To not tell DD about her brother

[Musereader]

DD is 2 in a few days so im not imagining this situation wil happen soon but i want to be prepared.

I left dd’s abusive father when she was 4 weeks old and he had not seen her since just before her first birthday - i got a call from social services about 2 weeks ago asking if he saw her at all and that he was under investigation. From the conversation and posts on his facebook dd’s father has had another child earlier this year who was taken off him and his partner 3 days after he was born and has been in foster care with contact since. There will be a final hearing in a few months and he may be put up for adoption.

My sister thinks i should let dd know at an age approriate time but before teen years as if she finds out she may be angry and feeling lied to. My mum says to not let her know at all as she is a chilld and it would be cruel as she cannot do any thing. I dont want dd coming home as a teenage with a boyfriend who turns out to be her brother.

Father is unlikely to ever be involved in her life as he has not shown any interest.

I think i want to tell her but how? When? Does anybody have any similar experiance or advice?

Thanks for all the stories and advice i will let her know as soon as she is able to understand, which may be a while away yet.

Actually, tell her before she can understand, and mention it regularly. Then it doesn't become a 'big thing'.

We have 'life story books' about the birth family and reasons for care, some text, some photos.
You could make similar and put in a page about the half sibling.

e.g. here is you age

you were born on xxxx at yyyy.

here is a picture of you at 1 hour old.

here is Mummy when you were still in her tummy.

here is Mike he helped Mummy make you.

Unfortunately Mike wasn't very good at holding his temper and sometimes he wasn't very nice, which is why we don't see him.

Mike helped make another baby after you, called Sebastian. because Mike gets angry and the baby's mother couldn't keep the baby safe, Sebastian had to go and live with another family and they adopted him, so we can't see him at the moment either.

here are you on your first birthday.

here you are blowing bubbles - you used to love that.

I agree that I wouldn't keep it a secret but I also agree with your mum that there is not much point. If you hadn't been contacted by SS you would be none the wiser and unless you keep tabs on his life (which sounds like you won't- totally with you on this btw) there could be numerous half siblings around in a few years time(from numerous relationships) How would you even know?

Tell early.

I had a stillborn younger sibling - I remember it happening so have always known.

I didn't realise until after my Mother died that my surviving younger siblings born after his death didn't know.

Stuff like that wasn't really referred to in our family primarily due to my Mother's approach to stuff so I think it was an oversight rather than a deliberate omission. We found scan pictures in my Mum's stuff and the younger two felt really betrayed when they realised they related to a dead sibling they didn't know about. It was awful and 5yrs on my almost 40yr old DBro still gets a bit emotional talking about it.

Please tell her. From someone who keeps uncovering lie after lie about the circumstances of my birth you'll play a big part in saving a lot of pain for the innocents caught up in it. You may also be able to arrange letterbox contact via social services as they grow up.

We have an adopted DGC who is in touch with an older half sibling, also adopted. Birth mother has had further children, no one was told by SS, it was discovered via social media. Purported birth father also has other children, born after DGC was adopted. The life story book, whilst informative about BM and foster carer, only mentions the older half sibling. Whilst DGC is aware of adoption and older sibling, there is a whole raft of possible younger unknown half siblings. Is that something adoptive parents normally hear about from SS?

Different perspective. I found out about my older adopted sister when I was 26. My mum only told me about her when my sister got in contact. Mum explained that she hadn't told me about my sister as she didn't want me to be tortured by knowing that there was a sibling out there who I would have had no way of contacting. I am so grateful that she did!

I'm guessing that this wouldn't be relevant if there would be a way of contacting them these days.

TeenTimesTwo - That sounds like such a lovely way to introduce such a 'sensitive subject' as this is, to a child.

Another vote for telling any truths early however uncomplicated they sound. My DH was married previously with no children. We didn't mention it to our DS since it wasn't relevant but unfortunately DH's Sister had told all her children and one of them spilt the beans actually in a rather sneaky way "I know something about your Dad you don't know". DS was mortified the other children knew before him. It took some time to rebuild the trust.

OP you've got some time to think about this since your child is only 2. I agree with your DSis to say something .. and do you have a DP (sorry if I've missed this) .. in which case introducing differences early on and making sure she knows she's loved even before the whole biznai comes up about her having a half brother somewhere in the mix later on.