Residential status, as appraised by mothers, has varying impacts on the individual with ASD, on the family, and on mothers as individuals and caregivers. The present analysis suggests the multifaceted and highly contingent maternal experience associated with where her child with ASD lives. Among families whose children live elsewhere, there is an impressive amount of continued contact between these families and their son/daughter.

Gestational surrogacy via egg donation is an expensive – and sometimes ambivalently undertaken – but increasingly popular route to planned fatherhood for some gay men. The surrogacy market in the USA plays an important role for gay men with the financial resources to access these services, as it is currently the only stable, commercial market in which there are legal protections for openly gay men. While a small, ethnographic and qualitative literature on the experiences of gay fathers via surrogacy exists, less is known about the state of the surrogacy industry towards gay men as clients. Here I investigate the surrogacy industry in the USA to ask how welcome gay men are in this market. I do so via a content analysis of patient/client recruitment on infertility clinic and surrogacy agency websites. Content analysis of 547 websites indicates that the majority of infertility clinics (62%) and 42% of surrogacy agencies do not directly advertise or appear to be welcoming to gay men. A minority of gay-friendly clinics and agencies, which cluster geographically, actively recruit gay men, creating a limited but niche market. The unequal recruitment of gay men as infertility clients reflects how normative ideas about gender, sexuality and social class are reproduced in the infertility industry. This, in turn, may impact gay men's procreative consciousness and decision-making about parenting, and exacerbate inequalities around their access to intentional genetic parenthood.

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This study examines the navigation of intensive mothering ideology – the dominant cultural mothering schema in the US which places pressure on mothers to exclusively devote time and energy to their children, casting any other activity as problematic – within the lived experience of a unique cohort of mothers: women paid to gestate and birth babies for others. Based on in-depth interviews with US commercial surrogates, this study adds new depth to the body of research on intensive mothering by extending the arena of examination beyond work/family balance negotiations, where much of the literature is located. US surrogates understand surrogacy, which is rigorous labor, frequently takes time away from their families, and requires support from family members, not as a form of employment but as a ‘selfish pursuit,’ one they primarily engage in out of their own interests and desires. This study finds that the positive moral framework of surrogate labor as ‘altruistic self-sacrifice’ common within the US surrogacy industry and community, the fact that surrogacy is a relatively short-term ‘gig,’ and the healthy monetary compensation surrogates receive that serves as a tangible ‘thank you gift’ to families, help to buffer surrogates from full intensive mothering accountability. The experiences of US surrogates navigating mothering pressures while participating in surrogacy offer a window into how other contemporary US mothers might resist intensive mothering norms while engaging in non-familial and non-employment activities in their lives, activities such as hobbies or personal time away from family.

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