Co-Parenting Sites Skip Love and Marriage, Go Right to the Baby Carriage

Women are seeking "platonic parenting partner" in another sign of failed western society indicating that women focusing on their career and acting like Men just don't work. The guy in this story is a total cuck.

It sounds like a great way to subject yourself to 18 years of child support payments.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/co-parenting-sites-skip-love-and-marriage-go-right-to-the-baby-carriage-11578393000?mod=hp_lead_pos12

Co-Parenting Sites Skip Love and Marriage, Go Right to the Baby Carriage

A new kind of online service matches people who want to have children, but not necessarily romance

When Jenica Andersen felt the tug for a second child at age 37, the single mom weighed her options: wait until she meets Mr. Right or choose a sperm donor and go it alone.

The first option didn’t look promising. The idea of a sperm donor wasn’t appealing, either, because she wanted her child to have an active father, just like her 4-year-old son has. After doing some research, Ms. Andersen discovered another option: subscription-based websites such as PollenTree.com and Modamily that match would-be parents who want to share custody of a child without any romantic expectations. It’s a lot like a divorce, without the wedding or the arguments.

Given the prominence in today’s society of both single parenthood and online dating, this digital approach could be seen as a natural progression. It could also be considered shocking or even, as some have called it, an affront to marriage.

“It’s a controversial approach to creating a family and there are people who balk at it, but the idealized version of a man and woman falling in love is shortsighted,” said Ms. Andersen, now 38—and pregnant.

Modamily is a co-parenting website and app that matches prospective parents who want to raise a child together.

Using technology to find a platonic parenting partner comes at a time when it seems harder than ever to meet anyone the old-fashioned way. As people spend more time building their careers, it can be difficult to forge relationships outside the office, where romance has become verboten. And as the cost of living has increased, it has become harder for many people to consider marriage or children until later in life—all factors that have resulted in a declining fertility rate in the U.S.

“When you meet someone on Match.com or Tinder, you can date someone for six months before you know whether the relationship is going anywhere. That’s fine when you’re younger, but when you’re in your mid-30s, you can’t wait for months to find out that person isn’t ready to have kids,” said Modamily founder Ivan Fatovic.

And it isn’t just single women like Ms. Andersen who are driving the demand for a tech solution to this modern problem.

“The alarm clock goes off for men as much as it does for women. You’d be surprised by the number of young, professional straight men who want to have kids,” said Patrick Harrison, co-founder of PollenTree, the largest of the subscription-based co-parenting sites. (The service also connects people with egg and sperm donors.)

He said about 60% of the co-parenting seekers are women. The male clientele is evenly split between single gay men and heterosexual men, both seeking to be co-parents with women. There are also same-sex couples looking to have a mother or father figure in their child’s life.

The process of meeting people, determining if they are a fit and sorting out the logistical and legal issues of sharing custody can take months, if not years—which could be good for business. PollenTree and Modamily each charge U.S. users $30 a month, with discounts for longer subscription periods.

Modamily’s Mr. Fatovic said the average monthly subscriber stays active for around five months, but that a new annual subscription option of $119 has become a popular choice. He said investors find it attractive because it bridges the dating-app and the fertility industries. (PollenTree doesn’t have outside investors.)

The success rate is hard to measure. PollenTree has had roughly 90,000 members since its 2012 launch. Mr. Harrison estimates that more than 500 babies have been born as a result of co-parenting matches on the site.

Stephan DuVal and Jenica Andersen found each other through a co-parenting website last year. They fell in love and are expecting a baby, due in June.

With such shaky prospects, I wasn’t sure I’d find someone making any progress when I first started looking into this. I’ve spoken to several people who haven’t yet found a match. I began speaking with Ms. Andersen last May, just as she was starting to meet some potential fathers online.

She first had considered men she knew personally, but none of them panned out. She eventually spoke to 10 men she met through Modamily and PollenTree. Because of her first child, she has to stay in Montana, where she works as a geologist, so her options were limited. In April she began corresponding with Stephan DuVal, a cameraman in the film industry in Vancouver, British Columbia, a 10-hour drive from her.

Mr. DuVal, 36, said the women he dated weren’t interested in kids, so he turned to PollenTree, where he met a local woman who wanted to raise a child. She developed romantic feelings for him that he didn’t share, he said, so he broke it off. After he began messaging Ms. Andersen through PollenTree, then speaking with her on the phone, they decided to meet in person in June in Vancouver.

The two hit it off. Ms. Andersen was still talking to other men, but she told me after the first meeting with Mr. DuVal that she had decided on him. “He has all kinds of experiences that made me feel he could handle obstacles in uncharted territory with creativity and follow-through. He thinks in unconventional ways, and that matters a lot to me. I felt like I would not lose him if things didn’t go exactly according to plan,” she said.

When Mr. DuVal met her son and saw how she was as a mom, it solidified his decision to become a parent with her. He said he saw that she values helping her son make his own decisions. “It’s a beautiful way of communicating and being a parent,” he said.

At the end of July she met his parents in Canada and he met hers in Montana. They both say their families have supported their decision. And although neither Ms. Andersen nor Mr. DuVal went into this to find a romantic partner, the two say they have fallen in love.

“When you’re talking about the next 20 years of your life, you start to understand the person better and you just show them what you really value,” Mr. DuVal said.

Each of them went through medical screenings, consulted lawyers and shared the state of their finances with one another.

Ms. Andersen’s doctor found signs that she could be entering perimenopause and suggested they try to conceive sooner than later. She adjusted her diet and exercise based on what she had read about optimizing her chances of getting pregnant. She and Mr. DuVal met again every month.

Ms. Andersen is now about 17 weeks pregnant.

Mr. DuVal and Ms. Andersen are in the process of figuring out their living situation. Will their nontraditional union end in marriage? “It comes up regularly in our conversations, but it’s not in the forefront,” Ms. Andersen said.

“I think about it a lot in my head because I’m a romantic at heart but it’s not bigger than what we’re doing now,” Mr. DuVal said.

They plan to draft a legal contract that lays out their parenting responsibilities, which they said they can’t do until the baby is born.

Their daughter is due in June, almost a year from when they first met.