My Three Dads

Not often do we wonder if you can have too much of a good thing. One such time is with the announcement that soon-to-be baby Miles will have three fathers. THREE FATHERS!?

Father No. 1 is Scott Moore, 30, who was born baby girl Jessica. Father No. 2 is Thomas (given no last name in news reports so either a Moore as well, or less) also 30, but born Laura. Father No. 3, the gent whose sperm was used to impregnate the transgendered Moore, is anonymous to date.

Moore becomes the second celebrated pregnant man, after Thomas Beatie. [Earlier: Daddy Mommy] He and his partner are married Californians and have two sons from Thomas's previous relationship with a woman.

Good luck Miles and family.

Who Sucked the Life Out?

Nature's father-teen metaphor: Pipeline father's "suck the life from their young."

Few will hear of it — it being a nature story, after all — but teens in particular will feel the pain of the pipeline. That fish, looking like a straight version of the related seahorse [Earlier: Is Pops Preggers?], also is one of the very rare species where the male carries the babies. (In this case, the fertilized female passes her eggs to inside the daddy-to-be for nourishment 'til birth.)

A new study suggests that a father may be ingesting some of the hundreds of possible pipeline. However, another hypothesis of why fewer come out than go it is much more likely to those who have gone through fatherhood. In this scenario, it is not the father who feasts on the embryo, but the pipeline kiddies who cannibalize each other.

Is Pops Preggers?

Pregnancy and men can get pretty confusing, particularly when someone says something like, "that dude doesn't have the huevos (eggs in Spanish, although balls, nerve, guts, bravery, etc. in the vernacular) for kids. [Earlier: Love and Longing in Pretend Land and Neo-Heavenly Father]

Eggs, however, is exactly what determines the mother from the father, at least according to a discussion about why pregnant sea horse fathers are not actually the mother. Even so, and completely believing he doesn't have the huevos, four five time daddy Kevin Federline — at least via Perez Hilton — is looking mucho preggers ... not that that is a bad thing.

Love and Longing in Pretend Land

Endless fictional possibilities. Birth to death and back ... all in a pretend sort of way.

Such can be the path of a father's love (or love of a father) which stretches from the beginning point of pretending to be pregnant by hauling on the "empathy belly" — a 33-pound contraption designed to torture men the way nature tortures pregnant women, but without the glow — and carting it around for as long as possible ... no more than a few hours. And that love can go all the way to bringing back dad from the dead, or the closest thing possible as a Vermont man did when he dug up his father's cremated ashes from a graveyard and schlepped pops back home, because "he missed him."

Neo-Heavenly Father

Suppose that Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mark? Would it be the same miracle if a child was born to a man? (And, no, we're not talking again about Thomas Beatie the non-virgin pregnant guy. [Earlier: Daddy Mommy and Yecch Factor])

Birth to the Virgin Father seems like a great idea. A wholly holy concept created from the secular. After all, CNN just did a piece on how many men are now choosing to go it alone as parents, usually with a surrogate mom. And as a culture we have begun celebrating dadhood — at least celebrating celebrity fathers ... make sure to get your vote in now for your 2008 hot stardad fave. Surely we are approaching the time when the XXers have a VM to match the XYers Virgin Mary?

It's probably only a matter of time before the Knights of Columbus's Fathers for Good (yes, there are no "fathers for bad," at least according to the google) is able to find something in the Bible to make it work for us?

In 2009 we might begin to look forward to a new heavenly father and perhaps a new holiday since in all honesty, Christmas is pretty much already claimed.

Yecch Factor

Unlike in the good times, when a banker speaks these days, his advice is not necessarily gospel.

Sometimes, even when it is gospel, it isn't. Take the case of St. Matthew, patron saint of bankers, who is credited with the ever popular St. Matthew 7 (i.e., Judge not, that ye not be judged ...). While one should never cast aspersions on a dad (and certainly not the son because of the father) until knowing everything about his case, some recent news about certain fathers just makes them — or at least events surrounding them — sound creepy.

There is, of course, Thomas Beatie, pregnant dad. He's knocked up again, just months after giving birth to his first child in July. [Earlier: Daddy-Oh] Obviously, we've never walked a mile in his pumps and certainly hope that all is well with him, his wife, their babies, etc. Still, dude, don't be such a slut. It's not paternal ...

Also giving off the icky vibe is Benjamin Emanuel, father of proposed presidential chief of staff Rahm, who decided it would be a great help to his son and boss Barack to slander American Arabs by suggesting they're only good for mopping floors. Maybe he could team with anti-semite and Holocaust-denier Hutton Gibson, father of movie star Mel, on some sort of badwill tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department? Or how about some sort of remix of the Hope-Crosby films: maybe call it, "Road to Stupid."

Finally, and admittedly it's not necessarily his fault, father of four, Hugh Hefner [Earlier: Bunny Bopping], has just been referred to as a "like a father" to an ex-girlfriend — with whom he presumably was acting most undaddylike.

Again, we shouldn't judge — and certainly not fathers — because all the evidence isn't in. Still, the virtue of presuming innocence is one often tested by an overwhelming suggestion of yecch.

Daddy Mommy

In our brave new world men no longer have to strap on an empathy belly and [temporarily] experience their own pregnancy. They can now go whole hog [sort of] and experience it all.

Almost.

Thomas Beatie, smalltown Oregon's married and pregnant father, does offer in his personal narrative the small detail that he happens to be a not quite fully transgendered female. But as a preggers papa, he feels, "Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To [wife] Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.”

At first it seemed this seemed a terrific solution to the drama of the absentee father. But then two thoughts. The first is that the presidential campaigners in the fall could owe their paths to absentee fathers — so maybe, and depending on the father and child, it is not always a bad thing — the second, the more obvious, having a baby doesn't keep moms from running away and leaving the child with the husband, or in this case Beatie's wife (the not mother).

** If dads startd giving birth, how long before humanity would naturally evolve to a one-sex species? **