Platonic co-parenting — where people who aren’t married or romantically involved shack up to raise kids — is on the rise, with aspiring parents flocking to apps that connect them with others seeking the unconventional lifestyle.
Modamily, one of the leading platforms matching potential platonic co-parents, had about 50,000 new users join this year alone — climbing from 100,000 users in January to around 150,000 as of August.
That’s up from around 30,000 who were using Modamily in 2020, according to Modamily founder Ivan Fatovic, who said about 2,000 new members are joining each month.
“We started 15 years ago when it was a much weirder. I used to get a lot of looks when I said what I did,” Fatovic told The Post. “Now it’s a lot more normal. The trend has been only increasing.”
And Modamily isn’t the only co-parenting platform that’s seen its user base skyrocket this year.
The app CoParents.com had its users increase by 25% since January, climbing to about 160,000 members worldwide.
Co-parenting arrangements take countless forms — sometimes they involve two friends who want kids but not the baggage romance can bring; and sometimes they involve people who saw their own parents’ divorce turn ugly and want to spare their kids the risk of similar trauma.
Others are people who are simply too busy with careers to focus on romance but want kids, can’t afford to do it alone, or whose biological clocks are ticking down and don’t have the time to find love and start a family the old-fashioned way.
And while there are no universals, one thing typically unifies the arrangements — the parents are not in love and they are not having sex, but they are raising their kids together as one family unit.
“People still want a partner to have children with, and they want a partner that helps with the costs and the time, so they can also have time for their individual pursuits — but also raise a child in a positive, loving environment,” Fatovic said.
Such arrangements in the past were typically found among people who knew each other and shared the same wants, by word of mouth or even by ads in newspaper classifieds — but the rise of the internet and social media has made it easier and more common.
That’s how Texas co-parents Zachary Sahuque and Amanda Lohse, 35 and 47, found each other.
The couple has two kids together and a third on the way — each from her eggs and his sperm, and conceived through IVF — but have no romantic involvement and live in two houses on a 50-acre ranch.
“She’s one of my best friends; she is like family,” Sahuque said. “We’re not romantic or sexual but she’s a bonus family member that I’ve got my kids by.”
They met on Modamily in 2019. Sahuque had grown up in a troubled home and Lohse had dumped a long-term boyfriend as she turned 40.
The pair immediately set up interviews with each other about their different parenting needs and views.
“I basically tried to find every controversial fault or crack that could happen in a marriage or in a home, and I pressure tested each one of them,” Sahuque said, explaining the couple had a series of “terms and conditions” each had to meet to come to their arrangement.
“I kind of took the romantic relationship and turned it on its head,” he added.
“In a romantic relationship, the first date’s like a job interview. You know, you’re wearing your Sunday best, you’re the best possible version they’re ever gonna see of you.
“But I started by sharing my biggest deal breakers and my biggest red flags. I put them on the table face up first and I’m like, Hey, is this all stuff you can deal with?” he said.
The couple decided they could deal, and they now live across their property from each other in two homes with matching bedrooms for their kids.
Sahuque travels often for work, so Lohse spends most of the time with the kids, but when he’s home, he takes care of them.
“It’s nothing for us to meet up and hang out and do things, all of us together as a family, and it’s nothing to them to kind of have their own little life till I come home,” he said, jokingly comparing Lohse to “the best ex-wife a man could ask for.”
“There’s so many people that have an ex-wife or an ex-husband or a one-night stand to get their kids by,” he said. “But I just more so sought it out with intentionality.”
And while more and more people like Sahuque are turning to apps to find each other, he doesn’t think that necessarily means more people are looking for platonic co-parenting arrangements — just that the people who were always there finally have a place to find each other.
“I just think it is now becoming more visible,” he said.
“I think it’s the intentionality of it more than the actual matter of fact of it. Because divorces happen every day, and people get knocked up every day,” Sahuque continued.
“It’s the idea of doing it on purpose that’s novel and new to people.”
