hole thing feels like a dirty lil secret

[shaymarie]

please excuse my spellings etc i am dyslexic so it cant be helped

where to start i have a 5 nerly 6 yr old amazing lil boy his biological father doesn't have any thing to do with him witch is perfectly fine as me and his step-dad have been together since he was a couple of weeks old my son knows no different and is unaware that the man he calls dad isnt his biological father anyway moving on i believe all party's are happy with how it has all turn out and it is what it is the only contact i have from him is a letter from the csa every year today i received a later saying payments will be droped and they have over paid me so on and so on when i phoned to find out wtf was going on they told me that my ex has another child witch is fare enuf completely understand why its drooped etc and he has the right to a life and i wish them all the very best
the thing is i now i no my son has a brother or a sister that he may never meet or no about if my son ever asks will tell him the truth to a certain degry he doesn't need to no the full ins and outs what was said just that wasnt ready to have children at the time i will not bad mouth my ex to him as i think if the time ever comes and i dont think it will he can make his own mind up about my ex
feeling alot of strange emotions tbh im happy for them and glad he chose to stick around for this child
but i h8 the fact that i know my son has other siblings id rather not know but now im going to find out every time my ex has more children
i cant stress enuf that im not just pissed of cuz hes moved on or any thing like that im not stupid i didn't think he would be selabut for the rest of his life we have both moved on im hapily married and have another son so i think the problem is as it feels like a dirty lil secret and id h8 it if in years to come our son is angry at me for with holding that from him if he ever finds out the truth witch i see no reason why he should my husband is his dad end off
i really dont no mayb im over thinking the hole thing about him finding out and then hearing he has other siblings i really just dont know

I'm sorry that you feel criticised. I don't think that is what anyone is trying to do. It's a horrible situation for you to be in and not fair that you are the one who has to deal with helping your son come to terms with it.

I think people here are trying to support you, but can't lie and say you're doing the right thing when they don't think it. I, like other people here, feel strongly that you should tell your son. That's for your sake as well as his - you obviously care about him and it would be awful if he grew up resenting you for not telling him when you are trying to protect him.

I do think you sound a bit angry when defending your decision not to tell him, maybe because deep down it does make you feel a bit uneasy? I don't want to criticise you at all, but I think people of mumsnet could be a great support to you if you do decide to tell him.

I really don't want to sound nasty, but if you are sure you are making the right decision by keeping this from your son then I genuinely don't understand what you are asking in your op?

You can explain it in an age appropriate way. My son is 3 and his "real" dad doesn't want anything to do with him either, hasn't seen him in coming up for a year now, never sends birthday cards, texts to see how he is, anything.

When he started calling DP "My Daddy" I just had a little chat with him, and said, yes DP is your daddy and you can call him that if you like, but did you know you have another daddy?

He was very intrigued but didn't really understand, he kept asking who, who is my other daddy? I told him his name and then someone said maybe you could show him a picture? So I went through the computer and found the pictures from when he was a baby/before he was born which luckily I hadn't deleted, and he was able to look at them. Every now and again he asks to look at the pictures, but he never asks to see his dad or why he isn't around. If he did ask, then I would just say I don't know, I think he must be busy with work. When he's older, he will probably figure out for himself that his dad didn't want to know, but he will be older then and better able to deal with it, especially if he's known all along that there's another Dad in the background.

You don't have to explain at this stage about sex and genes and which one is his biological father, because when he's old enough he'll work that one out by himself, but it is best to tell him that he exists so that it doesn't come as a huge shock later.

DS isn't really emotionally bothered about having another dad, he just takes it in his stride. As far as he's concerned, DP is his dad and that's fine by me. When we look at pictures he once asked if we could print one out, so I let him choose one, and the one he chose didn't even have his dad in it!

DS has a half brother, but I haven't told him about him and I probably won't unless he asks. He did meet him but doesn't remember him at all.

Your son won't be the only one in his situation - it's sadly fairly common for dads to just disappear :( if he knows the truth it will be easier for him to understand etc later. Does he have any friends who have stepdads? Maybe you could explain it to him using them as an example.

I do see what your saying my son never started calling my husband dad till he was 3 he called him russ or babe even tho russ has been his dad from 6weeks we both decided it wasn't a good idea to call him dad until tyler just started calling him dad at the beginning as who knows we're the relationship was going to go so i no it seams that im lieing to him but we just decided it was ok that he called him dad haven't really thought much about it till every one on here started saying we should tell him the truth mayb he already knows
I know what I wrote seams like I was asking about what he will do when he finds out i but I ment about me knowing about him having siblings not about my husband not being his dad mayb should have read through the post befor I started this thread rather than rant and post

Shay I have a little boy. I am not his bio mum and his dad his not his bio dad. We are his great aunt Nd uncle. He has been with us since he was 8!weeks old and he is out legal son.
I would really urge you to be honest with yours some however complicated the circumstances.
No good ever, ever comes out of secrets and lies.
I know it's hard and I know you want to do what is best.
You can do it.

No, I think it's ok to rant here!

The fact that your son has known your husband by his name as well as Dad could be a good starter for a conversation with him about it. Just saying....

Just a point I don't know if you are happy having identifiable names on here, I think you can ask mnhq if you want them removed.

Mumsnet in my experience is a good place for talking/ranting about issues like this. I think people on here are good, and if an issue you weren't expecting arises it might be worth thinking about it. I don't mean blindly listening and agreeing to what people say, just thinking about it...

