Three parents, one child: our path to the modern family

I have wanted to become a father for many years. As a gay man, it’s not quite so easy. Adoption or foster parenting were out of the question for me. Nevertheless, I wanted a child, a family. So I started looking for alternative ways and came across Familyship.

Here I came across the profiles of Anna and Lea. The two also knew each other through the platform. They weren’t a couple, but they had a similar plan to mine. Anna wanted to have a child, but had never found the right partnership. Lea, on the other hand, did not want to have children of her own, but was prepared to take on a parental role. The two met through Familyship and decided to raise a child as co-parents. After a brief exchange of messages, we met up to see if we had the same ideas about a family. It was clear relatively quickly that we got on well. We agreed that all three of us wanted to take responsibility – each person with their own role. Anna would carry the child, Lea would be the social mother and I would be the biological father. For me, this was the solution I had long hoped for. After a lot of discussions and planning, we decided to give it a try. With the help of a fertility clinic, Anna was pregnant a few months later. We had agreed in advance that we would share the care of the child, even though Anna would of course play the main role in the first few months. When our son Finn was born, we were very happy, everything had gone well with few complications and it felt right for us. We looked after him together and tried to make decisions as a team. It was clear to us that we wanted to raise Finn in a stable environment where he would be supported by three parents. It worked well, better than I could have imagined at first. The proximity of the three of us was a major advantage here. However, our model also has disadvantages. One of the biggest issues is the legal situation. In Germany, Lea, as a social mother, cannot get custody. This means that it is not involved in legal issues. When it comes to important decisions, she officially has no say, even though she bears just as much responsibility in our everyday lives. Despite these restrictions, our family model works for us. The important thing is that Finn is loved and that we work well together as a team. Sure, it’s not always easy, but it’s the right way for us. Finn is now almost two years old and we are already considering whether there could be another sibling for him.