who felt that the poor outcomes reflected in research on gay parenting can be chalked up to the trauma that kids suffer in the wake of their heterosexual parent’s divorce. No doubt. Divorce is traumatic, and children’s long-term suffering is the result.

This pro-same sex parenting worldview often sees third-party reproduction as the “trauma free” option for gay couples who desire children.  Unfortunately, donor-conceived children are also more likely to struggle than their peers.  They are at increased risk of delinquency, substance abuse, and depression. Many report mistrust of family members and they are haunted by the ever-present specter of the circumstances of their conception. Unlike children of divorce, they are more likely to struggle with questions of their identity. Donor conceived children are also more likely to experience family disruption… and divorce.

There is no “trauma-free” way to deny children a relationship with their mother or father. Divorce and donor-conception are just different paths to brokenness.

You need not take my word for it, you can read the painful truth for yourself. Below are some excerpts from donor-conceived children living with lesbian and gay parents sharing how their conception and household structure has impacted them.

I have two moms and am constantly wondering what it would be like to have a father and who my biological dad is. I’m wondering is there any way to find who he is? im not expecting him to jump and and be some sort of active dad to me i just want to know who he is…

Father’s Day sucks, and my mom thinks its society when really it’s just her. I love her but yeesh. She talks about genders like they don’t matter when raising kids. If they don’t why does she wants me to spend so much time with her guy friends so I can have a father-figure? (JK as if her guy friends love me or relate to me as much as they love and relate with their actual children. Yeah right) … I want to know who my dad is, and a donor# and some basic layout isn’t going to cut it. I need to KNOW him. I need to bond with him and do daddy-daughter things. He’s half of who I am… We’re flesh and blood. He’s literally IN my DNA. Why don’t people get that? If he and my mom were a couple, he’d be my dad. But when my mom ia gay and asked him not to be there, he’s just my ‘donor’? Really? Where is my say in this?

I’m a 15 year old girl and I have two moms. They’re wonderful and the best parents my sister and i could have asked for. But still, I want a dad. I’m not saying that I’m against gay marriage or gay parenting. I just want a dad, and I feel bad for saying that.

I don’t really know if people understand how kick-ass it is that moms like mine had the strength to bring a child into this world on their own. You know, at first, that’s the only way I would look at my situation, that way things were more positive. But in reality, my kick-ass mom never knew and never will know the damage that not having a father has caused me.

I am an only child who lives with my single lesbian mother. I never really even had a father figure in my life, I was always surrounded by my mother’s friends. I always thought it was sort of selfish of my mother to just one day decide she wanted to have a kid. We frequently talk openly about our situation but she never mentioned her thought process or what persuaded her to bring a child into the world. It angers me because I feel like a missed out on so many opportunities that children with fathers have. The thought of not having anyone to walk me down the aisle when I get married haunts me daily…  Growing up without a father sucks. I can’t really have this conversation with my mom without hurting her. If my mom and I ever have a disagreement I have no one else to talk to. I feel so alone. I feel like I have missed out on all of the little things, like having your dad give you piggy backs or teaching me how to ride a bike or getting over protective when I show an interest in boys. I don’t miss my donor personally, i mourn the loss of a childhood without a dad.

All my moms want is to have a baby, and have a biological family like everyone else. So I always thought what a terrible bitch (yes bitch) I am to destroy their happiness too, because I wished I just had a dad in my life and not a donor fake uncle. You have no idea how lonely and guilty I feel about this, but maybe you do? I feel like a bad child, especially when I look on TV and I see the good kids of gay parents say they have the perfect family and they don’t need a mom or dad, but you’re all like ‘but I want a dad…sometimes?’

I am the daughter (not biological) of two moms. I love them both sooo sooo much but there is not a day that goes by that i didn’t wish i had a dad. it is very hard for kids like me that are different. no matter how accetping society is. i have men in my life my moms’ friends but it is not the same. I love my parents but I don’t agree with the fact that I will never know half of my biology or my siblings. I will never do that to a child. If I can’t have them, I will adopt. I hope more couples, gay and straight, consider adoption and foster care.

