***this post is a bit unfinished- but i wanted to get it up before going out of town***

I have been writing in general about the stages that we all go through in life. The stages of my adult life have been clearly demarcated for me through my artwork. I can visually track the transitions through my photographs. I was a prolific photographer in high school, and the images that I made during this time were all over the place. There’s nothing that really holds them together. When I got to college It took me a year to start to find my voice. A lot of my photos from that first year are about isolation. They are in themselves transitional photos. By the time I was a sophomore in college I had developed a more refined sense of what I wanted to do with my work. As an adolescent, music was a big part of my life. In NY it increasingly defined it. Almost all of my time not spent on school was spent on music, and I began to photograph bands. For the next 10 years my life was consumed by music and photography and they were intertwined.

When I started playing in a band I had an unconscious understanding that it would be for about 10 years. I didn’t consider myself a musician as much as I did ” a bass player” or “a member of a rock band”. To me these were distinctly different categories. To be a musician indicated that it was a vocation, or a career path, it would also indicate that I thought of myself as “musical”. I did not. Instead I considered myself a part of an artistic culture that was interested in creating work outside of established pathways. Bands didn’t sign to major labels, they started their own. Writers didn’t try to write for big magazine, they started their own, and photographers and filmmakers toured with their work just like a band would. For us our community wasn’t the neighborhood we lived in, it was the people that shared a vision for how art and life could be. (The world has changed a lot in some ways. Yesterday my daughter celebrated the culmination of a week of willie mae rock camp- which was created and fostered by friends who were a part of the community I speak of. The whole experience was extremely empowering for her and the other 84 girls in her camp)

I grew up in a loving and supportive environment. I don’t think that my mother could be classified as a helicopter parent, but instead an actively facilitating parent. she sought out classes, lessons, and teams, that my siblings and I might want to take or participate in. However, I can’t recall any sense of pressure to practice or excel at any of them. My mother was ceaselessly complimentary, and my father bluntly critical. I don’t mean to paint him as a mean bastard who belittled us. In truth he was just deeply, yet pleasantly cynical. He also tended to interact with children as if they were little adults. When he told me that I couldn’t sing my way out of a paper bag, he was just telling the truth. I couldn’t sing, and even I understood on some level that there was no sense in humoring me. I couldn’t trust my mom in that sense, but i could trust my dad. Unfortunately sometimes the truth hurts. And as Erikson would point out, and my father should have known, sometimes the young need a little help in building up their self confidence before it gets torn to shreds. One problem that I now face is that I am so much like him in many ways that it’s difficult for me to keep my own tendencies to act like him in check. It doesn’t help that my older daughter is way beyond her years.

The dissonance between my mothers unflagging supportiveness and his somewhat brutal honesty helped me to develop some issues that I’m still sorting through. As a child of the post 60’s social upheavals, I don’t think I’m alone. The touchy-feelly ideas of “supportive parenting” were still on the cutting edge of child raising when we were little, and as such there were a lot of stumbles as new parents tried to make this paradigm gel with their own ingrained expectations from their own childhoods. My mother sometimes talked of how harsh a parent her own mother was. In an effort to not repeat these mistakes she likely made some of her own. I appreciated and still do appreciate her support, and I do believe that it has given me a sense of confidence in my own abilities. However, the critical nature of my father’s responses did a lot to undermine that confidence leaving me with an underlying sense of doubt that has hampered me in many ways.

When my future wife (who was a film student at the time) and I met I had developed a large body of work surrounding the youth culture that I was a part of. This work defined this stage of my “emerging adulthood”. I suggested that she drop out of school and make a movie with me about that world. She replied that if the film looked anything like my black and white photos we’d be all right. When we wrote a script and sent it to my Dad he read it and gave us one main note. Across the front of the script he had scrawled, “Where the fucks the conflict??” He was right. We were so in love with our characters that it was hard for us to see flaws in them.

His comment was brutal, but it would be unfair to not point out that we then spent a lot of time discussing the script and his mentoring was invaluable in helping us make a film we could be proud of. More than anything I wanted him to be proud of me and the film, and he was. Still, it would be many years before I could fully believe that.

About 15 years ago, when I was transitioning from being a “musician” to being a filmmaker, I was having a very difficult time with my father. I loved my father deeply and in general we communicated really well. I was a passionate young man; passionate about music, about art, about opposition. I’m not exactly sure why, but I always despised norms and beaten pathways. Even though I knew that I wanted to be a photographer, I didn’t go to art school. That would have been too easy.

