The Summative Critical Review of “Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent”

Summative Critical Review of

“Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent”

The Main Arguments and Evidence Presented By the Paper

The main argument presented by the authors in this article is regarding the phenomenon of ‘single fathers by choice.’ The term ‘single fathers by choice’ refers to gay males or heterosexual men who have appeared to aggressively choose to become a single parent by using the method of adopting a child in previous days. However, in these modern days, there are some new marvels that have turned out to become their most preferences in being a single father, which is by surrogacy and egg donation. A piece of evidence has also added in this article which presented that the single fathers have mostly enjoyed the greater profits, well educated, further social facilities, and more steady employment. This article has explored more on the life experiences of the single fathers, along with their motivations and decisions for having their child by using the method of surrogacy. 

This article has presented the word of a single father in it, which simply means that such people decide to be alone parents of their children. These men are mostly gay or homosexual and they undergo a procedure of adoption, egg donation or surrogacy to have a child. The ratio is increasing day by day for such fathers, but here one thing needs to be noted that in every country rules for such single parent (father) varies from place to place. In many areas, single fathers recently have been recently accepted by the fertility clinics for being a candidate for the procedure of surrogacy. Regardless of all the ethical appeal intended for the free access towards the facilities of fertility regardless of the sexual orientation or the marital status. 

Different researches have been shown that single fathers live a happy and satisfied life as compared to both the parents. Single fathers enjoy their income in a better way, they can easily provide all the facilities to their child, gives better education to their child and above all such fathers are further possible to be white and elder as compared to the single mothers. However, all such above-mentioned features might not be illustrative of women and men who eventually decide to become a single parent right from the beginning. Different studies have also been done on single mothers and such revisions have revealed that those single mothers who decide to practice the donor fertilization are greatly educated, they know many things about the society and they are well aware of everything. Such women are also financially secured they can easily do the full-time employment. Such women don’t have much of the family burden or pressure upon them and therefore they enjoy the things in their own way (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010). 

The decision of continuing life as a single mother or father doesn’t mean at all that such people don’t want to become a parent. Obviously they do want to have a family like others but there lie many things due to which they don’t want to be in a relationship between wife and husband. Same is the case here, reasons vary from person to person and from family to family as well. All such things count but the choice is completely upon a person and the person is free to take their decisions in their own way. The reasons which described in the article have included the emotional feeling for those men that it existed as the exact time (that is partaking 'worked through' worries around single fatherhood; profession as well as economic strength; a fright of their ages which are getting older; they do not want to wait any longer for the ‘perfect’ bond to happen in their lives), external inspiration, a wish to reproduce as well as a fear of having to experience divorce or separation. Hence, all of these reasons have strengthened their motivation to become a single father by surrogacy rather than other available methods that they could take to become a single father. 

The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Arguments and Evidence Presented By the Paper

The Strengths

One of the strengths of this article is that this article is the initial study which discover more on the life experiences along with the motivations and decisions of those single men who eventually choose to become a single father. Another strength was from how the article has clear the research by conducting an investigation of single fathers’ surrogacy families which resided in Italy. This investigation was conducted to get the qualitative analysis regarding the reasons from those single fathers in parenting alone throughout surrogacy which are:

Right timing

Every single father who has decided to parent alone merely at the time when they have felt that it was the right timing for this. Nearly all of them have ensured this right after they have “worked through” all of the concerns around the situation that might have appeared from being a single parent. For example, certain norms which mentioned clearly that a male would never be able to be a great single parent, and a fact which mentioned that mothers are completely fundamental for the kid to grow, as well as a fear that the kid might turn out to become an orphan once they would die. In these circumstances, fathers would definitely get discouraged by a wide-ranging deficiency of symbol of single fatherhood. Almost all of the gay fathers tangled these concerns along with assumed homophobia. The mainstream of fathers have renowned that there would be a high cost of surrogacy as well as child nurturing, and thus, they have initiated their journey to become a single father only at the time once these men really sensed that they had really accomplished ‘career and financial stability’. Furthermore, almost all of these single fathers were also concerned around an idea that they have to wait for the “perfect” love story to happen in their lives and felt disputed with their plea for a kid in the situation of their former unsuccessful relationship. Meanwhile, some other fathers had a ‘fear of getting older’ and also concerned a possibility that they may be unable to live long enough to watch how their kid become adult.

