P,

As you are still vacationing, don’t know whether you had the opportunity to read the Washington Post Sunday Magazine article about sperm banks.  Seems donor dads are becoming more important to the moms who gave birth to their children as the kidlets reach an age older than infancy.  Shocking to imagine these young people want to know more than "donor 929" as the idenity of half their biological make-up.  Some of the mothers seem taken by surprise by the need for dad at all.  Either they had a husband they’ve now divorced or never had one at all, and are just floored to learn the kids may have some issues about all of this.  And the punchline, of course, is that at least one of the mothers profiled is a psychotherapist. 

Although endless time is spent analyzing one particular family, I found the donor father’s profile and attitudes most compelling.  He may make hubby wonder why he didn’t father children in perhaps the most old-fashioned way: by masturbating into a cup.  Donor 929 allegedly began donating sperm as a way to cope with his now ex-wife’s fertility issue (hello, does anyone see any big red flags here?).  He lists in his donor profile that he is most proud of his marriage (which has since dissolved) and is overwhelming flattered that he was contacted for additional sperm samples so siblings could be born to children he "fathered."  This insufferable chap talks on quite a bit about his need for alone time and his competing desire to spend some time with the children who have found him at last. 

I can only assume, of course, that it is far more difficult for Mom to ask Mr. "I need my space" to wipe mouths or bottoms when he has no legal or financial obligation to the offspring he has so clinically produced.  The mother, since finding the donor, has harbored a "few" fantasies about happily ever after with this guy–you know, the father of her children.  Alas, she knows she can’t expect a thing and is just glad to have him in the children’s lives.  And, quite naturally, none of this could have been predicted, right?  Would it be so troubling, dearest P, to know that siring a child, by any method, requires commitment beyond your wildest dreams (and worst fears?)

Without you here to balance my viewpoint, P, I strongly see this as a sign that the end is near.  Please do let me know if I’m misguided in believing that, for once, the evangelicals are on the right side of an issue.  Oh, dear Lord, next thing you know I’ll be wearing nothing but an apron and Saran Wrap for hubby.  Just get back here before I start a garden club please.  Must run now, dearest P.  I should quickly renew my commitment to my liberal ideology in the only way I can at the moment: through the haze of my rose-colored cosmopolitan glass. 

Faithfully,

C.   

Dear C,

While I did not read the article in question, I did manage to rouse myself out of my vacation-mode brain atrophy enough to read an article today that claimed children born from artificial insemination have higher IQs than those conceived naturally.  As if you and I didn’t have enough to feel bad about – now we have to feel guilty about disadvantaging our children by getting pregnant the old-old-fashioned away!  What the hell were we thinking? 

Re: hubby’s secret desire to become sperm donor No. 930, I think your fears may be well-founded, which is why I suggest you and I march both hubby and the oldballandchain down to the nearest snip shop as soon as I get back.  After all, it’s one thing for them to want to preserve their seed for a twenty year old trophy wife, who will no doubt demand as much ‘quality’ time with her and the neo-brats as we have; quite another for them to entertain the prospect of fatherhood without fear. 

I’ll bring the stun gun and the nets, if you can just distract them – any shiny piece of technology will do.

Faithfully,

P.