Hi there
I’d like to get feedback from people (as a teen or adult) that have discovered their dad is not their biological father, the emotions you went through and how did you cope with them?
Thanks kindly for any and all your help.
Since the OP is looking for personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Not me personally, but an old friend learned this when she was getting married because her last name on her birth certificate was different from the one she grew up with.
She said she always had a sneaking suspicion because she looked so different from her younger siblings.
My son and daughter are both adopted, but they have known this since before they can remember.
Then again, they are also Korean and Mrs. Mahaloth and I are white. Still, people ask us if our kids know all the time.
I would read beowulff’s thread. It looks pretty much spot on.
Can you give a little background on how you found out, and whether it’s open knowledge in your family? Just trying to get a better sense of what took place.
I think context matters a great deal. Learning your parents used a donor to conceive you is different than learning you were a tiny baby with a dead beat dad when your mom met your dad. Learning your mom had an affair after your older siblings were born is different from learning your mom was raped. All of those issues carry their own emotional complications, and you can’t just talk about the biological aspect of it.
For what it’s worth, my son was conceived with a donor because my husband has a terrible genetic disease. We’ve never hidden it from family and friends, because I don’t want anyone to be shocked later–because I worry my son would interpret that shock as disgust. And I’ve made sure he is growing up always knowing it. From the first “where do babies come from?” we’ve talked about how some people have to go to the doctor for extra help and how we had to get a “piece” from someone else so that he wouldn’t have bad legs like his papa. For a while this lead to some confusion where he thought he was genetically superior on account of having “three pieces”. Anyway, a lot of people in fertility circles planned to treat the donor issue like a deep dark secret they took to the grave. I thought that was foolish.