I think that some of this impulse had to do with growing up in a college town that was stifling in its calm coddling comfort; especially for the children of professors. Something about the University system seemed so…. wrong to me. I’m not sure why i felt this way, perhaps it was the crowds of privileged seeming frat boys and sorority girls that crowded the streets of the small university town. They didn’t seem too interested in learning. I also saw that in some ways that setting had taken away some of my father’s passion. He had gone soft. A lot of my friends ended up going to the local college but i had a need to get out. I wanted to learn about the larger world, but I didn’t know what I wanted to “do with my life”.

I ended up at NYU when it was still largely a commuter school with no sense of campus life. As such it was much less cloistered than the schools my friends went to, something I reveled in and suffered from. My mother is quick to remind me that I had a rough time the first semester. I had sought the energy of the city but was homesick for the comfort of a bosomy campus. As a photographer and observer I found myself exhausted from simply walking down the street. The details of the city were overwhelming. The classes were intense as well. On my first day I had an 8:00 am class and was told to read the first three chapters of Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness” by the next class. I picked it up and then spent the next three hours trying to understand the first page- which was one of those half pages because it was the start of the chapter…. (this is not an exaggeration). I eventually understood the book and learned to notice less. This pained me on one level, but it was either adapt or die.

Over time I thrived intellectually and artistically at the school. I met some incredible people who took me under their wings and I focused on my photography and started a band. After college i wanted to continue to focus on these artistic pursuits. However, my …. juvenile resistance to doing things the “right” way made it difficult for me to turn these pursuits into a “career”. This is where the conflict with my father came in. Each week when we talked on the phone he couldn’t stop himself from ending the conversation with, “Write when you get work”. This drove me crazy.

My mother was a serial supporter. She was complimentary even when I had failed at something. As such her opinion didn’t mean as much to me. My father was supportive but critical; at times very critical. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut even when he was putting his foot in it. His painful honesty, coupled with my vast respect for him, made his thoughts even more powerful. My father was sharp, funny, and interested in everyone. He made people laugh and he made them feel special. Even the check out girl at the supermarket couldn’t escape his questions, and I witnessed how often it led to extremely “human interactions” that pulled people out of the furrowed habits of their lives. I wanted to be like him, so it was hard when he couldn’t see how much he hurt me.

I wasn’t making a lot of money, and I wasn’t having any great success with my work, but I was in a wildly creative period of my life. Almost all day was spent in some creative pursuit. Even when I was working as a messenger I was taking photos and observing how the “real world” turned. On the nights I wasn’t practicing with my band I was out going to shows and taking pictures of other bands, or at the darkroom printing them. I was part of a mutually supportive creative community and I felt completely on track. However, with his one simple jokey question he would derail my fantasy of a life lived creatively, and it certainly didn’t help to put me on a better track.

At 41, without the comfort of any kind of job security, I understand why he was trying to gently nudge me in the direction he was. At the time though, it was supremely undermining. While my father had a tendency to be an asshole in this regards, to his credit he was good at owning up to his failings. When I exploded in rage at his jokingly veiled put downs he always demurred and apologized and then did it again the next week.

In some sense I knew that he was right, but I also knew that if I didn’t follow my passions when I was young, I would never have the chance to follow them. I don’t mean to create the impression that he wasn’t supportive of me as an artist in any way, but instead that while he was was often complimentary he still left me with the impression that I would never, “make it” as an artist and that I better line up “real work”.

I was reminded of all these thoughts and emotions as I skimmed through this weekends NY Times magazine story on the 20 somethings. Even as my father was proud of the work that I made, he would point out that I would “never make it” as a musician. I know that as a parent he had strong feelings about helping to make sure that I would be ok. What he wouldn’t listen to was that I never intended to “make it”. In fact, my goal was to “not make it”, to find some way to be creative outside systems that I saw as hopelessly corrupt. I still see them as corrupt but i wouldn’t mind taking some kind of payoff to be a part of them now….

My father could be an asshole, but as a psychologist he was trained to listen, and he was good at it. Over many years we worked together to move past our antagonisms and we were able to communicate in a more supportive way. In working through our issues I realized that one of our problems was the lack of ritual in our modern non-religious lives. Rituals, like bar mitzvahs and communions used to pack a lot more meaning. The young entered the ritual a child and exited as an adult. That transition involved both the child and the adult and it changed the way that they related to each other.

