It will happen next month in Barcelona. A girl will come into the world whose parents are not romantic partners, they are not going to be, and they met through an initiative called co-parenting, expressly intended for that: meet-ups and meetings between people looking for someone else to raise a child together. A project founded by the Catalan anthropologist Carmen Balaguer and that it has already been around for almost three years and more than 30 couples have joined the idea.
What is co-parenting? In addition to the name of the company that manages it, it is a new concept in our country, which consists of putting two people in contact who want to be parents but, or do not want to be a single-parent family (mainly women who reject the idea of being mothers). single) or do not find someone to have children with (which is the majority of men who resort to this proposal).
Carmen Balaguer is a Catalan anthropologist who, in 2018, attended a class at the university in which it was explained to her that the number of single mothers by choice had increased by 300% in recent years. “Well, we have to do something,” he said to himself, as he now explains in a telephone conversation.
The end of couples
“Times have changed. It’s hard to be in a relationship; they last less and less, 70% of divorces are reached and we find ourselves in a time of changes in family structures and in the ways of relating to each other. Now things can be done differently,” he explains. At that college conference he first heard the term ‘co-parenting’ and soon decided that he would launch an initiative to take it forward.
Broadly speaking, this company from Barcelona (made up of Carmen as the only permanent member and a series of professionals who collaborate with her) brings together both parties interested in finding a partner to face parenthood. For a price close to 800 eurosa profile of the registered people is drawn up, someone with the same needs and possible compatibility is sought, and meetings are organized so that these people can get to know each other.
“Is not the Tinder of paternity, as I have read there”; Balaguer complains. “Tinder, as far as I know, is an application in which you swipe through profiles. This is the opposite. To begin with, we don’t have an application. And what it’s about is the complete opposite: getting to know each other and establishing and strengthening a personal bond. It is not having a child between two strangers. What we do is precisely the opposite: putting them in contact with people with the same needs and objectives and, if they are compatible, getting to know each other in depth and establishing a bond.” .
recognition lineup
The main activity to get to know each other is the meeting of a lifetime. Although alternatives such as cooking workshops are organized sporadically. There, those registered relate to other people and define which of them could fit them to share the upbringing of a child. A process that usually lasts between 6 months or a year. “They don’t usually stay with the first person they meet. If they see that they are not compatible, we look for another person,” Carmen summarizes.
Balaguer opened a page of Facebook in 2018 and launched the website in 2021. Since then, around thirty couples have passed through its facilities. Copaternidad is located in Barcelona and Madrid, but is going to expand to other parts of Spain. “Meetings between participants are always in person; arrangements with me can be done online,” Carmen clarifies.
And, since its founding, at least three of the couples that were established to share the upbringing of the child in Copaternidad have become romantic partners. “It usually happens because they realize they are compatible, but they don’t necessarily all end up being couples,” she says. Be that as it may, Before pregnancy, a private agreement is signed between the two parties to decide under what conditions breeding will take place.
“What if something happens to me?”
This is the case of Laura, a woman from Barcelona who has just turned 43 years old and he has already found, after three previous attempts, the person with whom he has decided to share parenting. “I was always clear that I wanted to be a mother. I had a six-year relationship with a person and in the end it didn’t work out. I was also clear that I didn’t want to be a single mother. And not just because of the stigma; it’s that my family is very small and I thought that, if something happens to me, what would happen to that child,” she explains to this newspaper.
Thus, he found out about Copaternidad through an advertisement on social networks. He informed himself and established a good relationship with Carmen Balaguer. “I met three straight people who could be compatible but in the end I ruled it out. And it was at a cooking class when the right person appeared. A gay boy who arrived late to class. As soon as we started talking I had my feminine intuition. We both saw that there could be compatibility. We both work in the technology sector, we have similar lives, we shared values and finally we have established a very strong relationship,” she indicates.
Laura had frozen eggs when she was 37 years old. She will now use them and they will be fertilized in a clinic for this 47-year-old colleague whom he met at Copaternidad. “It is important in my case to have known how to separate the romantic partner from the parenthood. I will be a mother with this person with whom I have been knowing for a year. But I have another romantic partner who, for the moment, has not caused any problems.” In reference to the one who will be the father of her children, “she flows and I feel cared for. He is the only one in whom I saw potential as a father.”
In May, Laura went to the clinic where she has her eggs frozen: “At that time I admit that I had a little vertigo and blockage. I asked for space and, fortunately, it went very well. Now I have overcome that phase and we “We are going to put the process into brief,” summarizes Laura, who remembers that she has encountered disparity of reactions in those around her: “My mother, for example, has taken it very well. Among my friends, well… there is everything. Mainly those that They are separated mothers, they tell me no, because they have had problems, they are their ex. But, broadly speaking, it has been accepted very well.”
Supposedly, the work of the Copaternidad company ends at the clinic. By then, the role of each member of the couple will have already been negotiated. If custody is shared, if the child stays with the mother or if a visitation regime is established. However, Carmen explains that “our work supposedly ends there. Because if they need us for something else, we will be available.”
critics
Carmen assures that she has received a lot of criticism for starting this project, “but I ignore it. People still have fixed mental structures for some things, but that is changing. It happened at the beginning with the divorce, for example. Or even with female work outside the home. There was reluctance and rejection, but in the end it was overcome.”
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He does recognize that it is one of the main fears faced by people who sign up for this initiative: “The concern of many is the “Let’s see how I tell my parents… and I won’t even tell my grandmother.” But many times they find that it is their own parents who suggest this route, because they prefer that, that their children find a parenting partner with whom they already have trust, better than doing it alone.”
At the moment, there are no cases with which to evaluate this initiative for practical purposes. There are still no children that have been born in Spain with the co-parenting system. It will be from October, when that first child (girl in this case) is born, when Copaternidad will be able to carry out the first assessments. At the moment, the only criticism they are receiving comes from outside. Voices that question the model, seeing it as too cold. Carmen, for her part, points out that the doubts come from there, “in no case from the people who have decided to be part of this project.” A pioneering concept in the world, which was born as a Facebook account and is about to see the birth of the first person in Spain with co-parents.