To contact his mum?

[saltyshoes]

When DH was 17 he got a girl pregnant at Uni having a one night stand. She left Uni to have the baby and wanted nothing to do with DH. There was some doubt as to whether DH was the father at all. Three years later a social worker contacted DH and told him the mum wanted to marry and wanted her partner to adopt the boy. DH gave up his parental rights so the boy could be adopted by the mums partner.

That boy is now in his 20s and we have children together. Oldest DD has always known about her half-brother existed. She has turned 14 and is now on Facebook and has found him. She is very keen to contact him. DH is very hesitant as he's not even sure the boy knows he's adopted as the mum didn't want him to know. DH wrote to the mum but has never had a reply. I've explained to DD that this all very sensitive and could be upsetting but she's 14 and just doesn't get it and feels she didn't sign off on not contacting him. I'm afraid she's going to send him a message and feel like it might be best if I try to contact the mum to see if she will respond to me? Or should DH contact the boy?

DH doesn't want to upset him but is unsure what on earth is the best way forward. A random message from DD is surely not the best first contact?

IMO the advent of social media means that it is no longer possible to have anonymity when it comes to e.g. Long lost family etc.

Reality is that this man could just as easily have got in touch with the DD when she is a little bit older. He may in fact have decided to hold off contacting her until she is eighteen for instance. And given the DH and the mum still have mutual friends on FB there was always a possibility that the truth would have come out if the DC hadn't been told.

On the positive side, at least the DD has spoken to her parents about contacting this man. Given she saw him on FB she could very easily have contacted him without their knowledge and only told them after the event.

Forbidding her from contacting him now, blocking her FB etc is not realistic. She's a teenager. Take her FB from her phone and she'll find a way to get on there from elsewhere. But what you need to do is to explain that there's a good chance that the brother won't want contact, and that at her age you don't want her to get hurt.

But the can of worms has now been opened and it's almost certainly inevitable that she will contact him at some point.

This is why people need to think carefully when e.g. Not putting someone on the birth certificate or just allowing a new partner to adopt because there is no control mechanism to prevent the past from coming back when you least expect it.

If she chose to contact me, I wouldn't shut the door in her face. I'd be open to knowing her, just not as my Mum as I have a Mum. I already have information about genetic conditions in my biological history. My biological father who demanded she aborted me and gave her no support at all has brittle bone disease, no other genetic conditions known on either side.

She might not have received the letter, she might have chosen not to open it (especially if she realised who it was from), she might have decided to stick her head in the sand. I realise all of that is extremely hypothetical, but the point is that if OP's DD goes steaming in with an assumption that the half brother already knows and he doesn't, she could do untold damage.

Sure. But if they haven't told him about the adoption and that's the reason for the untold damage? In this case that is imo genuinely not the thought of the 14 yo kid but of the young man's parents...

Your dh probably needs to try and get in touch with the mother again. Just to let her know his dd wants to get in touch with her son. I do think you need to strongly talk to her about contacting him as like has been said he may have mh issues or not know or just not want to be contacted.

Thank you for those that mentioned the adoption charities and the register. I think I may contact a charity and see if there's someone DD can talk to about how the boy might feel about being contacted. The register might be good enough for her. I think if she knew that he was choosing not to contact DH she would let it lie. She feels incensed on his behalf that he may not even know. She's only 14 and doesn't and can't possible understand the complexity of the situation.

I don't think DH did the wrong thing to tell the kids. DH could never have foreseen the advent of Facebook and how that might play out. He was more thinking that the boy might come back looking someday and he didn't want it to be a surprise to our kids. His inclusion in our will means they would have found out eventually.

DH was 17 with zero family support. His mum told him he committed a sin and he'd made his bed. He held his then son for one night. The mum showed up at his flat and told him she was going out and the baby was his for the night. DH felt just how completely out of his depth he was with a tiny baby. I can only imagine that night might have been the impetus for her parents to ask her to come home with the baby. So three years later when the social worker showed up and told DH there was a man who loved this little boy as his own he thought he was doing his best by stepping aside. But he's always felt a huge amount of guilt. He never paid anything toward the baby because he had nothing. Hence why he wanted the boy in the will. I don't think it was an easy situation for anyone.