In our current world, our young people travel far away to go to school where they have life changing experiences that their parents do not perceive. When the return in the spring they are changed, but since their parents have not been privy to the transition- because they haven’t experienced the ritual of change with the child- they often find it difficult to see them as changed. At the same time, because the child goes through this process without the adults of their community it is difficult for them to see themselves as a part of their parent’s adult community. There is no transition to a more peer based relationship.

One theory that I have, which has been somewhat borne out by being a parent, is that in some ways it’s important for younger children to see their parents as all powerful. When we believe that adults can do almost anything, then we are secure around them. In the safety cocoon, of our belief that our parents can and will take care of us in a “perfect way”, we have the freedom to experiment and test our own abilities. Adults rely on this sense of power to keep order in the community. However, if there is not formal transition, welcoming the young into the world of adulthood a certain dissonance arises. Intellectually we know that the adults are not perfect, but in an underlying way we still expect them to be, and that expectation causes all kinds of problems. On a basic level I believe that we expect too much from adults, and when they don’t live up to our idea of perfection we get unfairly angry with them. In addition, this idea, that they should be perfect, also gives us the idea that we too can attain perfection and we tend to be too hard on ourselves.

If instead both parties can see each other as peers they can forgive each other their transgressions, and forgive themselves when they make mistakes. Without some form of transition it is extremely difficult for them to have forward moving, productive relationships. My father and I realized some of these things together by trying to work through our own issues in these areas. I suggested that we write a book together, to kind of go the last mile towards being peers. He agreed, but it was tough. This was his provenance. I had no real training in it, so it was a little unfair of me to expect him to see me as a peer in this process.

We sent a series of notes back and forth but it was clear that we had different ideas for the book. I was looking at something that was more pop culture oriented, a series of tools to aid parents and children in reaching these goals. He wanted to quote other psychologists and reference their studies. We were never able to finish our work on the book as it started to cause more problems than it was worth. Still, the process did bring us to a better understanding of each other and ourselves. When he was hit by a car and killed a few years later one of my first thoughts was, “at least we were in a good place with each other”. I didn’t feel like I had missed an opportunity to let go of my anger with him, he had helped me to do it.

At his funeral a former grad student of his approached me with a folder. It was our notes. He had asked her to type them up and comment on the work. She told me how happy and proud he was to be working with me on it. Maybe it’s time for me to finish that book. Clearly the world needs it now more than ever.

I often think of that Talking Heads song that goes, “You may ask yourself, where did i get this beautiful car, where did i get this beautiful wife, how did i get here?” The older I get the more prophetic it is. Simple decisions, such as what neighborhood to live in have such profound impacts on our lives, who we know, and how we see the world. I really am often flabbergasted by it all.

I was just thinking of it as I worked on arrangements for my younger daughter’s afterschool program. All of a sudden I have a third grader and a girl in pre-K. How did I get here? It really does seem like yesterday that we were thinking about having a second child.

We are also in the midst of finishing a film that we have spent 7 years working on. 20 years ago the thought of working on anything for a year didn’t seem possible. How does everything end up taking so long now that I’m older? Our older daughter was 1.5 years old when we started. She wasn’t even in day care yet.

The other night I was shooting some video of a friend’s band. A 20 year old friend came to help out. Before the show I was talking to a friend and realized that we had gone on tour together nearly 20 years earlier. My young friend pointed out, “I was 2 or 3 then.” ouch.

I don’t mind getting older, and I have few regrets about the decisions I’ve made about how to live my life. Still the slow cold creep of age is tricky, and David Byrne understood that before I did.

Our 16 year old cat is sick. She hasn’t eaten in almost a week and has been throwing up when she tries to drink. When I went to make an appointment with the vet yesterday and I asked the receptionist how we might handle things if she wasn’t going to make it, she looked at me like I had just stepped in crap and said, “You would do that?”

As I told her, one of the reasons that I avoid the vet is because I don’t want to be judged. In almost all of my interactions with vets I have felt pushed to do tests and procedures that I didn’t feel comfortable with. In all fairness, I don’t believe that the vets are doing the procedures to make more money, but I also think that we have different concepts of how far we should go with medical intervention. I hate going to the doctor for the same reason.