Mumsnet is here for ranting and posting. It's fine to work through what you're feeling on a thread :)

I don't think you can separate the father issue with the sibling issue. It's not as though one day you will be able to tell him that he has a half sibling without him realising that either you or his dad are not his birth parent. I think that this will be a horrible realisation for him - if it were me I would feel very angry at having been lied to and I would struggle to trust you about anything else.

It would make it seem as though having a different birth father was something to be ashamed about - when the truth is that it is FINE. Blended families and step parents and half siblings are all COMPLETELY NORMAL AND FINE. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about your son having a birth dad and a real dad.

shaymarie, there are two reasons for the pretty unanimous advice you have been given:

your approach was the normal one for adopted children/the children of divorcees in our parents' generation and there is plenty of evidence that children were damaged by it

many posters have been in a similar situation and found openness has worked well for their children

One of my children will probably never meet her biological father. But I suppose it's easier for me as he doesn't live in the UK any more and I think he will keep away for fear of the CSA.

The best thing is surely to tell a neutral story which doesn't involves phrases like 'he wants nothing to do with you'. Just say he went away. Your son will draw his own conclusions. What our children feel about it is beyond our control but the best thing you can do is leave out any negative language imo. You must tell him the truth though - if you lie and he finds out the truth later it will shake his trust in you.

Ds has a half sister and possibly lots of others that we will never know about.
His Hals sister was born the same year his adoptive sister died.
He has learning difficulties.
It's so hard to get it right and so hard to find the words but we had to.
I have so many friends who have been devastated when they find out this stuff in adulthood or by accident when younger.
You could get good Advice on an adoption website.

the truth will come out. maybe not in teh next few years maybe later.

i have witnessed the fallout of exactly this situation. my cousin found out at 12 that his 'dad' wasn't his dad. he went completely off the rails for about 3/4 years. ran away from home. would spend nights sleeping on teh streets to avoid going back home. it really was heart breaking. i firmly believe tht something as huge as who you parents are should not be kept from you. i think your son has a right to know and i dont think you should ever have lied to him.

My SS's were 12 months and just turned 2 when I met them, their birth mum left them when they were 4 months and 16 months old. They call me mummy, but we always talk about how they grew in someone else's belly and refer to her by her name, not birth mum or anything like that. It has never caused any confusion and I think is best to be honest from the start as they have a right to know. On the sibling front, she has had 4 other children who she has abandoned with 3 other men. We know their names and the names of the family (good old facebook) so if when they are older they want to find them they can, but we have no intentions of arranging any contact ourselves.

He's still little, so it's the perfect age to have a conversation with him now. DS was the same - never called DP his dad until he started nursery. DP only came into his life when he was 2 and he had been trying to express this even when he did see his dad - he would say "DP is like a mummy" etc. Then when his dad started to be less involved etc he would say things like "Sam has a Daddy, but I have a Tim. I have got a Daddy, but he is just a man." (Tim not real name)

When he started nursery I think he really understood what other children's dads were - ie a man who lives with you and looks after you and does dad stuff - and he decided for himself that DP is his dad, even though he still calls him by his name. So one morning when he came to jump on us snuggle into bed we just said to him - do you know you have another daddy as well? We had a little talk about how lots of children have one mummy and one daddy, but some children have two mummies, or two daddies (you could skip this part if you don't want to talk about gay relationships yet) or they have a mummy and a daddy at home, but another daddy somewhere else, or another daddy and a mummy somewhere else, and that some children only have a mummy or a daddy. We told him he was very lucky to have two daddies - the fact his other dad doesn't see him didn't seem to come up here and it helps that he still sees some of XP's family as well so we explained that Nanny is other daddy's mummy, just like Grandma is my mummy and Nana is DP's mummy.

This will serve a dual purpose to help him understand his own family and that it's fine and okay, and any of his friends who have different family set ups he will be able to see that that's normal too, it's just different from how his life is.

You don't have to bring up the "other daddy" regularly, but just as long as he has a vague knowledge that he exists if it does come up later, then it won't be a massive shock.

At a party(all weekend 40th bash) a few years ago,

I noticed a (Jo)friend's daughter(18) sitting with a lad of the similar age by an outdoor fire, I was chatting to another friend(sue,other names available) when the pair got up and started to walk off together, body language indicating that they were interested in each other,

Sue and I looked at each other, Sue went and grabbed the daughter with a flimsy excuse, I went and found Jo,

Jo then had to explain to daughter that her new found boyfriend, was not on, eighteen year olds demand explanations when you implement rules,

Jo had to come clean about, Dad not being Dad, and yes both biological father and "Dad" knew, it had seemed the easiest arrangement at the time,

Jo had to tell very cross daughter that she shared a father with the boy she fancied.

Both Jo's daughter and the boy were very cross for a long time about being lied to, they still feel very betrayed, they are good friends, but they are less impressed with their parents.

Children have a right to know where they have come from, and if that is awkward, tough.

OP I would suggest that the "whole thing feels like a dirty little secret" precisely because at the moment it is

Please tell your son all about everything when you feel he is old enough to understand. My 33 year old OH just found out his 'dad' is not his dad as his real dad managed to track him down and the fall out is not pretty!!! It is best if everyone knows everything from the start all sorts of wierd and wonderful family set ups can work out very well as long as there are no secrets!