dating apps, since the pandemic, they have changed the form and manifesto of intentions, spreading their antennae and catching the onset of a state of intolerance, mistrust. So they ran for cover, and now Tinder comes up with the sly slogan “Beautiful things come to those who wait” in 2020, a proclamation essentially the exact opposite of why this and other similar platforms were born. Once upon a time, a dating app that only selects one match per day for its users also promotes it. slow date. The pandemic seems to have made more people wonder why they are actually looking for someone. And rethink what they want from a partner. As well as for some people, this desire has less to do with romantic love or sex than with the desire to start a family. without the two ingredients just mentioned being part of the story. What if you feel ready to start a family, but there is no suitable family, and the thought of being a single parent scares you or is simply not viable? In 2022, a possible solution will once again appear on targeted sites and apps that will take the eye away from the couple and onto the family. This is no longer about hunting for a kindred spirit, but about find someone to conceive and raise a child witha person who wants to be present in a child’s life, also sharing the financial obligations that this entails, but not necessarily being romantically involved.

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Spanish magazine Vanguard wrote about it, reporting on the results of a study by the Iberian National Institute of Statistics, which highlights that in the latest fertility survey conducted in 2018, some women did not have children because they could not find a suitable partner. A problem that mainly affects people between the ages of 40 and 44. And not only that, where, as in Spain, one can resort to artificial insemination to fill a greater need, wider than just the birth of a child, because many mothers want to give that same child as a second parental figure. Whether it’s another mother or father. And if you think about it, this is not a modern whim, because in the past people alone with a child followed the same path, trusting and trusting themselves to friends and girlfriends. Now the internet is facilitating those connections with apps like Copaping or Family4Everyone. They work just like partner apps like Tinder or Meetic, but instead of looking for love, you’re looking for a parent.

Now that biological science and equality have diversified the way families start and live, it is not surprising that platonic co-parenting is a growing phenomenon, and not just in the LGBTQI+ community On the Coparents.com, launched in Europe as early as 2008 (and also present in Italy), two-thirds of the world’s 120,000 members are heterosexual. In fact, the general rule shared by all is that there are clear agreements from the outset, because breaking up a co-parenting project can be just as traumatic as a divorce. Like any new process of social change, co-parenting has been intriguing researchers and scholars for several years now. In 2020, for example, a team led by Prof. Susan Golombokdirector of the Cambridge University Center for Family Studies and author We are Family (a book that examines the well-being of children raised in non-traditional environments) was followed by fifty families choosing elective co-parenting in the world’s first study on the subject evaluating the impact of such an arrangement on children. “It was a gradual realization that this is a new phenomenon that is gaining popularity very quickly,” Golombok explained to reporters. in Guardian.

“Preliminary results show that the real difference lies in how parents communicate with each other and cooperate in childcare, not the type of bonding between the parents themselves. And even if the level of closeness between mom and dad or mom and mom or dad with dad, has a great influence on the well-being of children, however, it is possible that removing romantic tension might even create a more stable environment.According to Susan Golombok, family structure matters less than one might think, and concerns for the well-being of children are sometimes unfounded: “Children,” said Syros, who works on these issues, “thrive in all types of families. What really matters is the quality of the relationship between children and their parents. But also, and here we need to work in several directions, how their families are accepted in the society in which they live. Possible discomfort, in fact, it can arise from how people outside the family react to it. We should be concerned about this and try to do something about it. The composition of the family does not affect the well-being of these children, but intolerance does.”

People who choose co-parenting prioritize finding a like-minded person about how it is appropriate and beneficial to raise a child. Precisely on what kind of education you intend to give the child, on where and how he will live and whether he will have one, or on more practical, but still important things, for example, on allowing him to watch TV, and as well as everyone’s contribution to the expenses generated by the needs of the child, conversations are centered around Kopping and the like. This continues one of the most populous communities, CoparentaLys, founded in France in 2014 with 45,000 registered users. In the US, one of the most famous is PrideAngel, while the aforementioned Copaping and Family4EveryOne operate in Spain, one of the most progressive European countries in this field. Just as sperm donation and in vitro fertilization are regulated by law, the same does not apply to co-parenting. The only thing that matters is that people who come together to start a family verbally agree on how the upbringing of children will be. However, “the legal protection of this agreement is appropriate,” he explains. David ReyesFounder of Copping.

Clara, real name, entered Copaping when she was 36 years old. “I was well received,” she told Lavangarde, “some men wrote to me, mostly heterosexual, but I chose a homosexual man because I thought that if I fell in love with the future father of my child (Clara conceived thanks to artificial insemination , with sperm from an anonymous donor) everything would be more complicated. I also ruled out being a single mother, because I wanted my children to have a father, not a donor. Being a family with one parent is not easy and requires financial resources He has a happy family, relationships his platonic partner is being worked on, but the problem, and here we come back, remains the social fabric. “It will be a long time before this dynamic normalizes in our society. We currently know people who have met and made friends through digital flirting apps, but many don’t know anything about us families that were born this way. I myself thought that I would tell it without any problems, but when my daughter went to school, I did not tell anyone. Everyone assumes that his biological father and I are separated. But my daughter knows perfectly well how she came into the world, just as she knows who the man next to her is, and she shares her education with me. She is happy, but I would also like to be accepted and respected.”