Short story. I was raised by lesbians, etc. Never really bugged me. Never wanted to meet my “real” dad. I stumbled on this site and was shocked to discover that like 80% of sperm donor kids want to meet their real dad. I still don’t really get why. I think that’s strange. Do you think he has answers for you? Will he tell you who you are… One day I saw a news article about this total douche who contaminated sperm samples around the time I was born. Smart dude, but mentally unstable and an unethical fruitcake. I thought it was funny, did some digging. Guess who is very likely my dad?? Fuck my life. As soon as I began to realize that this dude was probably my dad, I immediately shut the webpage, deleted my search history, ran around the block and did an active meditation to clear all the info from my mind so I would forget. But I can’t unlearn the info. Now that ass-hat is in my brain, and I never wanted to know.

My Moms always made a good image. Smile everybody and pertend to be happy that was our family motto. But I didnt feel happy every time I came home from a friends house and saw how diffrent it was in their homes. My best friends dad was the greatest guy he was funny and nice and always taking us places. He listened to us. I was jealous of my friend and wrote the word Daddy on a peice of paper and put it under my pillow. I wanted a Daddy like my friend had. My friends family all knew how much I liked their Dad cuz I was always asking if I could help him. One day my friends mom asks me are you a Daddys Girl? It means you are the kind of girl who realy loves her Daddy and is real close to him. Well I went home and cried becuz I dont have that and never will know what thats like.

My biological mother was bisexual, and at the time of my conception she was in a relationship with another woman. They couldn’t afford to conceive me through a clinic, so they made private arrangements with my non-biological mother’s nephew and he donated the sperm which conceived me, making me related to both of my mums. Their relationship ended a year after I was born, and in my early years I lived with my biological mother but had regular contact with my other mum and I moved in with her through my teen years and I still live with her to this day… I do have contact with my biological father’s sister and my cousin (who I am quite close to and my paternal aunt is best friends with my biological mum) but most of his family have declined to have contact with me, which I did find quite upsetting at first… I’m 19 and I’ve never made any attempts to contact him out of respect for that arrangement. Maybe someday I will change my mind or he may decide to contact me but I’m leaving that up to him to decide…

Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I a bad daughter because I wish I had a Dad? Is there anyone else who has 2 Moms or 2 Dads who wonders what it would be like if they were born into a normal family? Is ther anyone else who wants to be able to use the word normal without gettin a lecture on what is normal??? I dont know my real father and never will. Its weird but I miss him. I miss this man I will never know. Is it wrong for me to long for a father like my friends have? She has two brothers I play basketball with all the time. It feels so amazing to be included in their family. When I am there I think this is what its like to be in a family that has a Mom and a Dad.

I am also an atheist raised by a gay couple. “homosexual parents are just as capable of raising children as straight parents are” Now I don’t believe that’s true, not even for a second. You can disagree with me. I use to believe that my childhood had nothing to do with my mental illness as a teen, now I know that it was the direct cause of how it began for me. I had experience childhood trauma and repressed it from not really having a mother and being putting odd family structure of having two dad which I think is worse than having two moms tbh I felt abandoned. I was raised with my two brothers, but one later committed suicide in 2014. I just can’t believe that homosexuals are better or as good as straights because mental illness is such a problem within their community not that having a mental issues automatically makes you a bad parent but it does affect your ability to function and make rational decisions. I actually do believe that homosexuality in its self is a mental issues, but I’m not going to go there because that’s going to offend a lot of people. in fact I’m just going to end it there full stop because I’m not good and expressing myself in the right way and my English is very bad.

I’m female and 16-ish. I have gay moms (well had, they’re divorced and remarried, but they’re still cool and all). They wanted to basically pretend (in a sense?) they had a biological child together since it’s impossible for gay couples to have kids. So they asked my uncle (father?) for sperm and he donated. I always knew I came from donated sperm, but I thought (hoped) it was some stranger or something , so then I could find him, meet him, and seek him for mentorship from him in my college years. And it can be like when adoptees meet their birth parents. I had no idea it was a relative. When I asked my mom for info about my donor, she said it was. It feels weird and incestuous and NOT cool. My mom tried to make it seem “cool” but it just seems wrong and gross. Who the hell does this? Just ew. How could he just pretend I wasn’t his? We have family reunions and stuff, and he just calls me “niece”. I’m his daughter. How can people just pretend their kids aren’t theirs when they decide they don’t want them? Is that how it works now? ‘Oh I got some half-babies left, let me just give them away to this person’. What the hell!

