Their child most probably a href=mailto:will

Their child most probably will.y.alibhai-brown independent.co.uk

More from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Children who have no contact with their dads tend to idealise them in their heads and ( according to some studies) spend all their lives searching for the fulfilment which never comes.Women who are about to add a kid into the shopping basket because they have the income and perfect home, need to remember that this item cannot be returned if the customer is not satisfied, and that one day they may regret bitterly their impulsive actions. As the cute baby grows up, turns into a troubled teen, what will the mother say when asked about the dad who never showed up? Who has no name, no face, no presence? Will Kevin and Kevina be impressed to learn mum just had it off with some bloke and took off, that they were the result of a planned raid in the bedroom? Or that they arrived in a box and were duly inserted? If the woman belatedly informs the hoodwinked dad and then stings him for financial support – as is happening – only the most saintly man would then find it possible to have any kind of loving bond with the child. The dream for them is to hold the bundle, wheel him/her proudly in a top-of-the-range pram, then walk with a toddler just like one of those adorables in TV nappy adverts. But the perils of DIY motherhood are less to do with the hearth and home, much more to do with fast changing expectations and experiences of life in the 21st century.DNA technology, the right to trace biological parentage and the need for this felt by millions of adopted and fostered children and the centrality of the father/child relationship all mean that it is not just incredibly selfish for a women to unilaterally arrange for the birth of a father-free child, it is reckless.One thing that strikes me is how these women always talk of “having a baby” not “raising a child”. You read too many Victorian writers, girl.”He may be partly right.

I do tend to have old-fashioned views about parenting, divorce and the upbringing of children. You should celebrate – look where feminism has taken women, to a point of real autonomy to decide whether to have children in the first place and then when and how they want to arrange their lives to bring kids into their very fulfilled world. There was a time when we thought it would never happen and in spite of having a son, I went through an agonising two years. So I do understand the longing to have children but I cannot understand how this then leads to a position where any means can be used to justify the end.Robin, (not his real name) a friend of mine who works with families before and after IVF treatment disagrees fervently with my reservations: “What you can’t stand really is that childbirth is finally set free from the shackles of old institutions.

I experienced miscarriages before I had my second child, our daughter. They described their sense of emptiness, as if they lacked an essential part of their femininity. A few had tried to commit suicide and most had had fractured personal relationships because this deprivation ate into everything My children are my gold. For a feature I once wrote on late motherhood I talked to many women who would have given anything to give birth.

I accept that married parents can be vicious or neglectful and that all kinds of families can fuck children up. I know there are extraordinary lone mothers in all classes who bring up contented, well-adjusted children. Adult, super-confident singletons are doing it for themselves and a wanted child is brought into being. The phantom child is objectified even before conception; its being subsumed to the desires of the woman fixated on her own longings.What could I possibly object to, I hear many readers ask, some perhaps alarmed at what appears to be an attack on personal liberty and choice.