Modern Families: Platonic or elective co-parenting

This is the first of a two-part article. Here we summarise some of the academic research and thinking on elective co-parenting. Part 2 looks at the way the case law has responded to the new and diverse family structures.

Elective co-parenting families, meaning two (or more) parents who are not in a romantic relationship having a child together, are becoming more common amongst cisgender, heterosexual parents. The focus of these relationships is the desire to become a parent, rather than a romantic relationship. Since around 2015, an uptick in the number of websites and Apps offering to introduce those looking for a platonic co-parent to start a family with has been seen. The sites and Apps include CoParents.co.uk, Pollentree and Modamily.com.

There is a long history of platonic co-parenting within the LGBTQ+ community. Co-parenting within the cisgender and heterosexual community has historically been largely confined to post-separation co-parenting following the ending of a romantic relationship. This is clearly a different situation from those who have never been in a romantic relationship and who come together specifically to have a family and to co-parent.

The 2024 research study by Golombok, Jadva et al explored two research questions: why do cisgender and heterosexual individuals decide to enter into elective co-parenting arrangements? And how do they manage their co-parenting arrangement and their relationship with their co-parent? The team analysed interview data from 10 elective co-parents (five mothers and five fathers). For the purposes of her talk to Resolution, Professor Jadva also drew on research carried out in a Belgian study of nine co-parenting arrangements involving gay and lesbian adults and an Israeli study of 10 heterosexual women co-parenting with gay men.

Professor Jadva has been researching outcomes for children in family groups outside the “traditional” family for almost 40 years. For this research topic, Professor Jadva collaborated with Susan Golombok, Professor of Family Research and Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, Susie Bower-Brown of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge and the Thomas Coram Research Unit at UCL, and Sarah Foley from the University of Edinburgh. The research was published as: Bower-Brown, Foley, Jadva & Golombok (2024) “Grappling with tradition: the experiences of cisgender, heterosexual mothers and fathers in elective co-parenting arrangements”, Journal of Family Studies, 30:1, pp82-103

In terms of why cisgender and heterosexual individuals decide to enter into elective co-parenting arrangements, the research suggested three principal themes:

• First, where the individuals had been expecting a traditional family and co-parenting was the plan B. Many of the participants described being disappointed in previous relationships, which were either not suitable for raising children within, where one party did not wish to have children or where there were fertility issues.
• Second, where individuals were seeking the “traditional” family by non-traditional means. Many participants described holding the view that a child needs a mother and a father, and donors of sperm considered this a route to a family where they would be able to have greater involvement.
• Third, individuals who considered co-parenting to be an improved version of the traditional family; a way to improve upon and modernise the “traditional” family model. Under this theme, participants considered platonic co-parenting to be a way in which to enter into family life with a clear head and with a focus on whether your partner will be a good co-parent, rather than on whether they would make a good romantic partner.

From the question of how cisgender and heterosexual individuals manage their co-parenting arrangement and their relationship with their co-parent, four main themes emerged. The first of these themes was “getting (and staying on) the same page”. Participants in this group had often prepared extensively for co-parenting, chose their co-parent carefully, and had ongoing, detailed discussions about their co-parenting agreement.

The second theme of managing the family was “mutual respect and understanding”. Within this theme participants described friendship as vital to the parenting relationship and family dynamic. A number of individuals described their family as “two friends that had a baby”.

The third theme that emerged for how the family was managed was “She makes [the decisions], I stick by them.” Within this theme, participants took on more traditional gendered roles within the parenting or family dynamic. Some fathers within this theme described finding the parenting distance to be difficult. The fourth theme that emerged is described by those participants as “I just say it is complicated”. From this theme emerged parents who struggled with the sense that platonic co-parenting for cisgender and heterosexual parents remains somewhat taboo. These parents may allow others to assume that they were once in a romantic relationship with their co-parent, or they may describe their co-parent loosely as their “partner”.

Following on from the above study, further research was carried out by Professor Jadva and her team which asked whether the psychological outcomes for parents and children differ between co-parenting families that meet online and those who co-parent with someone already known. This study involved 23 elective co-parenting families (13 met online via a connection website, 10 already knew each other). Of the 23 families, nine were headed by two heterosexual parents, four had one heterosexual and one LGBTQ+ parent, and ten had two or more LGBTQ+ parents. All the groupings were found to be similarly likely to pursue elective co-parenting with someone they met online or someone known to them previously. Most co-parents had undergone medical screening before becoming co-parents (91.3%) and around three-quarters had drawn up a legal co-parenting agreement (73.9%). Around 74% had conceived outside of a clinic. No differences between groups were found on wellbeing, social support, couple relationship quality or co-parenting alliance, stigma or child difficulties. However, around half of the parents reported experiencing some level of prejudice (50%) and criticism (40%) towards them in their local community because of their family set-up. Parent mental health and parenting stress were related to more difficulties within the family, regardless of type of family. Some research would suggest that within elective co-parenting relationships, parents may compensate for lack of romantic relationship by being more intentional and communicative in their approach to parenting (the “compensation hypothesis”). In turn, parenting stress was an important predictor of child adjustment problems irrespective of family type.

The concept of “the family”

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 prohibited local authorities from promoting in schools, homosexuality as a “pretended family relationship”. The legislation explicitly targeted families, not just sexual relationships and put into law the idea that families with same-sex parents were not a valid or legitimate family group. This legislation was not repealed until 2003.

In 1978, when Susan Golombok, Professor of Family Research and Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, began her research into families, no lesbian mother had been allowed to retain custody of her children if the matter went to court, such was the concern about the outcomes for children raised by lesbian mothers.

The law has come a significant way, and same-sex couples are now able to have their relationships legally recognised (either by entering into civil partnerships or marriages), and become joint legal parents of children through adoption, surrogacy, IVF, or artificial insemination (where the parents were married at the time of conception).

The research carried out by Professor Golombok and her colleagues, including Dr Vasanti Jadva, has supported these legal developments through researching outcomes for children born into, and raised by, same-sex family groups. The research has not found any difference in outcomes for children raised by same-sex parents as for those raised by opposite-sex parents.

Over the past 30 years new definitions of family have begun to emerge. For example, sociologist David Morgan’s theory of “family practice”, which redefines family as something that is “done”, rather than as something that simply “is”. For Morgan, “family practice refers to the activities that family members do in relation to each other, and the way in which these practices define and reproduce family relationships.” Alongside this sits sociologist Janet Finch’s theory of “family display”. This suggests that the further away that a family structure moves from those which are readily recognisable as constituting typical “family relationships”, the greater the need to display that “this is my family and it works”. A recognised form of display is through documentation of the family, including in our jurisdiction: adoption orders, parental orders, birth certificates, child arrangements orders, parental responsibility agreements, and even (not legally binding, but potentially persuasive) parenting agreements.

The idea of family as something that is “practised” by its members, rather than as something that just is, and the need for documents that “display” family, are important threads that run through the authorities and it is important to have this in mind when advising any client whose family sits outside of a typical family structure. How a relationship has been practised, for example, may provide important evidence of the family and obtaining documents or seeking these, may protect the family and its recognition moving forwards.

Such is the theory. So how has the law developed can it recognise new and diverse family structures? In the next issue we will trace some of the above issues through key cases.

Rachel Cooper, Coram Chambers