The Washington Post ran an opinion essay today, written by an 18 year old woman who is among the first generation of children born by way of anonymous donor sperm.

She’s pretty bitter about it. And while I can’t argue with someone about their feelings, I think she’s also naive, or maybe thoughtless. For example, she says:

I was angry at the idea that where donor conception is concerned, everyone focuses on the “parents” — the adults who can make choices about their own lives. The recipient gets sympathy for wanting to have a child. The donor gets a guarantee of anonymity and absolution from any responsibility for the offspring of his “donation.” As long as these adults are happy, then donor conception is a success, right?

Yes.

But.

For one thing, I’m not aware of any circumstances in the US where someone other than the parents are generally consulted about a conception. (Scary fringe religious cult groups?)

And I don’t think there is a single person out there who has used donor sperm or donor eggs who hasn’t thought about how their child will feel about that when they are old enough to understand it.

I suspect there are whole lot of unplanned pregnancies out there, which resulted in children whose parents have given a lot less thought to how their children might feel about their parents.

I think all of us who have used donors to help us grow our families know that the fantasies about having been adopted, with magically nice and indulgent ‘real parents,’ that most children have at some point in their childhood, get an extra layer of detail and longevity because of our circumstances.

But the fact is, ours are not the only children who did not ask to be born “that way.” Children do not ask to be born. Children are not born from “perfect” circumstances very often, and even among those who are, there is no guarantee that the circumstances won’t change.

As it happens, we went with a “totally anonymous” donor, although I can certainly imagine Noah wanting to know more about his biological father when he gets older. We thought about limiting our choices to one of the banks that offered “identity release” at some later point in time.

We didn’t, out of fear that what happened to the essayist would happen to our child:

After a bit, though, I noticed that his enthusiasm for our developing relationship seemed to be waning. When I told him of my suspicion, he confirmed that he was tired of “this whole sperm-donor thing.”

What a heartbreaking thing to hear from someone you’ve been imagining as “dad.”

I can’t prevent that from happening to Noah in the future, and if he wants to seek out the donor, I will support him fully in his effort.

I’ve thought about joining the Donor Sibling Registry, but haven’t because for now, I don’t think that’s my choice to make. If Noah wants us to when he’s older, of course we will.

I don’t think it will necessarily be an easy journey for him, but I think he’ll have a solid foundation from which to make those choices.

And that foundation comes from the fact that he has two parents who love him very much and are committed to building a stable, nurturing, environment — to raising a healthy, independent, productive, and loving young man.

I know that a lot lot lot of you have also used unknown donors in building your families. What did you think about the Post essay? Are you afraid your children will grow up as angry about their circumstances as the author?