I have two moms and it sucks. My dad was a donor and I’ll probably never meet him. Anyways, I’m now at the age where it really sucks to be the only guy in my house (I have a sister along with my two moms). Oh, also, they’ve been divorced since I was three and still don’t get along. Neither of them understand how to give me some space every now and then. They don’t get it when I just want to hang out with my friends and not with them all the time. Honestly, I hate it. I hate everything about not having a dad or at least a brother in my family. Even if my sister was even a little fun to be around, it would be better. I have nothing in common with her, and even less with her birth mom who I do not get along with at all. If it was just me and my birth mom I’d be a lot happier. She is the only one in my family who really cares about me and who really likes having me around and I like being around. My other mom’s side of the family is so cynical and mean to each other, and just being over at her house gives me bad vibes.

I know nothing about my dad. And for some reason the past 3 years that’s all that’s been on my mind. Its getting worse, that its to the point where any older man I look at I day dream about. I even write stories about it, or even rewrite books that have to do with father and daughter stuff. I know I must sound crazy to you guys but I just cant help feeling that way. I’ve seen “What a girl wants” so many times I know all the scenes and the words to the whole movie. It doesn’t help any that my mom is gay, and freaks out every time I try to bring it up. She wont tell me anything about him. Its like she wants to be my dad, and she wants her girlfriend to be my mom, they want to be this big happy family. But we cant because its wrong, it even feels wrong. I want my mom to be the person I talk to with boys not the one to hate them. I want her to wear dresses and date guys. I want a father figure that is a guy not a woman. Please help me anyone.

It’s almost 1 am and can’t stop thinking about all the family I have out there 6 brothers 6 sisters 1 dad I may never know. I have the paper work I know my donor number my mom had kept nothing from me but still that’s all I know. I payed $75 dollars out of my less than $10 salary for the sibling donor registry and nothing. It’s only been 2 months but the membership only lasts a year. I tell my self I just want to know something but that’s a lie I know allot of somethings, more than many. What I really want is to find a sibling who knows what I’m going through. I feel like my priority should be my donor but it’s not I grew up with 2 moms and 1 brother now it’s just the 1 mom, the idea of a father is a forien concept. All I have from him is half my Dna 12 siblings and the words “I hope your child will be a free-thinker and a free-feeler as I have preserved to be”.

Hi . . . I’m a boy of 14. I live with 2 dads . . . one of them is my biological dad and one of them isn’t. My biological mother (who gave my dads her ovum for my birth . . .) comes my house often. She’s 38 and my dads’ long time best friend . . . I want to call her my mom but my dads always get mad when I try . . . actually I’ve already call her mom when my dads are not around and she liked it . . . she and I have lots of connections with each other . . .

I am a donor-conceived child of lesbian parents. I stand here with the support of all three of my parents. This is a testimony that it is, safe to say, unheard of because nobody wants to hear about the other side of the rainbow. . . Growing up, I wanted a father…. I felt it within me that I was missing a father before I could even articulate what a father was. I knew that I loved both of my parents, but I could not place my finger on what it is I was missing inside myself.  When I hit school I started to realize through observing other children and their loving bonds with their fathers and I was missing out on something special.  I was lied to throughout school; I was told I didn’t have a father. . .it was very difficult for me to affirm a stable identity because of this. And my behavioral and emotional stability suffered greatly because of it… –Millie Fontana

 

 

The trauma of a previous heterosexual divorce cannot explain away the diminished outcomes for kids with LGBT parents given that donor-conceived children of gay parents weren’t born from family disruption (though they often experienced it anyway). Yet, they still struggle with many of the same, if not more, emotional issues as children of divorce.

The obvious explanation for why kids with same-sex parents suffer isn’t politically correct- it’s just correct: children have a right to both their mother and father and suffer (regardless of the method) when that right is denied.