Recently, I became interested to know why people who use donor eggs or sperm don’t want their children to ever know, so I started searching for the reasons, and started listening to the why’s, the fears, the antics used to make sure their child will never know. I must confess not one excuse/reason was valid to me. The lengths they go to cover it up shocks me more. And it seems to boil down to fear they won’t be seen as real more than any other reason.
It is also still happening in the adoption world as well as the donor world, sad but true. People are still choosing not to tell their child their truth.
Despite the medical risk of not telling, rather pretending your child has your genes, your families propensity to certain diseases, your fear is keeping you silent.
Both groups of parents seem to not realize that there is no anonymity anymore – DNA does not lie.
At some point the likelihood that in the future your child will find out anyway is growing more and more by day. It doesn’t have to be your child who decides to test their DNA for the truth to come out. They could be asked to test to confirm someone else belongs in their family tree. Their children could choose to test and find out the truth. They could receive a DNA test for a present and do it on a whim.
And that’s all it takes for the lies to begin to unravel, and the fall-out that comes after.
This link is a short post about what happened to Bill Giffeth after the e-book version of his book “The stranger in my genes” was released August 23rd. For those who don’t want to tell your child – do you want what happened to Tom in the post, to happen to your child?
Please tell…
The adopted ones blog 
Lara/Trace
September 6, 2016 at 3:47 pm
I have thought about this too Tao. It seems fear is the motivating factor for parents who lie but if they knew the outcome of the lie (via adoptees) I’d hope they’d reconsider.
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TAO
September 6, 2016 at 3:51 pm
Me too Lara/Trace, me too. Out of all the adoptees who I’ve talked to on-line when they found out late in life, only one wished she hadn’t, everyone else, despite the anguish, were glad the truth was finally theirs. Whether she maintained that stance or it was the shock – I don’t know – but truth is powerful, freeing, good even if it has pain along the way.
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Cindy
September 6, 2016 at 8:16 pm
And still the laws of the land protect the lies and those who tell them. Is it really a ‘birth parent privacy’ that they are protecting? The truth speaks louder than the lies.
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Heather
September 6, 2016 at 9:05 pm
My son is 11 now and his adoptive parents are still lying to him while they continue to disobey Consent Orders. They have created so much unnecessary pain from their fear, insecurity and selfishness.
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TAO
September 6, 2016 at 11:01 pm
I’m so sorry.
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Heather
September 6, 2016 at 9:06 pm
The link is not working for me 😦
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Tara-Anita Brown
September 6, 2016 at 10:52 pm
Try this one:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/06/cnbc-anchor-bill-griffeth-got-the-shock-of-his-life-after-a-simple-dna-test.html
and this
http://www.cnbc.com/bill-griffeth/
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TAO
September 6, 2016 at 11:01 pm
I don’t know what’s up with the link – must be a problem with the site – it worked fine this morning. I can get to the site and the post is there.
http://vita-brevis.org/
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Heather
September 8, 2016 at 8:00 am
Thank you.
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iwishiwasadopted
September 7, 2016 at 3:39 pm
My adoptive mother told me that I was adopted, but did not tell others, neighbors, teachers etc. I once asked why and she said she , “didn’t want people to know her business”.
So my adoption was “her business”.
The truth is, she didn’t want people to know she was infertile. Some women are very ashamed of that.
Her answer to me goes to show that she saw my adoption as being about her, much more than about me. Not a healthy environment to bring up a child in.
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TAO
September 7, 2016 at 3:43 pm
No, not one I’d say was healthy…
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Nara
September 9, 2016 at 10:17 am
I don’t understand why people do this. It’s so odd. Of course it could never happen to me as I was a transracial adoptee, so it’s pretty obvious I wasn’t born to white parents.
I feel for the parents, in a weird way, because they must live with a constant fear that their secret would be exposed and their child would reject them. I figure that’s the only reason why they would keep it a secret.
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iwishiwasadopted
September 9, 2016 at 11:18 am
I’ve never heard another adoptee mention this, but I used to envy trans racial adoptees when i was a child, because their adoption was so obvious. I hated that mine was hidden.
I did not want anyone to think that I was really my adoptive parents child! It actually bothered me that I fit in.
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Nara
September 9, 2016 at 3:29 pm
Interesting. My partner is a same race adoptee. He definitely talks about it less, not to say he’s ashamed of it (as we talked about it loads when we first met) but it just doesn’t come up that often.
