The Washington Post Magazine's cover story (for Father's Day, predictably --has everyone else noted that every year on this day all the features are about perversions of fatherhood? It should be renamed Freaky Fathers day) is about a single psychotherapist taking her two children to meet their sperm donor.
"Do you know your donor lives in California?" she would ask them when a television program mentioned something about the state. . . . .
On Father's Day, she made it a habit to gather her children and say: "Let's send lots of hugs and kisses to your donor. Let's send our love." Her children, as she recounts, happily chimed in: "Thank you, donor. We love you."
All together now: Eeeeew!
But wait, there's more. Lest you doubt the Church's view that sperm donation represents an unacceptable objectification of the human person, the mom speaks of her delight in reading the donor catalog:
"Selecting a donor was empowering," she remembers. "Suddenly I had my pick of these incredible male specimens. I was the one with the power to accept or reject. I loved looking at those donor profiles; I mean, I could have any of these guys."
Yeah, without all of that tiresome human interaction you psychotherapists are supposed to be expert at. More:
The souvenirs have arrived --silver sperm pins. "Oh, cool, I got a sperm, I got a sperm," Aaron says. "Sperm for everyone," Rubino says.
The donor wants the kids to call him "Dad," but makes it clear he'll never have a traditional family. He's an "ahtist," don't you know --he needs solitude. The mother says she'd be lying if she said she didn't dream of a fairy tale ending where they become a family. Of her kids she says, "They couldn't stand letting him go. I can see the looks on all of our faces during that week --the happiness."
So she ends up changing her custody agreement should she die, changes their middle names to his, and thinks about moving to be near "Donor". . .so they can live like a normal family --you know, a divorced one.
Oh, they love to run stories like this one celebrating the alternative life --two adult lives here of astonishing self-absorbtion. Nevertheless, for anyone with "ears to hear," the deep yearning for the intimacy of a family that exists in all of these people's hearts cries out. Particularly and heartbreakingly from the children.