I'm with you on that, Clary.

OP, would it be an idea to get in touch with one of the mutual friends? I imagine they know the backstory and know the current situation. They might be able to broach the subject with the mum.

This boy is now a man and can make his own decisions. He deserves to know where he is from. Your 14yr old daughter will do what she wants eventually, so she will contact him sooner or later. What you can do now is damage control. I think your daughter should be supported to contact her half brother that way you can 'control' how/what she says. Out of curtesy I would contact the mother again and try and get a clear picture of what her son knows. Explain how strongly your daughter feels. You want to work with her. Maybe his adoptive dad will feel threatened in some way. This is something that will not go away.

btw.

I meant:

"In this case that is imo genuinely not the thought fault of the 14 yo kid but of the young man's parents..." oops :=0

OP, I don't think giving a child up for adoption is a selfish or easy thing.

If signing up for this website is enough for your DD then that would probably be great. If it isn't... the idea of discreetly asking a friend (if one can trust this friend and the friend already knows!) may be smart?

Having somebody talk with your DD about her feelings, the feelings the young man may have etc is imo a good suggestion. Even if she won't try to contact him... Maybe she needs somebody to talk about her own feelings/emotions that has experience with these kind of things?

I'd be more concerned that a delicate (because they can all be quite delicate - even the robust ones) 14yo might have an almighty kick in the teeth if her half-brother rejects her or is out-and-out hostile towards her. She might have some very romantic notions about families being reunited - there's a lot of it about (see various TV shows...).

Bordersarethebest My biological "mum" refused to tell my parents any medical information back then, so I see that situation as highly unlikely to occur.

However, if it did happen, I'd want her to leave me well alone. She can put herself on the register as wanting to be contacted (though I'd never check to see if she had), but she has NO right to disrupt my life and neither do any of her relatives. They are not and have never been my family.

It is absolutely crucial that the adopted person has final say on the matter of whether or not they want contact.

Are you sure your dd hasn't already tried to make contact with him OP? 14 year olds can be quite impulsive.

Spread can you not see the difference between op's dd's situation, and your own? If my father (he fucked off before I was born) had tried to make contact, especially when my mum was still alive, I'd have been ambivalent at best. The children he went on to have though? I'd still be interested to meet them, and welcome contact from them (albeit apprehensively).

My father's decision 40-odd years ago to not be a part of my life was not my doing, and it wasn't my half-siblings' either.

I'm adopted and I nearly had a breakdown when my cunt of a sperm donor contacted me a few years ago. Agree with Pp - deactivate her FB account if necessary. The fact she knows his name is a huge concern though.

ComputerUserNumptyTwit I wouldn't want contact with any other children my biological "parents" had either before or after me. They would get a very frosty reception if they tried to contact me, and I cannot even imagine how angry I'd be if it was through something like Facebook. They're not my siblings; never have nor ever will be.

If this man knows about the adoption, he doesn't want to know his biological "dad's" family and therefore that should be respected. If he doesn't know, it is not up to a child he probably cares to know nothing about to disrupt his life because of her own selfish desires.

You don't know that he doesn't want to know though, Spread.

I've always known that my father went on to have children with the woman he married after he left my mum. I never got in touch because they were younger than me, I didn't (still don't) know if they know I exist, and I didn't want to rock the boat. The young man here may well feel the same. THing is, we just don't know.

ComputerUserNumptyTwit I don't think your situation is comparable, because you weren't adopted, your dad just left an had more children with another woman. You were part of his family.

Adoption is a whole other ball game. This man already has a family, and the OP's DH and DD are not it unless he so chooses to let them be (and it should be at his request).

Blood means jack shit when it comes to adoption. If you give a baby up, you don't get to just waltz back into their lives when it suits your or your family's needs, because they are no longer your family (because you gave them up).

It's absolutely comparable! My father gave me up when I was a baby. The only difference I can see is that the man who would have been the son's step-father became his legal father through adoption. That didn't happen in my case.

Agree with Spread.
Op says dd 'just doesn't get it'. I'd make sure she does bloody 'get it'. She's a child with some sort of fantasy, the damage and upset she has the potential to create is immense. I'd be making that absolutely crystal clear.

