June 12, 2012

"First gay couple to become fathers in UK spend £65k to ensure next child is a girl."

It's illegal to use IVF for sex selection purposes in the UK, so they had to come to America to pursue their goal. Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow already have 4 boys and one girl, and they want another girl — or 2 or 3 — for little Saffron to play with:
The millionaire dad [Barrie] added: 'We can’t wait to spoil our new daughters. I want to buy them pink Prada dresses and babygros. We will recycle too. We are going to use Saffron’s old wicker crib from Harrods, which cost £5,000, and divide one of the £100,000 diamond necklaces she does not wear any more into individual pieces for the babies. And we want to decorate the nursery as a rainforest!'...

Tony said: 'If sex selection was not possible, we would still have more children and love them, whatever their gender. But the technology is available and we wanted girls to balance our family. It causes outrage but I bet most people would do it.... The kids love the idea of getting sisters. They are so close. They are all such different characters, but get along so well.”

Barrie... said: “Saffron’s clothes come from every designer from Gucci and Karen Millen and she has 500 pairs of shoes. We spent £50,000 having her room designed like a swanky London flat with a 39-inch plasma TV and furniture from Harrods. The boys are not as bothered about clothes, but we get them the latest iPads and laptops. People say we should not spoil them, but they deserve it."
We all deserve it, no? The question is: Do you have the money to buy it? They are rich, they can buy what they like? Do you have a problem with that? Or do you think they're choosing the wrong things? And if you do, what business is it of yours?

Is it okay to want a girl because you want a kid that you can dress up in fashionable clothes?

  
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UPDATE: Rereading this many years later, I wondered how things went for the Drewitt-Barlow family. I found this, from 2021: "EGG-CELLENT BOND/My ex dumped me for our girl’s boyfriend – but we’re best mates & I’ll use the same egg donor so our kids are siblings" (The Sun). "Our girl" is Saffron, the one they wanted another girl to play with. She grew up and got a boyfriend, and then Tony, one of the dads, stole her boyfriend. But they all live together, and we're told Tony made $90 million selling Bitcoin.

39 comments:

ed said...

If that's the state of gay couples having children then we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment barring that permanently.

Kevin said...

Funny that they would go into all that detail about how extravagant they are and then throw in a 39 inch HDTV. That is what now, 5-600 bucks?

On topic, I think it is sad that they want to bring real human children into the world for the purpose of making them dress up dollies. I know it ain't the first time in history that that's happened, but it is sad to see someone with this level of education and resources doing something that stupid and short sighted.

Dan in Philly said...

We live in a weird world

Synova said...

I pick number seven..."Who the h*ll cares."

(Yes, I know, my vocabulary is going down the tubes.)

Firstly... Mommies playing dress-up is so common that I don't see any reason to care that it's stupid. People have children for all sorts of frivolous reasons, and I don't see how it hurts the child at all. Maybe they all turn into Paris Hilton, but so?

Secondly... sex selection does nothing at all to change the nature of IVF (or abortion), so if all the little boy fertilized eggs are thrown out, there are still eggs thrown out in any case, so?

OTOH, I object quite a bit to the notion that any of us needs to decide if someone is a stupid parent or not and approve them. The fellows, in this case, are so typically "gay" that it's pretty funny, but we're not going to say that a gay couple can't raise kids, are we supposed to say that fabulously wealthy darling parents who spend a fortune on their little fashion dolls can't have kids?

Kids are good to have. The world needs more of them.

Plus, they're all going to reach adolescence and tell their dads where they can shove it... so there's that.

Lastly!

At least they're not getting puppies and claiming it's the SAME THING as having a child. Egad, that makes me NUTS.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

If that's the state of gay couples having children then we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment barring that permanently.

I'm no math genus, but if I use Occupy numbers... thse guys are I percenters.

Pete said...

I suspect gender selection through IVF and spoiling your children aren't exclusive activities to gay couples.

But if you see unfettered access to abortion as a privacy right, how can you complain about this kind of behavior?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The millionaire dad [Barrie] added: 'We can’t wait to spoil our new daughters. I want to buy them pink Prada dresses and babygros. We will recycle too. We are going to use Saffron’s old wicker crib from Harrods, which cost £5,000, and divide one of the £100,000 diamond necklaces she does not wear any more into individual pieces for the babies. And we want to decorate the nursery as a rainforest!'...

The retching you hear is the sound of me sticking my finger down my throat.

Alan said...

They should have adopted.There are lots of little girls who need a home.

sakredkow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

That is the most homophobic thing I have read in a long time...I hope.

SGT Ted said...

But, what if she grows up to be a butch feminist, or a man trapped in a womans body?

Can gya people be homophobes?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The retching you hear is the sound of me sticking my finger down my throat.

Careful now.. entendre rich zone.

Synova said...

"They should have adopted.There are lots of little girls who need a home."

From Ethiopia.

I actually think it's a very good thing that they didn't adopt. In the case of adoption, I think it matters a whole lot more that a person isn't getting the children for the wrong reasons. At least if the parents are biologically related they're unlikely to abandon the child who doesn't cooperate with their dress-up parties.

MadisonMan said...

At first I didn't see the 'k' and thought Just 65 pounds to guarantee the sex of your child?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I wonder if the couple were not gay.. would the story still pack a sensational trusting blow.

Pastafarian said...

"...and we wanted girls to balance our family..."

