Why aren’t there more single fathers?

Adults have a tough time getting along with each other, especially when they are of opposite sexes and sharing a domicile. Most adults, however, are very happy to live with their children. High-income women in their 30s often put these two facts together and come up with intentional single motherhood. They find a sperm donor, spend nine months producing the baby “in-house”, then hire a nanny or two once the baby arrives.

Why can’t a man be more like a woman? What stops a high-income older man from hiring surrogate mothers to produce kids and an au pair or two to take care of them when he is at work or otherwise unavailable?

In the old days, of course, a mature man was not necessarily precluded from the standard marriage route. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal, got married at the age of 64. To a woman of 20. They had 12 children. Today, however, except in some Third World countries, a woman of 20 is likely to prefer a young good-looking mate.

One potential obstacle to this approach to single fatherhood is that apparently American courts are not anxious to enforce surrogate motherhood contracts. For example, a woman could decide that she has grown attached to the baby that she has carried to term and elect to keep the baby. That isn’t so bad necessarily. A man could hire 3 surrogate mothers, expecting a yield of 2.2 delivered children. What if one surrogate repudiates the contract to hand over the baby. Can she then sue the father for paternity? Could that mournful situation be prevented if the man purchased donated eggs from one woman and hired an unrelated woman to handle the pregnancy?

And in an age of outsourcing Java coding, something for which many months of training are required, to the Third World, why not outsource surrogate motherhood? Suppose that a man has a budget of $50,000 per child. A smart healthy college-bound woman in the U.S. would probably reject that amount, only slightly more than the cost of one year at a top university. Consider, however, a woman with a good genetic patrimony in a country where the average income was $5,000 per year. Ten years of salary for 9 months of work! A bit of labor (literally) today and enough capital to buy a house and perhaps start a business. Perhaps that $50,000 is beginning to sound attractive. Not to mention all the other advantages of production in a foreign country. Obstetrical care and hospital fees are vastly cheaper in any country other than in the U.S.

29 thoughts on “Why aren’t there more single fathers?

  1. This blog seems to be doing a wonderful job of occupying his mind. You’ve got some incredible ideas, Phil, even if some of them aren’t actually practical.

  2. But what about transaction costs? You’d need a couple of layers of middlemen putting the wallet and the womb in touch with each other, and they’ll be scraping off a good percentage on the way. Plus there’d be travel costs – as far as I know UPS won’t deliver people, no matter how well you bubble wrap them, so you’re probably up for a minimum of 1 adult return air fare.

  3. Of course this is done all the time, except it is often not just one, but two single men together. And if Dubya has his way these men will always be single in spite of their ardent desire to go forth and multiply.

    Now really Phil, I’ve had it with all this outsourcing, it’s time for some in-sourcing. I am sure a demure little Thai or Filipino lady would love to be Mrs Greenspun, and in the long term might even be cheaper tan an Au Pair. I know these women are available as I receive regular emails telling me so (along with solicitations for various forms of male enhancement if you have any problem keeping the little lady happy).

  4. There’s nothing more loving than being brought up by a nanny who only sees you as a dollar bill in a diaper. Nothing like knowing that the only reason you’re on the planet was cuse Mom need the cash. Nothing like knowing your Dad is a flake because he’s can’t hold a normal relationship together with a woman. And you can bet your Big Mac with Cheese that Dad is gonna need to have sex with somebody so you might see your Dad with all kinds of different women and that’s going to make you feel just fine. Yup, you’re gonna grow up normal. (Oh, and if your Dad eats enough at McDonald’s, his breasts might get big enough that he’ll be able to breast feed you too!)

  5. Philip, what you describe here has been going on for ages in a slightly different form. It’s called international adoption. Legal, reasonably fast and reasonably cheap. The only drawback — the child doesn’t have any of your genes 🙁

  6. Alisa-
    Confirmed bachelors are not all flakes. The ranks are filled out by introverts, isolates, unlucky romantics, and flat-footed misogynists. Along with every other sort of man. I am not sure I can agree that a man uncoupled cannot meet or exceed contemporary standards of good fatherhood. There’s nothing quite like knowing the only reason you’re on the planet is because your mother and father wanted an orgasm, either; but for most people the issue isn’t quite so one-dimensional.

