Single Woman Throws Herself A Sperm-Picking Party – Why Not?

A woman who is opting to use a sperm donor to have a child on her own wants to throw herself a “sperm-picking party.” She’s going to get her friends and family together to drink some wine and mull over her choices. Her mom is not thrilled. Neither is Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax, to whom she wrote to ask about her soiree:

I’m getting ready to pick a donor for my pursuit of single motherhood and I’m toying with the idea of a Sperm Picking Party. I would screen a list of potential donors and then close friends and family would come over, drink a bunch of wine and narrow us down to the winner.

The letter writer says her mom was immediately dismissive of the idea. When she told her mother she just didn’t want to leave her out, her mother seemed to change her tune a little, but the single woman is still hurt at her immediate dismissive reaction. She feels like it’s just the beginning of a long line of judgments she will receive from others for choosing to go the single mom route. She’s not wrong for feeling this way. The advice columnist’s response proves it. Hax responds:

You do see the irony, I hope, in wanting a more ”considered and thoughtful” response to making a game of drunkenly choosing your child’s father?

Hax then makes some blanket statement about navigating judgments by being a good mother, then offers:

You can make this path easier to travel, though, by not inviting criticism with choices that are tone-deaf at best, and at worst cavalier.

You are taking on a sacred responsibility. That doesn’t mean you can’t joke about it, mercifully, or a good percentage of parents would go out of their minds. It just means recognizing the line between joking about that responsibility and making a joke of it.

I’m going to respectfully disagree here. Why default to believing that just because a woman wants to make a festive environment around such a life-changing decision, she’s making a “joke” out of it? Can we give someone who has tasked herself with taking on the huge responsibility of raising a child on her own the benefit of the doubt, rather than chiding her like a misbehaving teenager?

People who take less “traditional” paths to conception shouldn’t be tasked with considering it any more “sacred” than the rest of us do. Would we tsk-tsk a couple who told a funny anecdote about how their child was conceived after a particularly fun night of partying? I doubt it. Would we expect parents who are conceiving children in the traditional way not to be lighthearted about it or joke about it ever? What bad things could come from this woman inviting her friends and family over to mull over her choices?

There’s no need to infantilize this woman just because you don’t agree with her particular brand of humor. I say do you, single mom. Invite your friends over, drink some wine. Mom can stay home if she has a problem with it.

(photo: Getty Images)