Who is my father?

[UncleBean]

That is the question I think my sister in law is dreading. Her 7 year old boy came about after a holiday romance and the father was contacted but avoided contact thereafter. She chose to go ahead with the pregnancy. She was alone with him for the first 3 or 4 years, then met and married her husband and had a further two children.

My sister in law is dreading explaining and i have offered. I have been insistent that he knows as much as he can understand as early as possible in his life, but it's not my call. I think I can handle most of it, but what i am struggling with is how he would describe his situation to his friends. I don't want to tell him to hide the facts, because that implies shame. I don't want him to generalize to the extent he lies. Does anyone have a perspective on this that might help me?

I think it is down to her to explain, not you.
she needs to stress how much 'in love' they were, and some tale about he wasn't able to be with them....
romantic stuff , you know.
Then the emphasis needs to be on how step dad considers the child his own, etc. As long as he does that is....

Really keep out of it. She's the best person to gauge how much he knows already and what he can handle. And giving the responsibility to someone else implies there is shame, however good the intention.

The truth works just fine.
She got pregnant while on holiday and decided to keep the baby and thus baby came into the world and she bought him up by herself the best she could.
if she is now married she could add him in saying and then she met so and so who made her very happy and she felt to include him in their family so her son has a lovely man to look up to and ask manly advice to.

My perspective is that you need to back off.

With the best intentions and the best outcome you will have an Aunt telling someone their parentage

She isn't telling him anything untrue, why are you insistent?

He will ask and it's up to his mum to decide what and when she explains.

Thanks for the feedback.