Are questions about becoming a parent on topic?

Question

No, I am not talking about questions about the mechanics of the birds and the bees.

I am asking about pregnancy, adoption and possibly infertility-related circumstances and topics.

I know we sometimes have questions about coping with pregnancy as long as they don't delve too far into the medical aspects of it. I'm wondering if that also applies to the adoption process, fostering licensing and fertility treatments (again, keeping in mind the questions are not legally or medically centered).

I ask this because we really are conssidering getting licensed for fostering and may soon find ourselves in the thick of "becoming parents again" but in a non-traditional way and wonder if my questions would likely be on-topic or not as they arise.

Answer 1

While it can be a slippery slope to expand what a site's target audience is, or what questions the site can encompass, We really are in need of questions here so limiting good substantive questions doesn't seem desirable to me.

Since we include questions about pregnancy (within limits), it seems the other processes for becoming parents are the same as far as question fodder goes to me.

Obviously, I'd love to be able to pose my questions here (even if it is always Karl Bielefeldt that answers them - I like those answers so far ;-), hope the presence of those questions helps the site grow and hopefully get some good advice myself along the way.

Answer 2

Ugh . . . "No. The rule is..." arbitrary. I don't like being ex-clusive. You're trying to put a line of demarcation around a subject as nebulous as 'parenting'.

Alright, I'll play me. . . "Saving money for my kids to go to college." . . . perfect. personal finance.

"how do I tell the family we will be having a new child that will already be four?"... where else could you send the person that posts that question? There's a million SE sites and subreddits, but the only other topicked site that might fit would be one on family.

So... Rather than defining what won't be allowed, and being exclusive, consider for a moment where that person would be redirected. Anywhere? No?

Then allow the posting.

Answer 3

The other side of the coin of course, is that if the site encompasses too many things, it can lose focus. Opening the door to a topic that is closely related, but isn't really "parenting" of a child might mean we are opening the door to a separate topic and might make it harder to say no to other, similarly related but separate topics if they come up later. In this case, questions like how do I help my newly adopted 5 year old trust us? Would apply, but a question more like, "how do I tell the family we will be having a new child that will already be four?" might not.