I feel terrible about the situation with my cat, and I don’t want her to suffer. To me, subjecting a 16 year old cat (who has been in fairly good health but clearly getting stiffer and weaker) to a bunch of tests that would lead to surgery is cruel. She’s like an 85 year old woman. If minimally invasive techniques can’t pull her out of the woods, it seems that the only option is putting her down if she continues to deteriorate.

When we got the cat we had no children and no dog. When we got a dog, the cat’s life was a little more difficult. When the kids came she got a lot less attention. However, over the course of 16 years she’s gotten a good deal of love and affection; most winter nights she sleeps curled up with me under the covers. At the same time, our lives have changed significantly and the added stress of a very sick cat feels somewhat unbearable given the stress of two hyper needy kids and a difficult work situation.

30 years ago very few people would have considered surgery for an old sick family cat. Based on my dealings with vets it seems that it is now almost expected that pet owners will opt for it. Just like our relationship to pets, our culture’s relationship to children has shifted a great deal as well. At the turn of the century, a lot of families saw children as extra hands to help out with the family business or on the farm. By the 50’s with postwar prosperity, many people began to see children as the focus of the family. Today we have helicopter parents who live and breathe for the benefit of their children.

As with any societal shift these changes have all manners of positive and negative consequences. I think it’s great that people treat the animals that they don’t eat with respect and affection. However, with changing mores comes different expectations that can lead to difficult interactions. When I was questioned, and felt judged, by the secretary yesterday I was livid. I know my cat after 16 years and I know that it’s likely this was her end time. She’s been sick before but never this sick and never for this long. I didn’t get a lot better reception from the vet when I said that I didn’t want to do an ultrasound because I didn’t want to do surgery. The veiled disdain wasn’t so veiled.

In this case the sense of judgement had very negative consequences for my family and my cat. I had the vet hydrate her and give her a a shot to keep her from vomiting, to give her a chance to get better. When she continued to vomit after getting the shot it was clear that she had an obstruction, and would not survive. They hydration had comforted her and she seemed much better, so I hesitated to take her back to the vet to put her down despite knowing that she would not survive because I did not want to be judged for putting my cat to sleep. This was a big mistake because last night she went downhill and seeing her in this state has been very difficult not only for me, but for my children. I couldn’t sleep knowing she was suffering so I am writing this at dawn as I wait to take her to the vet. I dread the interaction even though i know that I have carefully considered my options. I love my cat and I believe that I know what’s best for her and my family.

Now imagine that you are the parents of a donor conceived child, or a donor, and you feel judged for not thinking through all of the possible negative consequences for the child. Clearly I am not equating pets and children, but instead the way in which our mores and attitudes change- and how those changes can have negative consequences. When I was a donor, I had absolutely no sense that children born from my genetic material would be interested in me. It has been a bit difficult to hear how much many donor kids want to know their donor fathers. It has been even more difficult to hear it when it’s said with anger and judgment attached. I imagine that it’s extremely difficult for parents of donor children- who conceived them with the best information and intentions available to them- to handle judgment about their decisions and actions. This is not to say that we should freeze our values as a society, but instead that when these values shift it’s important to have a degree of empathy for those that are “left behind” by the shift.

In addition to dealing with my sick cat this week I have also been stressed out by end of the school year activities. It has been a hectic year with a lot of ups and downs. A couple of nights ago I attended a meeting of parents from my older daughter’s school. In general, the parents are happy with the academic progress of our children but we have some problems with the emotional life of the school. To be clear, all of us give a great deal of deference to the teachers and administration, and give them the support and respect that they deserve. At the same time we are working on an initiative to improve the emotional life of the school and we have made some inspiring progress.

After several meetings we have come up with an inspiring list of values

1. Commitment to learning
We seek knowledge to better our community and ourselves.
• I can do anything when I work hard.

2. Respect
We treat people and our community with love and appreciation. We treat each other as equals.
• I will listen to you.

3. Responsibility
We use our thoughts, words, and actions to make the school a better place because we know that how we act affects our friends and environment.
• I make a difference.

4. Compassion
We care about other people and their feelings. When someone is feeling hurt or sad, we reach out to help them.
• I will be a good friend.

5. Leadership
We set a good example by having the courage and the self-determination to do what’s right, especially when others are not.
• I am capable.
• I am powerful.

