To not tell my children my parents are dead

[Parotpie01]

So this is going to be long winded so please bear with ......

My mother walked out when I was 9 (took me and my two brothers to school and when we got home all her stuff had gone) we have not seen her since and she was a missing person, she got in contact with police to say she was ok and didn't want to be found.

My dad then died when I was 12.

Me and my two brothers who are 2 years and 4 years younger than me, were brought up by our auntie and uncle with their two children, so five children in one house, the youngest cousin had just been born when we moved in, we have always referred to each other as brothers and sister and never as cousins really (as growing up it was easier than explaining the full back story)

Fast forward to when I had my children, who are now 8 and 5 1/2 - right from the get go we decided that my auntie and uncle would be Nannie and grandad (leading to an assumptions they were my paren) and all 4 boys would be uncles.

Now that was all well and good at the time but I now have a very inquisitive 8 year old who is slowly becoming aware that something just doesn't add up.

One of my biological brothers is adamant I need to tell them but I just don't want to, the rest of my family agree they need to know at some point but when and how no one knows.

I just don't know how I can break this to them - I don't know how to not make them worry that I'm just going to disappear ?!

Please don't come down on me for lying to them, I had my daughter at 18 and it was a hard time as it is without trying to decide what to do with this.

I guess I just need advise on what you guys would do.

Thank you for reading

If they need reassurance about what might happen to them should you "disappear" then your story is actually perfect OP - you belong to a family where people look out for each other and take care of children. You can present it as a real positive that not only were you taken in but you got a set of new siblings and they get a lot more uncles plus a lovely set of gps.

Tell them, in a low key a way as possible.

e.g.
You know Nannie and Grandad? Well I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but they aren't actually my parents, they are my uncle and auntie. They brought me up because my Mum wasn't around and then my dad dies when I was only 12. But I call them Mum and Dad as that's who they are to me. Oh, and Uncle X and Uncle Y are my cousins but they're still uncles to you. Would you like a chocolate biscuit?

Then deal with questions as simply as they ask them. You don't need to say more than they ask.

Where was your Mum?
She didn't like being a Mum very much so she left. I so love being your Mum, I'm not going anywhere.
Why did your Dad die?
Well he wasn't very well, and doctors weren't so clever in those days

My exp was adopted because his mum walked out and never returned and his dad was an alcoholic who couldnt look after him so he went into care.

So obviously, his adoptive parents, are and will always be DD's grandparents, blood related or not.

I think you are far more scared of their reaction than they would actually show. As far as they are concerned, your aunt and uncle are their grandparents. The biological truth wont change that.

Teen has made some good suggestions. But it's up to you if you feel you need to have a talk or just let it unfold naturally.

I'm adopted, as is my brother, and it was never a big deal. Our parents never really gave us a 'sit down talk'. They just used phrases like 'before we got/adopted you' (instead of 'before you were born') in everyday discussions. There were pictures of us as babies and they'd say 'that was the day they gave you to us and we brought you home'. As we got older, they might say something that would lead to questions which were answered simply and truthfully.

My parents also raised 3 of my cousins after the death of their mother. Their father was an alcoholic and really unable to care for them. Their children all consider my parents to be their grandparents and again, it was just something that 'was'. They knew their grandmother had died, and as they grew older they began to understand why their grandfather wasn't able to raise their parents. A bit different from your situation as they always knew the truth, but it's just an example of how accepting children are of 'the way things are' in their lives that are different than 'the norm'. Of course these days there are so many different types of families that there really isn't a 'norm' any more.

I agree with across if you can let it unfold naturally that is best. We are adopters and this is what we are told to do (and have done).

But if you have got this far and it hasn't come out naturally you may need to push yourself into mentioning it.

OP, my dad's dad died when he was 4. His mum never remarried. I grew up with a Granny and Granddad on one side and just a Granny on the other. I always knew the story of how he had been sick and died and Granny brought up dad and his brother on her own.

It never once occurred to me to think that MY dad could get sick and die. Maybe I am unusual, but it was, as others have said, a story, a piece of family history. There is much more in her story, including babies who all died, and it didn't cross my mind to apply that to our modern family. That was all 'in the old days' and it wasn't real.

Keep it simple and upbeat as possible. I hope you had a goid childhood despite what happened.

Is your bio mum alive?

Sosix - I have no way of knowing, she was alive 3 years ago

op are there other things about this which concern you? i.e. that your dc may at some point want to look up the other side of their family if they know the truth? not now at a young age but as they get older? And that this may bring other issues back for you, especially wrt your mum?

I've often wondered about my dad's biological dad, not where he is, he's dead anyway by all accounts and I have no interest in him, but i do sometimes wonder wether he had other dc (apparently he did) and whether I might have uncles and aunts and cousins etc out there I know nothing about. It's purely a curiosity type thing, but by nature humans are curious, and things like the internet give us a platform on which to explore and sometimes resolve that curiosity.

As your mum got in contact with a cousin three years ago and appears to be still alive, might it help you to do some research (or pay someone else to do it) to find out where she is and what happened to her e.g. did she remarry, did she have other children etc, not because you want to re-establish that relationship but so that it doesn't come as any kind of shock if your own dc decide to explore in their own right as they get older?

Have you any interest in finding your bio mum? Have you thought about her showing up?

Kids really do sense stuff. I didn't find out that I had a much older half-sister until I was 9, but because I knew my dad had been married before I just felt there was someone. I didn't know sooner because they'd fallen out and hadn't spoken for years. They later fell out again when I was 15 and haven't spoken since!

And I also suspected something with my mum - confirmed when I found my parents' marriage certificate when I was 13 - (a) they'd married after I was born, shock horror in the early 1970s, and (b) it had "previous marriage dissolved" for my mother as well as my father. She'd had a short marriage but it hadn't worked out.