Dear Prudence: Thursday Crowdsourcing

[minoanmiss]

My family moved from one state to another when I was in my late teens. I stayed behind to help my aunt recover from surgery. During this time, I had a one-night stand and found that I was pregnant. I confided this in my aunt, and she asked what I wanted to do. Abortion seemed too scary, and I said that I’d like to adopt the baby out. She arranged with my parents that I could stay with her until I graduated high school and helped me arrange the baby’s adoption. Right or wrong, this was done without informing my parents and after the delivery, adoption, and graduation, I joined my family in our new state with no one the wiser.

I’ve never second-guessed this decision, but my sister contacted me last week saying that someone on a DNA ancestry site came back as related to her, and she couldn’t figure out how. After she shared a couple of pictures of this person, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it’s the baby I had twenty years ago—they bear little resemblance to me but have the very striking features that attracted me to their father. Their age and region are accurate to being my baby as well.

I had no intention of saying anything about how this person is related to us, but since discovering them, my sister has been theorizing that our dad may have had an affair. I don’t know what my next move here should be. I never expected to hear of this baby ever again, but they’re in active communication with my sister trying to figure out where the family tie is. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before they or my sister find themselves on the right trail.

I never did and still don’t want to meet or interact with them. What my family chooses to do whether they puzzle this out on their own or whether I “come clean” is up to them; I just don’t know what I should do or say from here. I know that regardless of how the family connections are discovered, it’s going to be a rocky road with a lot of questions ahead, many of which I believe aren’t anyone’s business but my own.

—Not the Plan

Comments

[conuly]

Wow, the first letter in that link is a doozy too.

[minoanmiss]

Wasn't it? I had a hard time choosing just one letter from that page. I really hope someone posts The Sad Conservative Ex-Volunteer.

[conuly]

Oh, I'm not touching that one. But since you don't mind, I certainly will post the first one. Which is genuinely sad.

[cimorene]

This is (one of the many) unintended dystopian side-effects we were warned about from these services!

[harpers_child]

I hope LW finds a therapist to talk this through with. Someone they can lay it all out to and get help to figure out what to do. And then the therapist can help them deal with the fallout.

I think LW is going to have to tell the sister. I see a test that more directly compares the sister and the adoptee in the future. Or LW showing up to a family event and being introduced to a "new sibling".

Those ancestry DNA sites are gross for several reasons. Digging up ghosts is one of them.

[cereta]

That's a very interesting view you have of people looking for information about their biological roots. I mean, hey, who needs to know more than age and eye color? Certainly, I didn't have to answer three medical questions just this morning with, "I'm adopted, and don't have much access to that information." Nah. I mean, that would just be gross, right?

[harpers_child]

I'm sorry I hurt you. Looking back at what I said it was poorly thought out and badly phrased. I don't know now what I was trying to say. I'll try to think through things more thoroughly in the future.

[cereta]

Thank you very much for saying that. I confess to being a little weird about the topic right now. I'm dealing with, shall we say, a complicated situation with my (adoptive, but obviously "real") family, and it's just kind of been thrown into dramatic relief by my birth mother's cousins, etc, not just being welcoming, not even just being like me (when I've spent my whole life as the oddball), but actually liking me. So, yeah, I have Feelings right now. Thank you for listening.

[julian]

This is, in fact, a situation where a therapist can be of great use.

(But she's gonna have to do it quickly.)

[shirou]

Sucks for LW but the best option now is to come clean. It would be unfair to remain silent and allow her family members to continue suspecting one another of having affairs.

Curiously absent from the letter is the reason LW and her aunt kept the adoption a secret from LW's family or what LW thinks (or thought) her parents' reaction would have been. Was it just social stigma or is there a toxic family dynamic at play? The answer to this question could change my response.

[cereta]

*Waves* Hello, my (admittedly less dramatic) life.

Look. Many, if not most people adopted in closed adoptions have some curiosity about their origins. If they didn't, you wouldn't see things like the law passed in Ohio that gave me access to my records at the age of 45 (three years too late to meet my grandmother, who had wanted to find me but lacked the legal standing despite my file with Catholic charities with a big old "yes, tell anyone who inquires" in it, and YES, I am still bitter about that).

Where was I?

Every time stuff like this comes up, I say the same thing: it is a very, very bad idea to withhold this kind of information from family, be they kids who are being raised by someone not a biological relationship (or not of the relationship they're telling the kid) or the kids you're raising without telling them about a half-sibling. It's not just ethically wrong (and I will say that while I have some mixed feelings about just contacting people out of the blue, the person who never got a say in the arrangement will get my vote nearly every time). It's stupid. Does anyone not know about the DNA match sites? Are these parents just living in some kind of denial? LW knows that sooner or later, someone will connect the right dots. Even more, she knows that her sister's view of their father is being affected by this. If there was ever a time to share information, this is it.

Most importantly, the LW can still have some control over the narrative and situation. She can make her terms for contact absolutely clear, even if those are, "I will provide you with medical information, but will not meet you or interact with you" (which can be hurtful to hear, but is completely fair).

Just...picture me tugging at my hair, because I get so frustrated when people do this. It may very well be none of anyone else's business, but the only way LW can make that clear is by telling them the baseline information. "This far but no farther" is also perfectly fair.

And now I need coffee.

[minoanmiss]

I hope the coffee was good. *hugs you*

[cereta]

{{Hugs.}} It was. Even better were the various birth-mother's-cousins talking about how much the teen fanperson looks, dresses, and sounds like my birth mother. They really are amazing.