Dear Prudence,
I am a white woman married to another white woman. We have been planning on having a child via donor sperm this year and have recently begun the process (I’ll be the one who gets pregnant). The bank has a search feature where you can choose for hair color, height, and other physical features, as well as race and nationality. I assumed we’d choose someone who matched my partner. My wife wants to find a black donor. She thinks that it’s important to “normalize” race, given the current state of racism in our country. She has often said that if people of different races had children, then race would become obsolete. I told her I was uncomfortable with this, since neither of us are black, and expressed my concern about raising a child who would face challenges neither of us know how to prepare them for.
We went back and forth, and she got me to admit that if I had a black partner, I would have no issues (since the child would have a black parent). I’d also be open to adopting outside of our race, since those children are in urgent need of parents. But my wife is insistent and thinks my objections are racist. My best friend is a black woman, and she said she didn’t think it was wrong, but that it made her uncomfortable for reasons she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Her husband agreed and said children shouldn’t be conceived to prove a political point. With so many recent high-profile moments of anti-black racism, my wife is even more adamant, while I am even more hesitant. She keeps bringing it up, even showing me a video of police brutality to stress how important it is to “normalize race” and fight against these types of situations. I just nod politely and then try to change the subject or go back to what I was doing. I have not had the energy to bring it up with our couple’s therapist because the conversation with my wife is exhausting. I am hoping I will find the mental and emotional energy to deal with this again, but I don’t even know how to resolve this difference between us.
—Reluctant Parent