{"id":33454,"date":"2025-02-12T21:48:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T21:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/?p=33454"},"modified":"2025-02-12T21:50:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T21:50:28","slug":"designer-babies-are-teenagers-now-and-some-of-them-need-therapy-because-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/designer-babies-are-teenagers-now-and-some-of-them-need-therapy-because-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Designer Babies Are Teenagers Now – and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Emi Nietfeld, originally published December 11, 2024, Wired.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years now,<\/strong> aspiring parents have been designing their children. Screening embryos for disease-causing genes during IVF, selecting their future baby\u2019s sex, picking egg and sperm donors to influence their child\u2019s traits. Today, a lot of those \u201cdesigner babies\u201d are full-on kids or teenagers. And some families are discovering that, as hard as you try, things don\u2019t always work out as planned: The kids feel like walking science experiments; the parents are disappointed in how their progeny turned out. Fertility businesses are selling a better chance of domestic bliss, and these families feel cheated.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now controversial new technologies promise parents even more control over their embryos. One US startup, called\u00a0Orchid<\/a>, claims its genetic screening can calculate a baby\u2019s risk of autism, bipolar disorder, and hundreds of other health conditions.\u00a0Another startup<\/a>\u00a0wants to help parents pick embryos with the highest predicted IQ. So WIRED spoke to a psychologist based on the West Coast who is already dealing with the fallout.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worked at<\/strong> an adolescent treatment center. I kept coming across teens who were in distress about the way they had been created. Their parents had wanted a child who was musical or athletic or tall. So they found egg donors with the traits they wanted, created embryos with the husband\u2019s sperm, and then implanted them, often in surrogates. Usually, these couples didn\u2019t have fertility issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve counseled a number of those families in the past 10 to 15 years. People who have children this way often place too much importance on genes while ignoring the environment. It\u2019s like, \u201cThis is what our family is going to look like. We\u2019re going to pick a kid, and this is how we\u2019re going to put it together. Mom\u2019s going to be in charge of the whole thing.\u201d It\u2019s like a project or building a company. People don\u2019t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Silicon Valley, there are many distant parents\u2014usually fathers\u2014who hardly know their children. Sometimes the mom and child don\u2019t bond, either. There are a lot of men who are extremely successful and want things a certain way. They tend to get what they want and don\u2019t hear \u201cno\u201d a lot. So when their kid shows up and isn\u2019t the way that they want, what happens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, it\u2019s a disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these homes, a high value gets placed on achievement. I think the way these kids are created sends the message: \u201cYou’re not good enough. You need to achieve. You\u2019re not accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the kids struggle, it\u2019s especially devastating. Some kids have disabilities from being born preterm, which used to be a big risk with IVF. Or they have learning differences or autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, parents chose an egg donor and then later found out that she had psychiatric problems. Then the kid gets viewed through that lens, which can be pretty devastating and traumatic: \u201cYour donor is nuts, so you must be, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if anyone\u2019s making sure parents understand that they can\u2019t test-drive a child and then return it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The child grows up feeling very different, knowing they were an experiment but not getting the proper support or acceptance they need to thrive. Because there’s not a caregiver who’s like, \u201cI get you.\u201d There’s none of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my work, I help parents accept: This is the child that you have. And I help kids accept the reality of their parents and forge a relationship that\u2019s less hurtful\u2014or build a life without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of my families have neurodiverse members who need help making abstract concepts more concrete. Sometimes just explaining \u201cyou and your child are not the same person\u201d does the trick. Or say a teenager doesn\u2019t feel loved. I might need to clarify to them that \u201clove\u201d is not a tangible feeling, like getting pinched or kicked. It means someone feels fondness toward you like you feel fondness toward Legos or drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In high school, a lot of teens are linking up with half-siblings through 23andMe, sometimes ones who live all over the world. It’s common in these families to have different egg donors for different kids because they\u2019ve tried to get, say, a sporty son and an artsy daughter. What do you do when one of your children has found their half-siblings and is bonding, while your other child doesn\u2019t have a good experience with their newfound relatives? Who do you invite to Thanksgiving?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really feel for the moms. They\u2019re trying to balance everyone\u2019s expectations and hold it all together. But it\u2019s unfair to the dads, too. Because I\u2019m not sure the dads can accurately predict human behavior. They probably can predict stocks, but human behavior has way too many variables. I don\u2019t know if anyone\u2019s making sure parents understand that they can\u2019t test-drive a child and then return it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to control your child is a recipe for disaster. The kid is going to rebel. If you have a preconceived notion of how they\u2019re going to be, either you\u2019re going to be severely disappointed or you\u2019re going to shove them into a mold and it\u2019s not going to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe sometimes it does work, but those people don\u2019t come to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014As told to Emi Nietfeld<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emi Nietfeld is a journalist who covers fertility technology and is the author of Acceptance: A Memoir. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Emi Nietfeld, originally published December 11, 2024, Wired.com \u201cPeople don\u2019t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.\u201d For years now, aspiring parents have been designing their children. Screening embryos for disease-causing genes during IVF, selecting their future baby\u2019s sex, picking egg and sperm donors to influence their child\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDesigner Babies Are Teenagers Now - and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It - Cincinnati Right to Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/designer-babies-are-teenagers-now-and-some-of-them-need-therapy-because-of-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Designer Babies Are Teenagers Now - and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It - Cincinnati Right to Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Emi Nietfeld, originally published December 11, 2024, Wired.com \u201cPeople don\u2019t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.\u201d For years now, aspiring parents have been designing their children. 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