Sometimes people write to me with questions about parenting. I make no claim, however, to be an expert in all aspects of this grand adventure. I figure that collective wisdom has something to recommend it, though, and so I offer this one to you, readers, for your input.
Tonight, our 2 1/2 year old, adopted son asked what his daddy’s name was. I said I didn’t know and tried to change the subject. He said my daddy lives far away. I said yes and then we began talking about Dora. Any wisdom?
I admit, most of my thinking about “the daddy question” has been with regard to children conceived through donor insemination, because that is how we created our family. At this point, our son hasn’t started asking questions about reproduction, although I’m guessing some of his animal books may have raised them in his mind. Right now, we’ve stuck with, “All families are different. Some people have a mother and a father, others have two mothers or two fathers, some have only one parent.” As our son starts asking, we will get into more specifics about how we needed a special cell from a man and found a donor—but it’s not our preference to call him a daddy.
I’m wondering where others see similarities and differences in handling the question with adopted children. I suspect much of the answer depends on how a family talks with a child about her or his birth mother as well.
Thoughts? Personal experience? Leave a comment—or read the comments to see what others say!
Well, I’d say the first thing is not to be defensive and to try to understand where he’s coming from. Did someone at daycare say something about it or is he just curious? Our son is now nearly 6 and he’s asked a few times. We’ve given him sort of age-appropriate explanations of his donor. Some days he will declare that a friend’s dad is his dad and we don’t argue. Some days he declares one of us (his two moms) to be his dad and again, we don’t argue.
I would have handled that question from a 2 1/2 year old exactly the same way. I conceived my daughter through AI. She started asking questions at about the same age. I am careful to answer the questions with a single, simple sentence (“I don’t know”) and to add information one single sentence at a time (“Yes, your daddy does live far away”) until she indicates that she has collected enough information from that particular conversation (ie: “we began talking about Dora.”) It would be terribly easy for me to start babbling on and on with all the information I have and am willing to share with her, but she’s made it clear with each conversation how much she wants to know. Each conversation (she is now 7, we talk about this every 6 months or so) has gone a little further. I expect we’ll be talking about this her whole life.
I think the most important thing to remember is that the child will have her own feelings and perspectives on what her family is, what it means, who is who, etc.
We may not feel certain people count as family or are important, but our children may have a very different idea about this. It’s important to let them define the people in their lives and not be defensive about it.
Our kids are in open adoptions and we know their mothers but will probably never know the men who impregnated their mothers. As far as I’m concerned, those men are not fathers and certainly are not daddies, but I am open to letting my daughters decide what they think and being nonjudgmental of how they feel as they learn more about it.
We’re fortunate in that our daughter (who’s due at the end of January), has both birth parents involved – and we’ve developed a good relationship with them. We’re not so naive as to think the relationship between birth mom, birth dad and us will always be exactly what we hope it to be, but there will be complete openness and hopefully a relationship between our daughter and her birth father; even though he won’t be parenting her, she’ll know him.
One of our concerns when using donor sperm to try and get pregnant, was of our child building up this person they didn’t know to incredible and heroic proportions (my sister did that with our father whom she didn’t really know – he became her everything, this incredible perfect TV father, to the extent that the parent who was present and parenting, paled in comparison). We had discussed this and planned to be as open and honest as possible (age appropriately of course), and used an ID release donor so that if our child wanted to meet, there would be that option later on. Alas, my eggs were rotten, so there was no donor to worry about in the end. I’m hoping knowing birth dad will mitigate this potential problem.
We’ve always told our daughter that she has a birth mom (my partner) and an adopted mom (me), as well as a donor. She has said, at times, that she wishes she had a dad because “everyone else” has one, though she knows plenty of kids who, in fact, don’t. Sometimes other kids have asked, out of curiosity, why she doesn’t have a dad. Until she was four or so, most kids appeared to be jealous of the fact that she had 2 moms. Several of the moms were, too.