6. Trustworthiness
We are loyal to our friends and community.
• You can count on me.
• I will never let you down.

7. Citizenship
We are valuable members of our community and good friends to our neighbors.
• I am powerful.

At the meeting we added an 8th, accountability. There was discussion that it was the same as responsibility- but we settled on the idea that accountability is an antidote for a failure to uphold any of the other seven values. While it has been valuable to think of these values as something we want our children to focus on it- it has been even more valuable to think of them as things that we adults need to focus on.

Last night, after another late school meeting/dinner with the kids we came home to find that the cat was going downhill. It was late and time for our older daughter to go to bed and she was being extremely rude. I snapped and yelled at her. I can’t say that I treated her with respect and I regret it. I did follow up by taking accountability for my actions. I know that the stress of the end of school and the sick cat was getting to all of us, and in retrospect it’s easy to see that I should have calmed myself with that knowledge.

In about an hour I will walk my daughter to school and my cat to the vet. As I make that walk I will think about these values and concentrate on upholding them.

I have not had the opportunity to read the entire study discussed in my last post. However, I have looked over it, and think that it’s a valuable tool for highlighting the needs and feelings of donor conceived people. It is clear as a bell that many dc people have suffered a great deal either from lack of connection to their biological roots, stigmas, secrecy, or a myriad of other factors.

As someone who has contributed to this problem (as a former donor), I would like to see it fixed as much as possible. I have no evidence that I have any children through donor conception- so it’s not clear that, even if I do, these particular people are suffering. So when I say contributed to this problem, I mean it in the broader sense, that I participated in a process that didn’t fully take into consideration the feelings and emotional needs of those that might be created. At the age of 20 I did this with the best intentions- yes I got paid- but if i had even the slightest inkling that children might suffer for a loss of connection i wouldn’t have considered doing it. This was pre-internet so i couldn’t even just google to see what people were saying…

Today while thinking about this stuff the term, the law of unintended consequences kept coming up in my head. In a sense every action has unintended consequences. When doctors began the process of assisting in reproduction it is doubtful that they foresaw a world where two people might order eggs and sperm from two other people and hire a third to carry the child. In a sense that’s an unintended consequence. When I was growing up, the child of a psychologist and a social worker, nurture was king. People believed that love and proper child rearing was all that mattered, and that genetic roots were of limited importance. As i’ve written recently, a lot of my film is about how strong roots are- yet i am still confused as to whether some of my feelings and actions are in the blood or the modeling. even with data it’s hard to know. In some sense, the unintended consequence of this upbringing was that I couldn’t even fathom the idea that my genetic material would mean a connection to me or my family to the child born of that …. seed.

While the system of anonymity was likely put in place with decent intentions- those charged with taking care of people genuinely felt that it was best for all involved if secrecy was maintained- the unintended consequence was emotional suffering. Now that it’s clear that secrecy is a bad idea it’s no longer an unintended consequence. It is simply a consequence. It should be very difficult at this point for the industry to ignore the very loud chorus of voices that’s beginning to rise.

When the “my daddy’s name is donor” study came out, it was an unintended consequence that parents of donor conceived people felt threatened by the way the study was put together. Now that this is apparently the case, it is a consequence.

Again, i barely have a horse in the race, but with my limited sense of standing I still would like nothing more than to help everyone achieve the best outcome. As a father of two awesome biological children with my wonderful wife, I know how important that blood connection is. As a former donor who is working on a script about these issues with a dc woman I know what a powerful impact these issues can have. As a friend and neighbor to countless people who are either single mothers, smc’s, lesbian couples, a gay man and a lesbian woman partnering to raise a biological child, etc I know that their feelings are on the front lines of any discussion. So any discussion about the rights of dc people that includes limiting the rights of these people is never going to go forward in a positive way.

If instead every effort is made to think about these people and their feelings even as we discuss the pitfalls and dangers of normalizing these situations then they might be able to listen thoughtfully, and participate in the discussion.

My point here is that even though I have not read the whole study, I have seen that it has upset some people, and that worries me- because i too want as much openness as possible, and i want to see the rights and needs of DC people recognized and taken into consideration.

Last week “My Daddy’s Name is Donor” was released. This report, which was put together by the Institute for American Values, shines a very harsh light on the whole system of egg and sperm donation - specifically, from the point of view of the children conceived by the process.

Alana, whom I have known and worked with for the last year, was a part of the study and she has recently begun blogging about her own issues with both her donor conception and her egg donation at familyscholars.org (which was set up by the Institute for American Values). The study and her recent focus on the issue has put her in a very emotional space. I talked with her yesterday and I know that the strain of dealing with her own complex feelings has been difficult.

