Know It When You See It

We need a new word. It's too often too easy to confuse one definition of the verb "father" — basically, bring sperm to the baby recipe — with all the remaining verb and noun "father" hues. Without a parlance change, we are left with Maastricht sightseeing guide Ed Houben, provider of half the chromosomes of 46 kids, as a supreme father. And that's just not right.

Intriguingly, while most sperm donors prefer anonymity, Houben seems almost to be seeking celebrity. He recently gave a party for all "his kids" and relies on "word of mouth" and internet searches to keep up his business.

By most standards (albeit hard to define ones), Houben doesn't really qualify as a father. Similarly, the uniting of Californian Todd Whitehurst and his 14-year-old daughter is a lovely story of a daughter's ingenuity in searching out her donor dad. However, it remains to be seen how Whitehurst embraces real fatherhood, doing the dirty deeds that actually should constitute what it means to be a father.

And by dirty deeds we don't mean getting drunk and letting your 9-year-old drive you on a beer run. The dirty deeds of being a father have no specific limitations, they're more like pornography in the sense of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewarts explanation that you don't have to define it only know it when you see it. It would be easier to be able to define it.