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Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Yeah, when we started to talk about this show on the different angles of single fatherhood, I think our whole team went back and forth on the subject. Should we do a show on all single parenthood, including all genders? Should we focus on one aspect or another of single fatherhood? But in the end, we were all shocked at how little has been written in general about single fathers relative to the voluminous literature of single motherhood, and we decided this show should cover the breadth of the experience. So we’ll be talking about single fatherhood as a whole, and we wanna hear from you.
But first, we wanna focus on a growing demographic of fathers, and that’s single fathers by choice. Atlantic staff writer Faith Hill has a new piece titled “The Growing Cohort of Single Dads by Choice.” Welcome, Faith.
Faith Hill: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah—thanks for coming back on. So I wasn’t familiar with the term “single father by choice.” What’s it mean?
Faith Hill: Yeah, so it’s basically, you know, kind of differentiating single dads who choose to become fathers—you know, they’re already single and they decide they just wanna become a dad anyway—as opposed to men who become single dads, you know, through divorce or separation or widowhood.
I had heard that this was becoming a bigger population; it was becoming more common. And I thought that was really interesting. And it struck me at first as potentially counterintuitive. I mean, I feel like we hear a lot these days about, you know, the “problem with men,” the kind of crisis of masculinity and men struggling and moving further to the right. And this, you know, on a surface level at least, seemed kind of at odds with that. So I wanted to find out more about what was going on.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah. I mean, do you think the desire to become a dad without a partner—do you think it reflects a change in how men are perceiving fatherhood?
Faith Hill: Yeah, absolutely. I think it does. And, I mean, we’ve seen, —not just in terms of single fathers—but with fatherhood in general, fathers are spending a lot more time with their kids now than they did in the past. So it’s becoming kind of a more active, engaged role on average. And I was told by some researchers that that’s been happening for a while. But even just since the pandemic, it seems like there’s been an increase in that time. And it’s possible that a lot of men are having this sort of moment of clarity where they’re thinking about, “What do I want my life to be,” basically?
We talk a lot about how there’s a shift with women—where a lot of women are kind of realizing that caregiving doesn’t have to be central to their identity, that they have more options. But I also think a sort of opposite shift could be happening with men, where they’re realizing caregiving actually could be central to their identity.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah. Particularly around here, I don’t think I know a single father who doesn’t see it as central to his identity, you know?
Faith Hill: Right. Yeah.
Alexis Madrigal: So how does this actually work? Is it largely surrogacy? Is that how single fathers by choice generally become dads?
Faith Hill: Oh, there are some men who adopt, and so that’s certainly a chunk of this population. But there are also men who use egg donors and surrogates to have biologically related children. And that’s becoming more common. It’s a very long and expensive and complicated process. There’s kind of a lot that goes into it. There’s an egg donor and a surrogate and lawyers drawing up contracts and administrators kind of facilitating every step of this process. But for a growing number of men, it seems like it’s worth it.
Alexis Madrigal: Well, let’s bring in Ron Poole-Dion, who is executive director and founder of Men Having Babies. It’s a nonprofit organization that offers guidance and financial assistance for gay men who wanna become fathers through surrogacy. Welcome, Ron.
Ron Poole-Dion: Thank you. Glad to be here.
Alexis Madrigal: Your organization initially set out to kind of help inform the gay community about surrogacy, and then along the way, you were seeing that there were many men who were interested—partnered or not. Right?
Ron Poole-Dion: Absolutely. We’ve seen a growing number of men who are coming as future single dads to our events. We have conferences throughout the United States and also abroad, and also a growing number of them applying for a financial assistance program.
Alexis Madrigal: And was it always like that, or is this kind of a more recent phenomenon?
Ron Poole-Dion: It’s recent in the sense that the numbers are growing. It is one of those self-reinforcing phenomena—the more people are coming, the more we provide specific resources for them, then other people are coming. We have also a dedicated Facebook group for single men who want to become parents through surrogacy and egg donation. There are some celebrities who are out there and provide some inspiration—or at least bring up the topic. So I think it’s reinforcing. We’ve seen a steady rise in the percentage of participation from single prospective fathers at our events.
Alexis Madrigal: I know that your organization began as an organization that serves gay men. But have you seen straight men coming to your events too, or people who identify in some other way?
Ron Poole-Dion: We certainly have seen some straight men. To be honest, we don’t always know if people are gay or straight. I interact with people, and I have certainly found single straight men who are at the conferences. I would say that, really, the more salient issue is whether you’re a prospective male parent, or prospective male-female couple, or even a female parent—because I would say that a lot of the obstacles, both financial and legal, as well as societal in general, have to do with the fact—not that we are LGBTQ—the fact that we are people who are going to have a child without a female in the family.
Alexis Madrigal: So you, 25 years ago, kind of went down this road, right? And have 25-year-old twins now.
Ron Poole-Dion: 24.5-years old—boy and girl, yes.
Alexis Madrigal: Talk to me about what the challenges you encountered at that time were.
Ron Poole-Dion: It goes back to what I just said. We thought we were the last gay couple in New York to not have children. Of course, this helped us be blissfully ignorant about some of the obstacles we were about to encounter. But to be honest—once, and there’s this parental amnesia—you forget. I guess people who go through the conventional track forget some of the pain and discomfort. We forgot the financial pain as well as all the other ups and downs. But what stays with you is when you try to go to events—I was a stay-home dad for three and a half years—you know, you go to “mommy and me,” and you have to fight some illegal discriminations when it comes to parental leave, when it comes to the fact that we couldn’t write off any of our medical expenses in the process. And every woman feels that she needs to give you advice about how you’re holding your baby.
But, really, I think what I’ve generalized it to—since I also started doing this as my full-time occupation—is that there is some, at least, eyebrows being raised when you mention this. Some people would think, “Oh, the poor child,” or “Especially our poor girl—she’s not gonna have a mother.” And there are certainly ingrained discriminations associated with the fact that society doesn’t see a single man and/or a male couple as childless if they desire to have a child and cannot have it. So I think that’s behind a lot of what we see in society.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah. One listener writes in to say: “What about the kids? Children need a mother and a father and the balance that provides to have the most fruitful life they can. This is a catastrophe for humanity.” I assume you’ve encountered sentiments like this. How do you respond? Do you respond with research? Do you respond with the heart?
Ron Poole-Dion: Research is the best way to have a level-headed approach to this. We absolutely feel that research has confirmed what we have always felt in our gut, which is: the quality of the relationship with the child is what matters, and also being honest and being truthful and supporting and nurturing—all these things.
There’s even scientific research that shows that, both hormonally as well as in some of the brain patterns, are very similar with prospective intended fathers who are going virtually through the equivalent of the gestational period, such that, you know, there is some—even scientific—support to our ability to spontaneously be more traditional caregivers. Having said that, I think the most important thing is to see how our kids are flourishing.
Alexis Madrigal: Now a listener writes: “My godchildren—twins—have a gay dad. They’re happy, comfortable, wonderful, and loved. Love is love.”
We’re talking about single fatherhood. We’ve got Ron Poole-Dion, who is executive director and founder of Men Having Babies, and Faith Hill, staff writer at The Atlantic. Her most recent article is “The Growing Cohort of Single Dads by Choice.” I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’ll be back with more on single fatherhood after the break.