Over the past couple of years of tracking this issue and thinking about my own relationship to it, I have come to believe that anonymous donation is a bad idea, and further, the system by which donation takes place is extremely flawed. It is clear that the system is driven more by capitalism than whole-hearted compassion. It’s a good thing that we are hearing the voices of those who are most affected by the process, the donor conceived, so that we might rectify that imbalance.

The report really focuses on the very important fact that the system is set up to serve parents (clients/consumers), and does not do nearly enough to consider the needs of the children (the products). Unfortunately, it’s clear from the ways in which the report is being discussed online that many people involved with the issue feel threatened by the report and the manner in which it was produced and disseminated. The forceful nature of the report may serve the purpose of putting the realities of egg and sperm donation in front of people, but frankly does so in a way that fans the flames of culture war. Again, it’s incredibly important to hear from donor conceived people as they have more at stake than anyone else involved. At the same time, if the discussion vilifies those who chose/choose to go this route in order to have children, it’s less likely that those people, and their communities, will be willing or able to engage in productive dialogue about the core issues.

One donor conceived person told me that she thought it was important to create stigmas- that people shouldn’t think that just anyone should think it’s fine to use donor assisted reproduction. Her point was that her experience, as well as the data in the report, make it clear that the emotional problems that people who don’t know their genetic identity face prove to her that it should be avoided as much as possible. While I support vigorous debate, and completely understand where she’s coming from, I’m sure that I don’t support creating stigmas.

It’s been over two years since I listed myself on the donor sibling registry, as a former donor, and I have not been contacted yet by any children born from my efforts. As such, my emotions about donation have not had a real opportunity for challenge. Intellectually it’s been made more than clear to me that the process of anonymous donation can no longer be seen at ethical or accountable. While it sometimes might make the capitalist based process simpler for many of those involved, it completely negates the needs of the child to be. However, not having had the experience of hearing from my own offspring, it’s difficult for me to connect on a completely emotional level to the pain that donor kids feel.

Alana points out that her emotions feel validated by the study because so many other donor kids have comments and thoughts that echo her own. I certainly have no intention of invalidating any of these feelings, and I think it’s critical that these feelings be made known to people considering involvement in the process. At the same time, I worry about using these ideas to create a sense of stigma, or a broad set of restrictions and limits on they type of people who can become parents. Further, the more that we create a sense of stigma, the more we limit discussion. Many of those who might otherwise get involved in the discussion are likely to be more private if they feel that they will be stigmatized for being open and honest. Frankly, the present level of stigma attached to donation makes it a bit difficult for former donors like me to be a part of the debate. I also worry that if the debate starts to pit one group against another we’ll head towards a long term stalemate that limits discussion.

I grew up in a “stable” family with a mother and a father who both strived to be the best parents they could be. They really did try, but in a lot of ways they failed. I think about the ways that failed as I parent my own children, and damn it, i make the same mistakes they did - over and over again. I work hard to keep it from happening and to some degree I do. The point is, my parents, despite their best efforts, were far from perfect. They, like me, are flawed. Even with their flaws, I certainly wouldn’t want to deny them the right to be parents.

The weekend that the study came out I was the photographer at the wedding of two friends of mine, Mark and Lin. It was a really beautiful ceremony and event. Near the end of it I was struck by the fact that I really hadn’t even thought about the fact that both grooms were men. It just wasn’t an issue at all. I like and respect them, and all of their friends and family. I think that if they decide that they want to raise a child that they should be privy to as much information about donor issues, as well as adoption issues as possible. They should read the stories of how DC people, and should talk to them, hear them, meet them. After gathering the best information they can find they should be able to make a decision about how to move forward. I don’t however, think that there should be any undue roadblocks put in the way of their raising children. I also don’t think that they should feel any stigma if they do decide to become parents in some way. If we structure a discussion about DC issues in such a way that intelligent, thoughtful, loving people like them feel attacked or excluded, then I fear that the issues faced by DC people will be lost in the shuffle.

It’s clear that as a culture we need to evolve in our relationship to donor issues. I believe that the discussion inspired by “My Daddy’s name is Donor” will help inspire a shift in societal attitudes and understandings. I do hope however that that shift doesn’t include increased stigma. An open and civil exchange of ideas that treats everyone with respect will clearly create the greatest benefit for everyone involved.