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One of my friends has decided to have children with the help of a sperm donor and I have taken more than a passing interest in her search. This is actually the 2nd woman in my broader group of acquaintances who have have decided to go it alone. They are both highly educated, but lack the physical attractiveness that would make it possible to lock down the type of man they have been interested in. But while commitment from the right man can be hard to come by, sperm is incredibly cheap. We are taking elite sperm here, like entirely clean bill of health for 2 generations back, model good looks, tall, athletic, pursuing an MD or PHD in STEM, comes from a family of inventors, grandparents who lived to the age of 100 etc. Imagine someone like the Swede in Philip Roths American Pastoral. You can get a vial of this sperm for 1000 USD, and why wouldnt you as a single woman?
Im not entirely convinced that the draw backs of being a single mother in this situation cannot be off-set by the benefits of having this superior genetic material. I have sometimes during this time felt a tad bit guilty for procreating with my partner with our comparatively average genes. Yes, we will probably pass on good intelligence, but what about physical traits and health? Is there anything parental love can provide that can compare to the confidence that comes with being a 190cm athletic, but yet very intelligent young man?
All this has made me wonder if "leftover" educated women will produce the new elite of tomorrow. Surely this is a more efficient way of making superior babies than the pre-implantation embryo testing of the Collinses? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/pronatalists-save-mankind-by-having-babies-silicon-valley/?
The entire outcome discrepancy for kids of single parents is due to shitty genes. Kids of widowers do just fine. Not that they don't miss their parent, but re: crime, income, education they're not at a disadvantage.
Kids of widows and wealthy, successful divorcees do worse in the aftermath of their mother's death or parents' divorce. It's not just genetics, even controlled for ancestry, class, wealth, parental background in every respect, children of single mothers do worse. For single fathers it's a mixed bag, but data on children raised solely by a dad (let alone a widower) is very limited and in many of these cases (every single one I've heard of personally) there's a female relative who steps in quickly as a maternal figure, whether it's a grandmother or aunt or sister. Often she moves in or the kids move to her. The same isn't necessarily true for father figures for kids who lose (or never have) a dad. Kids being raised without at least one central female figure in their childhood is highly uncommon.
Yeah, it seems to be quite a bit easier for widowers to remarry, and they are more motivated to remarry than widows. My best friend and I both lost our mothers when we were young and our dads quickly remarried—I think because they wanted someone to take care of the kids. I'd be surprised if single fathers are even really a thing.
I've long believed that women find it easier to transfer maternal instinct to non-biological children than men find it to transfer paternal instinct to them (although it's certainly possible in both cases). My just-so evopsych explanation is that women traditionally looked after children collectively whereas men taking more of an active role in child-rearing from a young age is more recent and largely coincides with the slow emergence of the nuclear family. I also think older men have less experience keeping a home, and so often face social pressure (from siblings, children, even friends) to remarry so they can keep their lives together and don't have to rely so much on family.
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