Well… no, but finding out your dad isn’t your bio-dad may be an issue some day.
I made a faux pas when I asked a question about a distant cousin’s bio-dad. My cousin’s son bears a really remarkable resemblance to him. Like, you’d swear they were clones! His younger sister and I were talking about the resemblance and I asked if they had any pictures of my cousin’s bio-dad, wondering if the resemblance was similarly freaky. She got all quiet and looked at me funny. Neither he nor his siblings have any idea that his bio-dad was a “previous relationship” of his mom’s! They even amended his birth certificate (which apparently you can do if the dad slot was left blank at the time). I don’t know if his sister ever said anything after my gaffe, but I suspect she kept quiet.
I had no idea that they didn’t now because it’s common knowledge for every other family member over the age of thirty. When my cousin’s dad met his mom, she already had a son. Everyone knows this… except my cousin and his siblings. :smack:
Or until some dumbass like me asks an innocent question.
Oh, and the weird thing is, when he was really little, if you asked him his name, my cousin would tell you his name was John BioDadName. He doesn’t remember that now though.
Again, just want to clarify another detail that I didn’t think would be important - the rocker bio-dad is not a rock star, he’s a punk guy who plays in a band, but isn’t very famous. The questions of inheritance or the kid having a celebrity dad aren’t really important. Thanks for all your answers, keep it up, etc, etc.
Yeah, but whether the dad is famous or not is completely irrelevant, IMHO. As far as I can see it, your question is on par with “Should I tell my kid he’s adopted or not?”
Bottom line is that the kid’s father is not his bio-dad and the question is whether or not he should be told. Details of the actual conception are probably not important in the big picture.
How about if the mother tells the child the “sorta-kinda” truth.
“Your biological father lives far away, we weren’t together for very long and did not plan on having children, and he lives a lifestyle that makes fatherhood impossible for him.”
I’m just not seeing the urgent need here. It’s trivial information, in the same category as whether I was born via c-section or [whatever the other way is called]. It just doesn’t matter. The information doesn’t have value unless you can do something meaningful with it.
I’m in my 40’s now and can’t think of one thing I would have done differently in my life had I found out that I was my mother’s adopted son rather than a blood relative.
Even now my reaction would be nothing more than indifference:
Or:
And finally:
This is fun; I oughtta try my hand at writing fiction
I’m not sure conceiving a kid while drunk and in a hot tub means your kid will be screwed up… but maybe being the kind of person who tells people about it a lot reflects on how you raised them. Just as conceiving during a one-night stand doesn’t mean much beyond the fact that you are one of billions who have had sex outside of marriage, you were unlucky enough to be fertile when you did it (and possibly stupid enough not to use protection), you didn’t have a miscarriage, and you chose not to have an abortion or give the child up for adoption.
I’m not sure there’s an easy answer for this. If a kid is told early and grows up wonky, she may blame it on being told. If she isn’t told and grows up wonky, and then finds out, I can’t see it being much better.
Well, here I go telling my personal business to strangers on the internet…This sums up our family situation pretty well, except it wasn’t a one night stand, it was a three week fling. Close enough. My husband and I have been together for ten years, minus a few months before we were married. Son was concieved in that window. Hubby knew I was pregnant when we reconciled, wanted to put his name on the birth certificate (we married when I was eight months pregnant so we all have the same last name), but was advised not to by an attorney who said he could be on the hook for perjury or fraud or something like that if (big fuckin’ if) biodad ever asserted his paternity. I lost touch with the sperm donor when I was five months pregnant, and didn’t get back in touch for seven years. I found him on Facebook last year, friended him so he could see pics of his kiddo, get in touch, etc. He called twice last year, and we’ve fallen out of touch again. He’s
We (me and hubby) told Kiddo when he asked “How is babby formed?” that there are two ways to be a parent. There are fathers that make babies and there are fathers that raise babies; sometimes this is the same person, sometimes it isn’t. He’s got one of each. It wasn’t easy to do, but we knew we’d all be better off if he grew up knowing the truth instead of finding out when he’s pubescent and likely (rightly so) to feel betrayed. The father line on his birth certificate is blank because his donor wasn’t there to sign it, and I didn’t know how to contact him. So Kiddo knows his “real dad” is the dad who loves him and takes him sledding and to the doctor and gives him grief about his messy room and laughs at his stupid jokes.
