Longtime Friends Decide To Have A Baby Together & Parent Platonically — Critics Say Their Kids Are 'Missing Out'
A new reality of parenting.
Karolina Grabowska | Pexels It seems more and more adults are choosing to divert from the traditional nuclear parenting route and are instead choosing to have children with their close friends.
Such a phenomenon is called platonic parenting, which is used to define people who are not romantically involved with each other but decide to raise a child together.
It may seem like a unique and strange approach to raising children, but is actually becoming more popular, though of course not without backlash from critics.
Longtime friends decided to have a baby together and parent platonically.
According to BBC, in 2014 Charles Bourne, a 43-year-old nurse living in Philadelphia with his husband decided that he wanted to have children.
While he considered adoption, he later decided to take the route of platonic parenting after hearing about it from a colleague.
It didn't take him long to set up a profile on Modamily, a site that helps connect people with others who are desiring to start a family.
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Later in the year, Bourne met up with Nisha Nayak, a psychologist then aged 40, and after several months of communicating back-and-forth, the two decided to mutually have a baby together.
In November 2015, Nayak underwent in-vitro-fertilization (IVF) and conceived fraternal twins, making her and Bourne the proud co-parents of Ella and Vaughn.
While the reasons for platonic parenting can differ, it's usually brought on by people in the LGBTQIA+ community who want to divvy away from the heteronormative standard of creating a family, like in the case of Bourne and Nayak, who both identify as queer.
Critics claim that platonic parenting can cause children to 'miss out.'
While many don't find a problem with the idea of parenting platonically, critics argue that children born into a platonic parenting household can potentially miss out on witnessing romantic love between their parents.
Instead, they don't take into consideration that there is a level of love between two people who choose to raise a child together, even if that relationship is platonic.
If anything, showing children the importance of platonic love can help them as they grow older to have a deep respect and care for their friends, and can birth a healthy foundation for them in romantic relationships as well.
While speaking to Parents Magazine, Jessica, 44, and Naomi, 42 — who both live in Seattle and have been friends since elementary school — discussed why they decided to become parents together.
"I've always known I wanted to be a mom. I was also married and divorced young, and one of the things I was grateful for was that I wasn't connected to my ex by kids," Jessica told the publication.
"I think it's a lot to match with someone on parental philosophy, willingness to actually share the tasks of parenting, and then add in sexual and romantic chemistry. Naomi and I get to focus on our friendship and our parenting, and I feel like that's plenty all by itself."
According to a 2018 trends survey by Pew, these types of alternative parenting are becoming more common, with more than 16 million non-married Americans raising children, and increasingly with a live-in partner.
Platonic parenting is definitely an unconventional route, and may not work for everyone, but can easily provide the same nurturing environment as traditional nuclear families where children are raised in a peaceful and loving atmosphere.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.