In general, there’s no right or wrong answer on which route to take, surrogacy or co-parenting. It depends on you, the parents, and on the type of relationship you have, on the family you dream of having, on your worldviews and, of course, on what your spouse wants.
For some people, having a mother figure around is important. Some single parents prefer to have someone to share the responsibility of parenthood with. Others want the children to have grandparents from both sides - I’ve heard it all before.
In cases where the coparenting is successful and everyone is on good terms, there’s no doubt that it’s a wonderful and creative solution and I’ve even experienced two such processes “second hand” of two good friends of mine. The children are already teens, everyone is on excellent terms with each other, and the parents also live next door and run one household.
However, I’ve met a few single couples who have had less-positive experiences. Or as someone defined it: “I went into a divorce right from the start”.
Some say that the choice of coparenting was a disaster, a waste of time, and complete disillusionment. In most cases it’s somewhere in the middle. Very quickly you realize that throughout the children’s upbringing there will be another person with her own attitudes and beliefs about parenting (type of education, where to live, spending time together and apart, decisions about the future), and when it’s not a romantic relationship with shared beliefs and desires, then things could get complicated.
Some single parents embarked on a coparenting journey, met partners, and became a family of four parents. The challenge became overwhelming and deeply affected everyone. In such cases you just stick it out as best you can for the good of the children.
From hearing about other people’s experiences, coparenting can be summed up as: when it works it’s perfect, and when it doesn’t it’s a nightmare.
There’s no way to compare coparenting with surrogacy, since even with regards to financial expenses both have costs, and each person should choose the solution that’s available to them and that suits their family’s future.
