If it is already difficult for many people to understand children raised by gay, lesbian or bisexual parents, a group of five people in the Netherlands are taking a step forward: they are all waiting for the birth of their child in a multi-parent family.
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Multipais means raising a child with two or more legal parents, explains the report from Vice Internacional, which did a report with the quintet.
Jaco, Sjoerd e Sean – who form a gay loving trio – will be fathers alongside their mothers dane e goddess, who are lesbians. And this will become reality soon, as Daantje is about to give birth.
They have known each other for 10 years and decided to become parents together six years ago. “Five parents with equal rights and responsibilities, divided into two households – these are the terms of the agreement we all signed,” says Dewi. The agreement was necessary, since the Netherlands – despite being well advanced in the rights of gay couples – is not prepared for multi-parenthood.
Legally, they chose to register their child with one father from each house (Daantje and Jaco), since they will share the upbringing equally. "The advantage is that we can take our child traveling without the authorities stopping us because, legally speaking, he is not ours," agrees Sjoerd. "If Danntje and I travel with our son, we will need Jaco's permission, as the baby will have his surname," says Dewi.
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For the pregnancy, they reveal that they didn't need to have sex with anyone. "Basically, it was like this: Daantje and Dewi were in one room, and we were in the other. At one point, Dewi shouted 'Yes, we're ready,' and we went in there with a jar of semen (…). We even used a pipette kitchen, but there was a lot of air in it and the semen ended up going to all the wrong places." It took two months for her to get pregnant with the method.
In total, the baby will have five parents, 11 grandparents and 21 uncles and aunts. "We are ridiculously prepared," Sjoerd declared. "We even choose schools. It's mainly the people around us who expect problems, but that myth – that the more people involved, the more difficult it is to make a decision – is not true. With us, there is no room for being irrational – if there are just two people, you can easily get stuck in an emotional argument that both of you want to win. But when there are five people, you are forced to reach a reasonable consensus."
They also reveal that they receive a lot of criticism from the LGBT community. "People say things to Daantje and me like You shouldn't have involved men and to the boys: Be careful with those lesbians, they will take the child away from you. It's all about possession, fear and ego."