What a fucking mess!

No your dh couldn't have foreseen fb but before fb there WAS phone books, birth death and marriage certificates, newspapers and other written records. With such a unique name your dh and you were massively irresponsible to tell your dc his name or any other identifying information. It was also irresponsible to talk about him so frequently in such a way as if he is part of your family he is NOT any longer legally family.

14 is old enough to understand the hurt such a bombshell can cause, it's CERTAINLY old enough to understand the word 'no'.

Also cowardly and irresponsible to leave money in a will. If the boy when your dh dies doesn't know he's adopted how the hell is that supposed to be explained to him? If his mother and adoptive father have had more children together a long lost relative won't explain it, so your dh is basically planning to drop this bombshell on the lad when he's no longer around to have to deal with the ramifications!

As things are now your dh will need to contact either the mother or social services to contact her, admit he's fucked up and follow the boys parents and social services advice on how to proceed from here.

In the meantime dd needs to be told in no uncertain terms that she is NOT to contact this lad until you (meaning you and dh) advise otherwise. That it would be selfish and cruel and it's not her place to potentially turn this guys world completely upside down, destroy his idea of his identity.

Seriously what were you and your dh thinking?!

ComputerUserNumptyTwit No, sorry, I still don't think it's comparable. It's awful, certainly, but your dad is still legally your dad whether you want him to be or not. He didn't give you away, he just left.

This boy's dad is the man who brought him up, the man who adopted him. It is not the man who donated his sperm; he gave away his legal right to be a dad to someone else. Your dad didn't, and therein lies the massive difference.

OP - I think you need to protect the family from your daughter and her views.

Contact the parent's and explain the situation. This will give them the chance to make a decision on what to do.

Do you have access to your daughter's Facebook? If so when she is out, block him on her account so she can't access him.

If he is in his twenties then it is extremely unlikely that he doesnt know that he is adopted, given ID requirements now. You need a birth or adoption certficate for driving license, age cards etc, which all kids need these days once they hit 18, so I think it can be safely assumed that the reason he hasnt go in touch is because he doesnt want to.

The reasons why he doesnt want to could be more complicated, but he doesnt want to and your DD needs to be made to understand that. And I mean MADE to understand that with sensitive explainations at first and then loud shouty words if that doesnt get through. She simply does not have the right barge in to someone elses life like this.

A few years ago I was contacted by my Dads real dad; DDad was adopted by his step father, and didn't want anything to do with his real dad. Anyways, it really shocked and upset me as this man appeared to know my name, what I did for a living and because he found me through FB, knew what I looked like. Turns out he got the information from my Dads brother who he made contact with, and because I have an unusual first name, I was the first hit on FB.

Obviously I told my Dad, who was furious. Although your child wants to contact their half brother and I understand that, but it will open up a huge can of worms and questions that can't be answered. I lived in worry that this man would turn up at my hospital and ask for me, or find my husband at his work.

Not everyone in their 20's has documents that require proof to be provided.

I worked with someone who in her 30's discovered her mother was actually her grandmother and her eldest sister actually her mother. She didn't drive and had never been abroad so no need for driving license or passport. She was looking for her birth certificate as she was getting married. Came as a great shock to her and caused ructions in the family as you can imagine.

Friend of mine was told at 18 they had an older sister who'd been adopted as at the time of her birth friends parents were under age and they were pressured to give her up. The parents had eloped as soon as aged 18 and then had my friend.

A few years later the sister contacted the parents and they all have lovely relationships now, including with the adoptive parents of the sister, but that was handled very delicately through an agency which specialises in this type of thing.

It's not something that should be blundered into by a 14 yr old.

Not everyone in their 20's has documents that require proof to be provided

If he has, since the age of 18, ever...

Opened a bank account
Accepted a job
Claimed benefits
Attended Uni
Tried to buy alcohol or cigarettes
Got married
Applied for a loan

then he will have needed ID. The only way I can see that he might have ID but not know is if he had a passport as a child that his mum applied for and he has just renewed it each time, but even then I very much doubt he will not have seen his own paperwork.