Why don’t I have a dad? Agony of single mums’ IVF children
by Colin Fernandez, Mailonline:
More than a third of children born to single mothers from IVF treatment have mixed or negative feelings about not having a father, research has found.
So-called ‘solo mothers’ form a growing number of those having fertility treatment – but little research has been done on the effects on their children.
Typically well-educated and with good careers, they have children without a partner out of choice because they fear that time is running out for them to have a baby, and conceive through a sperm donor, the Cambridge University researchers said.
Some 39 per cent of the children in the survey, who were aged four to nine, were ‘neutral’ about not having a father around, according to interviews with solo mothers.
But a significant number were less happy, with mothers saying 27 per cent had ‘mixed feelings’ about not having a father, and another 8 per cent feeling ‘negatively’ about it.
Comments made by two mothers were highlighted by researchers in a study being presented at the annual conference of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Helsinki.
One mother of a five-year-old boy told them: ‘I remember the first time he asked me a question, was when he was about three, and we were coming home from swimming and this little voice in the back of the car said, ‘Mummy, why don’t I have a daddy’.’
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