It’s interesting to read all of the responses here. My situation is different yet again – the father is known to us (a relative of my Better Half), but does not have any “Daddy” role and we don’t consider him so. To be honest, I’ve subconsciously avoided thinking about the inevitable questions. But you (and others) have made some very good points, and I’ll be taking that on board. Thanks.
We’ve always talked with our daughter about her adoption (we adopted her at 9 months, internationally). She knows the basics, she has a birth mom and dad, who we think couldn’t take care of her, and she was living in a children’s home with X, her favorite nanny until we were able to become her parents. At age 5 1/2, she will occasionally ask questions, and like others, we answer them as simply as possible and wait for her to ask for more. At the same time, we are (finally) working on a “life book” for her, with all the information we have (and acknowledgment of what we don’t know) about her birth and infancy before we adopted her. We did a family presentation at her preschool last year and talked about how we became a family (none of the info about birthparents, which we consider her private info to share or not). Two of her teachers were adoptees, one internationally, so there was lots of talking about adoption. We just today got an family homework assignment to make a poster about our family for her kindergarten class. We’ll replicate what we did last year.
I suppose what you share depends on the circumstances – what you know, how happy or sad of a story it is. But ultimately it seems like as kids get older, they need to know more and more and to be helped to navigate whatever feelings they have and with dealing with the questions of others. There are tons of books and magazines (and on-line versions) that address talking with kids about their adoption stories.
My background and “expertise” (30+ years) is in the field of adoption, as is the original question posed.
Adoptions became sealed and secretive in the U.S. around the 1940s (depending on the state) with the pretense of protecting children from their “illegitimate” status. Adopting parents were told not to even to tell the child he was anything other than the natural child of the adopting man and woman. But the truth almost always came out eventually, and many adoptees felt betrayed by the deceit, albeit “for their own good.”.
From the beginning the pratice of secercy was warned aganst by child welfare advocates. In the ensuring years a multitude of studies have confirmed the unhealthy family atmosphere that grown around secrets – any secrets….the “elephant in the room” phenoninon adults raised by substance abusers epxerience. Studies of families practicing open adoptions have confirmed that children adjust well to understanding the complexities of their origins. Those adopting today are encouraged to be open and honest with their children to the extent possible and in an age appropriate manner.
Today – with transnational adoption, same sex adoptions and AI the issue is being revisited and many are entering into this minefield unarmed, lacking an arsenal of preparatory facts.
Children are very smart and it does not take them long to compare and see that while all families are different – MOST families (unless you live in a particular restricted community) – include a mother and a father. “We don’t know who he is” but “yes, he lives far away” are contradictory – even to a 3 year old.
*** Ignoring questions, changing the subject and hoping the question will go away, or giving contradictory answers is unhealthy. Adult adoptees report that even from a very early age hey were able to SENSE their parents’ discomfort and sadness around such questions. Many turned their questions inward – often fearing hurting their parents, or even rejection. Some felt their parents’ silence on the issue meant there was something bad or to be ashamed of. In feeling an air of negativity about their origins – a child grows up internalizing those feelings. If the woman who gave me away was “bad” – incapable of parenting – then I must be bad too. If my father wants nothing to do with me, what does that say about me? ***
Being a parent means being able to put our own feelings aside for the well-being of the children we chose to bring into the world. We cannot “stuff” our fears – for our children read us very clearly. We need to get whatever we need to face them and deal with them for the sake of our children who deserve no less than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is their lives and who they are.
I encourage all raising children with an absent progenitor to be certain to obtain as much identifying information as possible in the event your child might ned it for medical purposes. I encourage you to keep track of the person, even if you don’t keep in contact. And finally, i encourage you to read th wealth of post-adoption resources on the feelings of those who have grown up not knowing and how it has effected their lives and feelings towards those who kept the truth from them in some cases.
There is also a sibling registry for AI kids and online forums that will give you a feel of the struggle these kids face as they hit their teens and begin to date – fearing they might accidently date a sibling.
These are the unique problems you face in addition to the scraped knees and zits, etc all parent face. Be informed!
Mirah Riben