[demosthanos]

> “They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don’t want them to tear each other apart after my death,” he said, after revealing that he recently wrote his will.

I agree that it's pretty cringe to refer to all of them as his children when he's literally a sperm donor, but he definitely did call them that.

[mumbisChungo]

They're also literally his children.

[demosthanos]

That depends a lot on your definition of "children" and "father".

Many people with uninvolved biological fathers would disagree with you that the guy who impregnated their mother counted as their father, especially if they were raised by another man who actually did stick around, and that's even for dads who actually impregnated the mother. Sperm donation takes this even further because he claims to have actually done it anonymously [0], meaning he's as uninvolved as he possibly could have been in the process of being a father.

Many or most of these kids have real men who were actually there helping to raise them through their childhood who they refer to as "father", and it's pretty disrespectful of Durov towards those men to attempt to usurp that title on the grounds of what was supposed to be an anonymous donation.

I'll grant that Durov is more likely than most sperm donors to have some of these kids actually claim him as their father, but that's in no small part because there's now a substantial amount of money tied to them identifying him as such. Cynically I wonder if that's a major motivator for him doing this, because he knows that the kids wouldn't otherwise know or care who he is.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44328289

[sheepolog]

What term would you prefer he use? "Offspring"? "Biological children"? I agree that he is in no way a father in the same sense as others who have actually helped raise children, but I also don't think he's claiming to be, and his phrasing makes sense to me. He is literally their father (in the most uninvolved way possible), and they are literally his children.

[erikerikson]

As an adopted person "biological <insert title>" has worked well for the parents that had sex to make me. For a donor parent, I probably just use "donor <insert title>". I'd advise not worrying too much about the language though. Being kind and thoughtful is far more important than selecting the correct words. A snap judgment selection of proximal words is sloppy but it's impractical to pause to select exactly the right language in all cases for all statements. So too with something this sensitive it might be good to slow a little.

[demosthanos]

My main point in the last comment is that inserting himself into their lives at all is disrespectful. He doesn't need a word for them because he has no relationship to them: he was an anonymous donor to enable their actual parents to have kids that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to have.

[qualeed]

>inserting himself into their lives at all is disrespectful.

Keep in mind that he's inserting himself into their lives to give them millions of dollars.

Between these two choices:

1) Durov doesn't say anything, insert himself anywhere, or call you anything.

2) Durov gives you millions of dollars, but calls you his child.

I bet my life savings that every single kid will be fine with being called Durov's child in exchange for millions of dollars.

[walterbell]

Exactly, even #2 requires child consent with proactive step to prove paternity via DNA test. There's also a third option:

3) Child chooses to ignore inheritance.

[bpodgursky]

To be fair there's not really a good word standardized for what you're describing ("biological progeny without parental relationship"). People are going to use shorthand if they don't have a good term.