  7. Maybe there’s a better way, as this approach is flawed: It does not take enough care of the natural and important mother-child bond.

    How about this:
    As a man get purposely into a terrible emotional state, feel sorry about yourself, become shy, only look down etc.
    Then walk past your potential dream woman (shouldn’t she at least look beautiful and be healthy?), provided she is of an active type with some male traits, too. That’s a prerequesite for the plan.

    Allow a first casual direct but firm look. And wait…
    She will due to womanly instincts (to protect the weaker person, genuine kindness etc.) come again, offer herself. Then go the conventional road…

    But: Never become yourself, before the child is born, that is never switch on your rational mind, never dare to take control, even if it would be good and important.

    Once the child is about 2 years old, and has flourished enough under the natural mother-child-bond, become yourself again (that is no more pretending to be shy, helpless etc.).

    Automatically she will leave you instantly, because you’re not perfect and not a superman according to weird standards (and the “need-to-protect that helpless person-instinct” is no longer triggered). That’s painful, agreed. She’ll even be so turned off, that she’d like to forget the whole thing and with some kind encouragement will agree to leave the child in the care of the single male parent.

    Done!

    S.

    PS: I wish I had have this insight and patience in time!

  8. If you find Americans who are willing to take a baby that comes from a different country, is of a different race, and was born into lesser medical care/nutrition, then why should you “order” one? There’s a few million already waiting.

    You’ve been on a “What else can we get from developing nations” stretch lately. It will be interesting to see what this line of thought eventually evolves into.

  9. I don’t see this blog as being on a “What else can we get from developing nations” theme; rather what human output can we export to other countries. We’re already exporting all sorts of other manufacturing and service work; I guess the point was for us to see such a deeply and personal “product” such as children in the light of something that can be outsourced by possibly a large corporation. Yeah, I see it now…. advertisements on TV for a Johnson & Johnson baby or “be a merck-medco mama”!!
    I hope I’m never around to see such things…

  10. Great idea. I’m glad someone’s got the balls to voice these ideas. As the great light of civilization, the U.S. tends to have some archaic ideas about love, marriage, and child-rearing.

  11. Alisa and Luhren are right! Children are not pets and they are not hobbies. Raise them yourself, or don’t have ’em.

  12. You’re right. Everything can be hired out. And someone has hired you to shit for them. You are so full of it.

  13. A hilarious article, with an equally hilarious thread of comments.

    But of course this third world surrogate mother would never see a penny of those $50’000. If the usual model holds, this is a more likely scenario, give or take a couple $$:

    $40’000: US-based agency that handles the deal
    $6’000: bribes for local officials
    $3’000: baby’s travel to the US
    $300: medical attention during pregnancy and birth (probably closer to $50)
    $800: intended for the mother, but actually going to her uncle who “authorized” the deal.

  14. i’m looking for some tuition help this semester. i’d happily ‘handle’ a pregnancy for you philip. waddya say?

  15. I don’t generally generalize, but women desire children and men desire sex. Men will not be single fathers, for they do not desire children, just as women do not desire sex, generally speaking.

  16. At some point you have to let it all go and realize the bigoted nature of the human species. Every group has had its time under the gun. Are the Jews filthy usurers? Are the Arabs crazed fanatic killers? In New York we have a preponderance of Jews and a lot of Arabs. They don’t seem to be very different from each other or the rest of us, trying to make a living, raise a family, have a good time. As a pagan, I am fascinated by their holy days, their calls to prayer, their rites and beliefs, etc.
    There are many stories for and against each group. Ultimately, if one group or another gains control or power, we will have to respect their ways as we now respect the ways of those in power in spite of the fact that they are probably not ours.
    It is not a person’s affiliation that concerns me as much as their complaints, the injustices they have suffered, and how they plan to rectify them. I don’t like having bombs thrown at me, just like the Iraqis aren’t too happy about their situation. We have now entered the age of terrorism, little guys have found a way to get at the big guy burrowing in like a splinter under the nail.
    Lot of little guys and only one big guy. I don’t think the Arabs are the last oppressed group we’ve heard from.

