Separating Romance and Parenting
“I remember having conversations in college about how many kids I wanted and how I wanted to start having kids before I was 30. It was a lot; I was like I’m going to have six kids or four kids or something,” Taren recalls. “I think I assumed it would be a ‘traditional’ nuclear family. I had these visions of having these kids and putting ornaments on the Christmas tree, and I couldn’t imagine giving that up.”
Raised by two heterosexual, married biological parents in rural Indiana, Taren was largely envisioning a replication of what she’d experienced growing up. Her family included two younger brothers, one of whom was adopted from Korea. Her adopted brother took her family “outside the norm for rural Indiana,” but they were seen as not just normal, but exceptional. “I had multiple experiences as a kid of people telling me that ours was the perfect family, which I would imagine is weird for almost anyone to hear. Every family has weird stuff.”
By her 33rd birthday she’d shifted her thinking on how family would happen, but remained committed to becoming a parent. After the death of a long-time partner, a series of dates that went nowhere, and a couple of short romances, Taren decided to freeze her eggs to give herself a little time to pursue becoming a parent. What became more important to Taren than building a family with a romantic partner was finding someone with whom she could co-parent.
While seeking out a sperm donor through family and friends, Taren simultaneously took to OkCupid for dating reasons. Among what she found was a profile called FutureBestDad. “We had a 96% match score. Obviously, I clicked. His profile made him sound really cool. He was really in a parallel situation to me in that his whole profile was to find someone like me. Not to find a traditional dating partner. He’d always wanted to have kids and was turning 40 soon. He didn’t feel like he was going to be ready for a serious marriage kind of relationship any time in the near future and didn’t want to be like the 46-year-old who can only date younger women to still have kids, or whatever, and didn’t want to wait until he was 46 to have his kids anyway. We messaged and got coffee and hit it off. Then after eight months of discussions, he became my sperm donor.” Taren eventually became pregnant through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and gave birth to a healthy baby.
That eight months of discussion allowed Taren to really get to know Greg, to clarify the nature of their relationship, and to agree how they would co-parent their future kid or kids. To get to know Greg, Taren asked a list of questions, including: How do you feel about vaccinating your children? How would we split holidays? How do you talk about money? and How do you talk about race? “We also met each other’s families,” Taren says. We babysat together to see each other interact with kids. We met each other’s friends and asked them questions. I think his friends found the whole thing weird, in terms of this random woman Greg has met a handful of times, grilling them, asking them questions, like, “What’s the angriest you’ve ever seen Greg? How did he handle that?”
Taren’s process of unlinking romance and parenting points to something many people discover once they’ve had children with a romantic partner or spouse: “I think people probably undervalue the things they should be looking for in a co-parent when they are looking for a romantic partner.” Many of us stop at romantic and sexual attraction even if we know we want to have kids. What might it look like if more future parents looked beyond typical compatibility to thinking about parenting when committing to partners? What might it look like if more of us unlinked some of the multiple roles — lover, roommate, co-parent, travel buddy — we typically assign our partners and spouses?
When it came to agreeing to co-parent, Taren and Greg had identified a few different scenarios. One involved co-parenting with joint custody. Another involved him donating sperm and her donating some of her frozen eggs to him and raising their kids close to each other so that they would have a cousins-like relationship. At the time, Greg was uncomfortable committing to fully co-parenting and Taren was uncomfortable donating eggs. Instead of waiting to figure it all out upfront, they decided to take the first step. “We realized the right solution was just for him to donate sperm to me initially and see how that goes. The first step was ‘Taren gets pregnant,’ so we did,” she shares.
While getting pregnant through IVF was straightforward for Taren and Greg, the cost was substantial. IVF cost between $20,000 and $25,000. On top of that, egg freezing cost between $7,500 and $10,000 each. Additionally, Taren and Greg relied on lawyers to work out the many legal gray areas that exist for them. People with limited financial resources who want to start a family this way likely have to do so outside of the legal or medical system.
Despite making the choice to essentially become a single mother, Taren is not parenting alone. Her mother, who’s retired, moved in with her a month before her due date to help care for their new family addition. Taren shares, “I started talking to my mom about the possibility of moving out here. She was open to it, so we just kept talking about it. In the end, it clearly made sense because she was willing to do it.” In addition to her mother and Greg, Taren has an extensive network of support. Greg’s partner Crista is supportive and involved in caring for their son. Taren is also in a romantic relationship with a man who is polyamorous.
“Basically, once Greg and I decided to go ahead and have a kid, then I was like, well, regular dating is going to be kind of hard or weird, but maybe poly dudes would be cool with this. So, I opened up all my settings on OkCupid to say match me with poly guys. Then, all of a sudden, all my top matches were poly guys.”
In addition to her mom, a brother who also lives in the area, Greg and Crista, and her current romantic partner, Taren’s friends form a key part of her extended family network. Two of her close friends gave birth in the few months before she did. The three of them are very close and have even discussed buying houses together. In the meantime, Taren plans to stick close to her extended family. “We share child care and do all the kid stuff together. I’m renting very near one of the other couples I’m friends with. They live in a house where — depending on how you count — with at least three other people who are also very integrated and excited about being aunts and uncles in this kind of role, too. I intentionally only looked for places very close to their place.”
Taren’s approach to becoming a mother was both atypical and forward thinking, allowing her to create a network of family — something we all need, whatever form it takes.
This piece is part of Family Story’s All Our Families story-telling project.
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