And someday maybe those daughters will want a mom to balance their family. I thought teh gheys were good with irony.

Jane the Actuary said...

Spending outrageous sums of money on trinkets and goodies for children is, I suppose, not unheard of. But this boasting of how much money they spend is bizarre. What goes on in their minds to think that people will think favorably of them for saying this, as opposed to thinking that they're morons?

There are also plenty of awful heterosexual parents out there. But almost always, so far as I can tell, rich gay parents are effectively purchasing their children, which I do have a problem with.

Robert Pearson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christopher in MA said...

They should have adopted. There are lots of little girls who need a home.

From Ethiopia.


Oh, honestly. As if an Ethiopian child would appreciate the fabulousness of a Prada. And it's all about the fabulousness.

Maddad said...

Couldn't they have just bought a doll?

n.n said...

She will have her incubator's eyes.

Paul said...

ed, you are right.

And they are sick bastards who don't need having children. All they are to them are some kind of pet.

Unknown said...

What is "the movement" going to do when we come to know that gay parents can be equally as bad as straight ones?

Synova said...

"Oh, honestly. As if an Ethiopian child would appreciate the fabulousness of a Prada. And it's all about the fabulousness."

Well, it's the celebrity fashion, isn't it?

I'm pretty serious about this, though. The couple should NOT adopt. Not anyone from anywhere. We don't like to say it in case an adopted child feels bad, but the biological connection matters. Most adoptive parents love their children just as profoundly as they'd love their own genetic child, but the fact of it is that parental attachment is NOT automatic. Not *even* for genetic offspring. Those two very silly men need all the help they can get.

n.n said...

Jane:

There are couples who do the same. The actions of both couples and couplets serve to devalue human life.

The issue of merit is if devaluation will be a progressive condition. Unfortunately, there is no way to know its consequences with any certainty. It is dysfunctional in an enlightened sense (i.e. respect for individual dignity); but, only time will tell if the dysfunction will be terminal.

Synova said...

On the other hand, they obviously have the funds to support a very large family, siblings matter nearly as much as parents do (yes, I think that the tiny families we have these days are harming society, statistically), and they probably have a pretty intense work-ethic, intention to spoil or not, that the kids may well learn to share.

Paco Wové said...

This is in the Daily Mail, right? Not surprising that it's all about outraging the proles.

David said...

Don't look back, boys, someone may be gaining on you.

edutcher said...

In other words, they want her as a living toy.

Sorry, this is truly sick.

Freeman Hunt said...

I know plenty of mom-dad families like this. I even grew up with people treated like these children. Most of them turned out better than one would expect from the circumstances.

MrCharlie2 said...

"If that's the state of gay couples having children then we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment barring that permanently."

Well yeah, but the problem is the mindless materialism. I'd be all for an amendment banning that, but how to write it?

wyo sis said...

It's too bad all this technology is being used to produce little made to order human toys. I wonder if the toying around with human lives came before it was possible to be so choosy about it, or if the being able to be choosy about it created this level of callousness.
Well, I know there were parents who wanted a girl or a boy, but they took what they got and made the best of it. This designer baby mentality cheapens life by making it disposable. You can't just return prople to the store if they don't turn out the way you wanted them to.

Derve Swanson said...

"wyo sis said...
It's too bad all this technology is being used to produce little made to order human toys."

Yeah, better we use all this technology to abort.



"This designer baby mentality cheapens life by making it disposable. You can't just return prople to the store if they don't turn out the way you wanted them to."

YOu can join a cult and kill a suspected faggot kid though. And win a "homosexuality" tag too!

(Get it. Make the link between queerdo's and aberrant even murderous behavior. Slap that tag on -- too much trouble to create another.)

Kirk Parker said...

I just have two words to contribute: Poe's Law.

wyo sis said...

Mary
No I don't get it. when did I mention homosexuals?

Quaestor said...

SGT Ted wrote:
But, what if she grows up to be a butch feminist, or a man trapped in a womans body?

A hit! A palpable hit! What if their $180k baby girl grows up butch? What if she don't want to play with little Saffron? What if she throws the Prada stuff down the disposal chute, and uses the diamonds for gravel in her herpetarium? Will Barrie and Tony throw a hissy fit?

shirley elizabeth said...

I know of families that will continue to have kids until they have "another boy" or "one more girl" (or a first of whichever). That is sex selection.

My child due in a couple months is a boy. We say it will be good for our little boy to have a brother and playmate so close. We say it is great that we already have all the clothes he'll need. These are just things parents think of. We will also love and adore the child. And if it turns out to really be a girl, we'd do the same.

I think that is the mind-set these men have. It is a blessing they have the means to provide for so many. Hopefully they have the means to provide for their mental/spiritual/whatever well being also. But that is all you can hope of any set of parents. When you try to do more, parents become obsolete.

I am on the fence with IVF. I have seen quite a few friends have wonderful dreams come true through it. I have also seen many abuses and sad stories. A technology, as with many, that is a blessing and a curse.

Geoff Matthews said...

I thought I was reading the Daily Mash at first. There were so many stereotypes put into those paragraphs I had a hard time believing it wasn't satire.

Kate Danaher said...

A quick Google search reveals that this quirky pair have been de facto running their own reality show, faithfully journalled in the pages of the Daily Mail, for about a half doze yrs or so.

They don't want a girl. They want ATTENTION.