I think there are nuances with both. I think you can envy people being “obvious” adoptees but I think there are whole loads of Otherness that transracial adoptees face, that same race adoptees don’t. Like, you don’t really ever get a free pass to not be different / adopted. You are like an ethnic minority who doesn’t know how to be your own race. You don’t speak the language you were meant to speak. And that’s on top of not knowing your biological relatives…
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iwishiwasadopted
September 9, 2016 at 10:07 pm
I don’t envy them now. I think there are many problems with trans racial adoption. When I was little, I just saw the advantages!
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Tara-Anita Brown
September 11, 2016 at 10:22 pm
Hi, I’m an international adoptee (actually first time using the word). The experiences of being one are constant. Just yesterday my Father and I went out and this morning at the foodstore. (He is black, I’m native American.) When I call him Daddy to say something to him, All I see are heads turning, stares, glances back and forth, the pauses and could feel the belwilderment of those ‘what?! they look nothing alike’ stares and then actually see them trying to figure out how that could that be. I try to ignore it but its so blatant. This is constantly happening. People ask me where I am from if I was born over here, if my family is from here,..sometimes I just say yeah to cut it short let them hurt there head trying to figure it out….maybe that answer would tell them mind your business..you are getting too personal. but it feels that way always having to explain (or avoid all the explanations of who you are. It takes an emotional toll especially when you are trying to deal with all of the turmoil of being adopted yourself. (myself).
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TAO
September 11, 2016 at 10:52 pm
Tara-Anita – that would be very hard to take constantly. I’m so sorry you keep having to experience that, both the different race and the where are you from, or the ignorant what are you questions. It must trigger you all the time. People can be ignorant. I wish I could make it better, I do speak up when I hear crap like that, because you know people wouldn’t like it done to them.
I grew up in a small town where everyone knew we were all adopted so ‘are you real siblings’ is the only thing I can remember being asked frequently. If think if we’d lived elsewhere, although it wouldn’t have been anywhere near the magnitude you deal with daily being different races, if the whole family was together and up close you’d know we weren’t biological any way you’d look.
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Tara-Anita Brown
September 11, 2016 at 11:22 pm
Thanks for the encouragement TAO. I am so glad I am a follower on your blog 🙂 I am learning a lot from you and the your followers. I get to express thoughts and feelings that I’ve rarely been able to. I’m actually going to hold a group discussion on Nancy Verrier’s book Primal Wound in the months of October and November. I’m excited and scared at the same time not knowing what is going to happen. But I do know its going to be an emotional time for me and all the participants. I’m praying that all goes well and alot of learning and healing takes place.
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TAO
September 12, 2016 at 3:19 am
I’m so very glad Tara-Anita that you are here. When I read the PW it was the first time in my life that I found out my feelings were feelings other adoptees had had – I was in my early 40’s, so I’d waited a long time and it was freeing. I felt validated. I wish you the best with your group discussion, you always have a safe space here if it gets to much…
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TAO
September 9, 2016 at 1:40 pm
Secrets can burden or create a wall in a relationship and that’s the sad part.
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Tiffany
September 9, 2016 at 9:36 pm
I don’t get not loving everything about your child, including the genetic parts of them that are not yours. My daughter has a very strong connection to one of her ethnic backgrounds in particular, which we do not share. (She is not an international adoptee, but her racial background is different than ours.) We love and embrace it and absolutely encourage it. She talks about an imaginary other family in this country, about the customs (most of them she makes up although I have gotten her books since she’s so interested), and, since she was two, she has been making up words and saying she learned them from that language (I wish I could find her lessons in the language, but it’s not common). She feels connected to this place- who am I to deny her that connection simply on the basis that we do not have it in common? Genetics matter, and it is usually people who have full knowledge of theirs say that they don’t.
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Dannie
October 17, 2016 at 9:32 pm
goodness….grammar errors abound. “I live in an area where kids and parents may not match but 95% of the time are biologically mother/father and child.
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TAO
October 17, 2016 at 9:38 pm
you hit the wrong reply button Dannie – just for others reading – Dannie’s reply should be under her own comment…
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Dannie
October 17, 2016 at 9:31 pm
in this day and age, I can’t fathom how one can keep secrets of this magnitude. Not that I would, maybe I’m just to techno savvy so I wouldn’t even think i could keep up a lie if that were within me.
While my daughter and I don’t match, I live in an area where kids and parents do match skin color and 95% of the time they are still biological family. High interracial mix of families. Also many second marriages so even if 2 white parents, kid can be be different shades and half siblings.
That being said, I try to give information appropriate to my growing 7 year old and she is free to say or not say what she wants if someone asks her why we aren’t the same color.
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TAO
October 17, 2016 at 9:40 pm
I think even if it is a one sided feeling – knowing you haven’t told would create a wedge between you that would only keep growing, if ever so slowly. I don’t see how that can be healthy.
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