The feeling of being adequately encouraged to proceed

In conjunction with explaining their wish for a kid, almost all of these fathers have clearly stated that they have anticipated that raising a child would quite an exhausting task to do. As a consequence, a significant aspect that influenced them to start surrogacy was appeared to be an acceptable motivation which comes from their family as well as their friends. In fact, even the fathers who were particularly unconfident of the reactions that might come from their family members believed that the birth of their child will eventually melt down their families’ hearts.

Desire to reproduce on “Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent”

Around partial of these single fathers have clearly detailed that their ‘wish for a child of my own’ is aligned with the context of a desire that they have to reproduce. Additionally, these fathers did not restrict their experience of parenthood to nurturing a kid. On the other hand, they have extended this definition to take account of their kid’s creation. This might be aligned with the prescription that there might be a different feeling that we feel for our own ‘genetic’ child with an adopted child. In fact, the feeling for our own ‘genetic’ child will be stronger if compare with our feeling for our adopted child. 

Fear of separation or divorce

In some of the circumstances, the fathers were preferred to become a single parent, with a purpose to evade the possibility that might come in which their kid would have to suffer a parental separation or also known as divorce. Amongst these fathers, there are some heterosexual fathers who have also be frightened that, within the circumstance of separation or divorce, the judge might eventually give away their kid’s guardianship to the mother.

Furthermore, the article also has strengthened its arguments with including some explanations from the review of literature that come from certain valid resources. Completing the research, this article has also represented the feelings, as well as the reactions from the single fathers after they have chosen the method of surrogacy and get the child. 

The Weaknesses on “Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent”

On the other hand, one of the weaknesses from this article is that the research was not including any clear evidence of how this surrogacy method would benefit these single fathers in having their child if compare with adoption procedure. This comparison could be a more convincing argument to add the reasons for the single fathers to choose the surrogacy method. As we have acknowledged, having a child with an adoption procedure would definitely quite easier for these fathers to follow rather than going with the surrogacy procedure.   

Another weakness also can be seen by how the article has not completed the research with the consequence that the child would experience. This point is, indeed, quite important with the fact that, if we would know how the consequence whether positive or negative impacts for the development of the child from this single fatherhood method, then this article might be able to change the negative view of some people who might have a bad image or prescription regarding this matter (Marsiglio & Pleck, 2005). 

If we take a look at a description of the strengths and weaknesses regarding the article above, it is fair to say that this article has more strengths than its weaknesses. For this reason, this article could be used as one of the valid resources for research on the same topic. 

How the article contribute to a broad understanding of the issues

This article has given a broad understanding of the context of the ‘single fathers by choice’ by presenting specific reasons for those men who have chosen this way. The article has clearly turned out to become the first article that studied regarding this topic and has detailed properly the life experiences, the reasons, along with the reactions from the single fathers who have chosen the method of surrogacy to get their child. One interesting concept was also mentioned in the discussion part of this article which is, “the decision to conceive without a partner was complex and carefully considered, and one that was taken following a discussion with family, friends, health practitioners and other single fathers” (Carone, Baiocco, & Lingiardi, 2017).

As a conclusion, we can say that the article which titled “Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent” written by Carone et al., has presented different, unique research that really an attractive one for anyone to study and explore. It is a quite an interesting thing to find out that the gays male, who has been suffering from huge discrimination by some people, eventually have the emotional feeling to raise up their own child. In addition to this, another more interesting thing brought by this article is that the reasons for these fathers to raise their child alone which quite amazing since these types of reasons are typically acquired by women. This matter has definitely become a more convincing fact for the society who have been underestimated the gay males and even look at them with one eye. 

Hence, this article has clear up our prescription and broad understanding around the fact that it was still being a topic of an argument regarding the reasons of these fathers to choose surrogacy to have their child and raise the child as a single parent. Of notice is that, despite the fact that the gay, as well as heterosexual fathers, have shared the same motives for being a single father along with the same fears around single fatherhood, these fathers have turned out to be at variance in their preferences which decided for getting surrogacy instead of other pathways to become a parent. For this reason, this article will definitely contribute some points for the governments in various countries across the world to make proper decisions regarding the policies for this topic. Hopefully, they would make a proper decision that would benefit everyone in this case. 

References “Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent”

Biblarz, T. J., & Stacey, J. (2010). How does the gender of parents matter? Journal of marriage and family, 3-22.

Carone, N., Baiocco, R., & Lingiardi, V. (2017). Single fathers by choice using surrogacy: why men decide to have a child as a single parent. Human reproduction, 1871-1879.

Marsiglio, W., & Pleck, J. H. (2005). Fatherhood and masculinities. The handbook of studies on men and masculinities, 249-269.