  17. Ramakrishnan, he’s not a prof or even a lecturer. He barely got his PhD in ’99 during the height of the internet craze on a faddish thesis about creating online communities. Post-dotcom-crash he’d be lucky to pass that off as a senior year project at MIT.

  18. Great idea. I’m glad someone’s got the balls to voice these ideas. As the great light of civilization, the U.S. tends to have some archaic ideas about love, marriage, and child-rearing.

  19. Rob, you may be correct about Phil’s credentials, but he turned his ideas into millions in hard cash. I wish I can say the same about myself. It’s one thing to have great (or even mediocre) ideas. It’s quite another to turn them into real money. That’s why most of us are still dumbly slaving away for our CEOs while they zoom around to PGA tournaments and Carribean retreats in company jets.

    There will always be another craze over some other new-fangled invention. Just be sure that you recognize it sufficiently in advance that you’ll able to profit from others’ lunacy. Don’t believe me? Check out Devil Takes the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation. There have been many crazes, and they are remarkably similar in progression, even if the object of obssession is different.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0452281806/qid=1062429331/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-2333760-4739033?v=glance&s=books

  20. Excerpts:

    “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it
    deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
    are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat
    ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl
    mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs
    is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the
    wrod as a wlohe.”

    Now, most of you fall into that sphere of mind and it’s evident in your responses to Philip’s ideas.
    Whereas Philip is all about quality and he gave his all to us. How many of us can claim to give as much and in quality too – not withstanding good or bad ideas?

    How many of us can consider to have done as much research into an idea as Philip does before we strike back to question Philip’s credentials?

    It calls for each of us to look into our own selves and looking up to Philip for his courage to speak up on society’s ills and probably none of us is smart enough to distinguish whether it’s Philip’s personal evil or society’s at large.

    Probably none of us have the breath or scale as Philip’s amusing mind.

    On a personal note, I’m glad to have known the existence of this man who has proven to us how redeeming man can be and probably most of the people alive on this earth who are looking for answers to life’s preplexing questions do have references to all ancient sages and scriptures but life is still as troubling and numbing to them.

    Look no further, here’s one man who takes on life head on to the limit with all (almost) virtues intact, well, until he burns up.

    Go on Phil, give us the ride of your life so that we can keep on laughing but more so, learn from you (not available anywhere else).

  21. Hmm, ‘Why aren’t there more single fathers?’ There are a few answers to this, most notably that (1) most mothers wouldn’t sell their children at any price, and (2) apparently many fathers are not only happy to give their children away (or at least sow the seeds with total disregard), but will pay someone else (usually the mother) to take care of their children, as long as he doesn’t have to do it himself.

    In other words, it’s human nature, baby. Of course, there’s always adoption, although if a representative of an adoption agency reads your little screed and decides you see children as commodities to be bought and sold, adoption may not be an option for you.

  22. Do any of you have kids? I am a single father of 9 year old, daughter – have has the “single” part of this title since she was 1. Mom’s the flake, and thats how I wound up in this position. Na’ it’s not “human nature, baby”. My daughter is the most important person in my life, and I am grateful to have this opportunity, with or without her mother in the picture. Yes, there are dads out there who do actually love their kids, and while yes – sex is a biggie to us men, I believe for those who actually care and take the responsibility of parenting seriously, we can also manage to keep it in our pants as appropriate so as to to subject our little ones to all the crap that goes along our worldly desires. As a few have commented previously, “Children are not pets and they are not hobbies. Raise them yourself, or don’t have ‘em.”

    – Well put!

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