Just this past Xmas, my son who’s now 18 met (sort of) his bio grandmother. During his early life my ex had made some efforts to try and keep the bio dad’s family involved but that fell off before he was two, so he doesn’t remember her. He may be visiting Texas soon to establish contacts with that side his family so it indeed can be non trivial. I just know a Maury show is lurking in my future.
My mothers biological father is not my grand father (now that the conversation’s expanded). I’ve never remembered a time when I didn’t know this, even when I was very small.
I also knew I despised the guy, from an early age. And it never once changed my opinion of my grandfather negatively. If anything, it made me respect him more. Raising 3 children by a man who was (putting it kindly) a douche bag, and then putting up with their shennangins (also putting it kindly) throughout their entire life.
Patty O’Furniture, apologies if you’ve already said so and I missed it, but ARE you adopted, or otherwise not whomever’s offspring you thought you were? And was it ever a secret? I mean, I’m not, and I can’t imagine that I’d have done anything differently if I were, but then I don’t really know, do I? Maybe everything would have been exactly the same, maybe everything would have been different, probably somewhere in-between, but that’s not really the issue to me. The issue is that biological parentage can be very relevant and meaningful information indeed, to some people, and I’m generally in favor of giving people information relevant to their lives.
It’s bad to lie about important things, and it’s dumb to lie about trivial things, so no matter how you feel about it, I think it’s best to tell the truth.
I am adopted and I know a lot of adopted people. Although we all differ in the ways in which being adopted has affected our lives, whether positively or negatively, I don’t know a single adoptee (me included) who can say that knowing they were adopted had absolutely no impact on their lives at all.
It certainly didn’t make me feel less loved, and it didn’t make me feel less a member of my family, but it definitely affected me.
There’s the whole medical history that I don’t have.
There’s the resemblance I see between my brothers and my parents that I can’t share in.
There’s the, ‘Guess what son, you’re adopted’ type jokes that don’t strike me as being quite as funny as they probably do for others.
There’s the school yard friends teasing you about it because they don’t understand adoption and you’re bewildered as to why they even think it’s weird because it’s always been natural for you.
There’s the teenager period of angst where you’re searching for yourself and added to that is wondering about who your birth parents were (and naturally you romanticise that they are far more awesome people than the ones you’ve been lumbered with).
Well, if you believe today’s Tyra’s shows statistic, 1 in 10 people who think they know who their father is, were actually fathered by someone else. So, practically, it may not really matter. Morally, I suppose, is another question.
Lorax and others sound like the best way to handle it. Tell her when she’s still young enough to take it at face value, and you can explain and tell her its not a big deal and she’ll just accept that. Before she gets old enough for it to become a “secret”.
I might also consider some compromise, like telling her child that she slept with someone but not going into detail about who, or saying it could have been them, rather than being certain.
But assuming both parents want to treat the child as theirs, simply ignoring that also has pros, and is very likely, so in your story you can have it either way.
Notes:
Even with condoms, there could have been an accident, so the child could have been the bf’s. (You could decide they hadn’t had sex since her period if you wanted, either by coincidence, or because one of them was away, or because they’d had a row.)
Boyfriend may or may not be put on the birth certificate. I know there are legal complications.
He’s got 3-4 garbled stories (flat-out lies) about his bio-father, but has not been able to piece together what’s true and what’s not, including the guy’s actual name. Plus he’s got some health problems whose diagnoses and treatments are proving a PITA since he doesn’t know if they’re inherited or not.
So I’d say that there are reasons to tell, but if you’re going to spill, FFS be honest.
