Paternal grandparents have told my daughter my partner is not her real dad!

[fif83]

On my d's 5th bday the paternal grandparents sat her down and told her my partner wasn't her real daddy.
The biological father is absebt and I have not spoken to him for over 6 years, however I tracked the grandparents down when my d was born and invited them into her life.
I have been with my partner since my d was 1 and she knows him as daddy. We confronted them about what they had done and they were not sorry. They said it wasn't appropriate for her to call my partner dad as their son is her dad and they wouldn't lie to her. Furthermore they have refused to refrain from speaking to her about it further when she is in their care.
We are disgusted and we do not know what to do. My daughter is confused and we don't feel we can trust them to respect our wishes. Has anyone else been in this situation or can offer any advice???

I think the drip feeding works if no family or friends remain from the biological family.

if you are (quite lovely-ly) trying to retain contact, drip feeding is harder because other people can come in at any time and say what they want.

croquet - you have my sympathy. DD had it twice. it was excruciating

I agree that there shouldn't be a 'big talk'. I am an adopter and we were very much encouraged to start talking about adoption as early as possible. In fact, the social worker challenged me to start telling dd when she was just 15 months old. I protested that she was too young to understand and she said yes, the point was that the information should never come as a surprise. So if you start telling them BEFORE they understand they will always be familiar with the words, and will increasingly add meaning to them.

Of course, this should be done in an age appropriate way, but the point is that you shoudln't allow the child to build up an alternative explanation which then has to be disabused.

Coincidentally, my adopted daughter today, for the first time (she is 4), came to me in floods of tears because of her distress about adoption. We have discussed it before, but it's like the meaning and implications are just sinking in. It was very painful, but I am glad that she came straight to me because she wanted to talk about it.

My first child was born when I was young and single. When he was 1 yr old, I met the man who became his Daddy. From the very beginning I used to remind him that we hadn't always known Daddy, for example showing him photographs of his life before - as a tiny baby - and just saying 'that was before we met Daddy'. When I was expecting his sister, a year later, it was the perfect time to say that another Daddy put him in my tummy not the Daddy we lived with. I never wanted it to be a big surprise.
One of my granddaughters is 18 and thinks a man is her father who isn't. The man she regards as her Dad is dead now and she has no idea she has a living biological father. I think that is so wrong, but it is not my place to tell her. I wish her Mum would though.

I know someone who is doing this, she had her oldest boy and passed him off as the child of her next partner.
She and the next partner went on to have a daughter and then they split up and she went on to have twins with her next partner who became her Husband.
Now she has left her Husband and is with another man, her eldest son still doesn't know that his Dad is not really his biological Father and he is now 21.
One day he will find out, too many people know the story.