Man secretly hires surrogate to have 'grandchild' after daughter says she doesn't want kids

The baby was born through a surrogate - a university student. (Representational)

A man from China decided to hire a surrogate in secret and have a grandchild after his only daughter, 29, said she did not want to have children. His 53-year-old wife, Guo, returned home one evening in September 2022 at their home in Hunan province to find a stranger in their living room holding an infant.

“I was dumbfounded when the woman claimed the child was mine and that she was merely hired as a maid,” Guo recounted to Henan Television. The truth soon surfaced: her husband had secretly engaged a surrogacy agency to fulfill his desire for a grandchild, as their daughter, Gao, had expressed her refusal to marry or have children. The surrogate was a university student.

Guo's husband, whose age remains unspecified, expressed a troubling perspective on the matter. “Your choice means I will never be a grandfather. What’s the point of raising you? Not having a baby means you are not filial, according to Chinese traditional culture,” he argued, reflecting a mindset rooted in age-old beliefs. Guo’s reaction was one of indignation: “I flared up into a fury. I am going to divorce him.”

Guo's husband even went so far as to steal her identity card to obtain the infant's birth certificate, fraudulently listing himself as the father. Gao, concerned about her father's ability to care for the child alone, voiced her fears, stating, “How ridiculous this is,” and highlighted the potential legal responsibilities she may face if her parents' marriage crumbles.

Another man from Henan, aged 62, faced similar scrutiny after hiring a surrogacy company in secret, driven by a desire for a son following the end of China's one-child policy, South China Morning Post reported.

His daughter revealed, “After the one-child policy was abandoned, my father asked my mother to have another child for him. But my mother was nearly 50 and she did not want to have another child.” The surrogacy company had charged him 540,000 yuan (approximately Rs 63.80 lakh) and guaranteed that he would have a boy.

Despite the significant social and legal ramifications, surrogacy remains illegal in China, a stance reinforced by recent governmental directives aimed at curbing such practices.