My daughters, Greta and Aurora, may only be eight and seven, but they know this to be true: a donor isn’t a dad. As donor-conceived kids they have been taught that they have a donor, a special man who helped me become a mummy, but he is never referenced in any way as a father – because he’s not.
Legally he is not their father: his name isn’t on their birth certificates and he has none of the rights and responsibilities of a father. Emotionally he is not their father either: the kids have never even met him.
I understand it’s easy to casually confuse donor and dad. I often hear friends and family say things like “Greta and Rori’s father is a donor”, and I always correct them. No, they don’t have a father. They have a donor.
While it’s not always immediately apparent why it’s important to draw a distinction, it is.
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