> The child had a father when she needed him most. It might have been a brief period, and she might know the truth now, but she had a meaningful experience at that time.

I find it hard to dismiss the concept completely. There are times when help is needed and perhaps sometimes this deception is better than having no help at all. I feel conflicted.

I am not dismissing the entire concept, but there is a difference between it being a shared delusion between willing participants and a deception. This service seems like it is primarily used to deceive others, and there are situations where that could be more appropriate like getting a kid into a private school. Most of the examples in that article are immoral uses of the service though.

Services like the ones being described are a symptom of the underlying problems. Should these services exist? Probably not. However, it's more helpful to understand why they do. Why do you think these services exist?

Because people have high expectations from life but low willingness to accept and adapt. So they'll rent a fake to cut corners.

How does that explanation tie up with the example given in the article where a girl was being bullied for not having a father? Is that driven by willingness to cut corners?

In that case the mother wanted to give the girl a fake father experience, she should have tried to give her a real adoptive father instead. The mother wanted to have the perks of a real father without doing the hard work of entering a relation, like everyone does.

Perhaps she wanted her girl to stop being bullied, have you considered that possibility?

Playing devil's advocate: how much different is this from adopted children to which adoptive parent's don't tell the truth? Is it mostly how likely is the truth to come out at some point?

The difference is when the truth comes out, the adopted child learns that someone cared enough about them to raise them, 24x7.

Still crappy, but less crappy than learning your dad was a $200/month actor that had no actual emotional investment in you.

I've read the article, it appears for the father role, the actor has some level of emotional investment. He enjoys creating happiness as the father, and feels guilty when he leaves her, and dreams about her even.

The adoptive parents genuinely love the child, they are not getting paid to pretend they do.

I think the motivation counts. Adopting out of a desire to have a child feels quite different from doing it for money.

I agree - this seems like abuse (especially to do to a child unaware of and not consenting to the lie).

I don't understand how someone could rationalize this to themselves as ethical. I hope the interviewer is just lying.