Those Pesky DNA Surprises

In this age of inexpensive DNA testing and matching – it happens. In The Guardian’s advice column by Annalisa Barbieri, a woman notes and then asks LINK>”I just found out who my real father is. What do I do now?” To which the columnist offers some reasonable advice – “DNA tests can reveal some huge hidden secrets. Take time to process your own feelings before coming to terms with your new family tree.”

The woman writes – I’m happily married with adult children, and grandchildren. One of my children bought me a DNA testing kit and when I received the results I was taken aback to discover that the man I thought was my father was not actually my biological parent.

She further adds these details – My parents were married for some years before I arrived and I have no siblings. My mother was a loving, kind person and growing up I was surrounded by a loving maternal extended family. My father was a “difficult” character, emotionally abusive and distant. He never told me he loved me and I know he made my mother’s life hell at times.

Adding some more details, she continues – I’ve discovered that my biological father was a work colleague of my mother’s. At the time of my conception he was also married with a 10-year-old daughter. We lived in a rural community and I met him and his wife on many occasions. He seemed to be a kind, intelligent man. Both he and my mother died a few years ago.

My mind’s in turmoil; I have so many questions that I know can’t be answered. I’m frustrated that I will never know the truth of the situation. Did other people in the family know when I didn’t?

I’ve told my husband but I’ve decided to not tell my children – I don’t want to upset their memories of a loving grandmother but I don’t know if this is the correct thing to do.

The other issue is his daughter, my half-sister. I’m sad that I’ve never had the chance to have a sibling relationship with her and never will because I will not tell her of my discovery.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Annalisa Barbieri begins her response compassionately – “What a shock for you. I hope you are taking time to absorb it because this is seismic news. And it’s becoming more common now that DNA testing is so readily available. Lots of secrets that were once thought buried are being exposed. It makes it even harder when the people involved are dead and you can’t ask questions.”

A family psychotherapist, Reenee Singh, acknowledged – “it’s so de-stabilizing to realize the reality you grew up with isn’t what you thought.”

Both the advice columnist and the family psychotherapist agreed – she really should tell her children. The rationale was “Your children are adults and there’s a natural ‘in’ there as your daughter bought you a DNA test. what you don’t want is your children or grandchildren discovering this one day when they may take a DNA test.”

It’s always a good idea to process your own initial feelings first. You may wish to avail yourself of therapy. When you tell your children, you want to be neutral and factual. After you tell your own children, leave it to them to tell your grandchildren.

It was not clear whether this woman already had contact with her half-sibling. So, it was suggested that after she’s told her own children, to post the results on the genealogy site that processed her DNA. The half-sibling might then find that result and make contact in the future.

They emphasized that coming to terms with an unexpected surprise is a process. The advice columnist notes that “there’s a lot for you to work through, not only a new father figure but a whole new family story.” The psychotherapist wondered if this news doesn’t provide a sense of relief, as the father the woman knew as such was a complicated relationship for her. Going forward, in order to resolve her feelings towards her deceased mother, she should try to understand the situation that her mother lived through. This revelation certainly doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t love her mother.

A Uterus With Legs ?

The issue of referring to an adopted child’s first mother as the tummy mummy came up somewhat coincidentally today but it did cause me to reflect on this again. Somehow, I always feel a bit of cringe at that phrase and the title of this blog reflects how some other people feel about it. I found that Lori Holden aka Lavender Luz did a poll. She is an Author & Speaker, Diarist & Open Adoption Advocate. She also has a podcast – LINK>Adoption: The Long View.

First what got me here. The commenter is blocked from posting/ responding for a month in a Foster/Adopt group. The reason she notes is that it isn’t ‘kind’ to mention to someone with ‘guardianship’ whose 4 year old child sees her biological parents – that agreeing/ pretending, letting child pretend that the child grew in HER belly vs reinforcing to child that she grew in ‘mama name’s ‘ tummy…. That mama ‘name’ is more respectful than tummy mummy.

Of course, there is also this – that they “saved” the child …. and have done xyz for that child – still does not change the fact that child did not grow inside her. The issue started when a photo was posted that showed a non reading age child in a shirt with letters only stating she loved her as ‘mom’… allegedly the child picked that shirt out and insisted she wear it in front of the tree….again listing all the things ‘she’ saved child from…

The commenter was blocked after mentioning that seemed passive aggressive since the sees her actual parents.

In the LINK>Poll about the term “tummy mummy”, the 300 respondents broke down this way –

66% were adopting or adoptive parents
11% were adoptees
13% had a professional or nonprofessional interest in adoption
10% had placed a child or lost a child to adoption

You might expect that with such an Adoptive-Parent-heavy sample, the results would lean positive toward use of the term “Tummy Mummy” but you would be incorrect.

61% either didn’t like the term (26%) or detested it (35%)
25% were either neutral (12%) or found it acceptable (13%)
Only 5% loved it
The remaining 9% chose “Other,” which allowed for commentary.

Some of their comments included – Feels like a white-wash term trying to sanitize truth. It diminishes the woman’s motherhood. Original family isn’t reflected in this phrase, which seems intent on removing all important connections and substituting them with a biological detail that isn’t even accurate.

This one was interesting – I hate “tummy mommy.” When people told me babies grew in their moms’ tummies, I pictured babies swimming their stomachs with all the food. And babies popping out of tummies, Aliens-style.

Another one noted – My husband is a reunited adult adoptee. I actually shared this with him and he made a vomiting noise.

Another adoptee noted – young children are not given enough credit for understanding that we can have two mothers that love us, regardless if one can’t be there at the moment. I know for me personally it would have helped me tremendously to have been able to see and talk freely about my mother as this real person.

And this – “Tummy mummy” makes her sound like [my long-gone birth mother] was a surrogate rather than a human being making a difficult decision. It reduces her down to a particular “role”.

If Not For DNA Testing

If not for DNA testing, I would not have revealed so much so quickly about my original family cultural roots. Certainly, my mom being adopted in what later turned out to be a baby stealing and selling scandal gave me a quick start. Because of that scandal, Tennessee was eventually pushed to open their sealed adoption files. And my mom’s was rich with details even if Georgia Tann was a known liar and I did uncover some lies in that file. Thankfully, there was enough true information that it opened up a world to me that I never expected to know nada about. Yay !!

Both of my parents were adopted. On my dad’s side it was trickier. His mother had been unwed and his adoption came through The Salvation Army. Ancestry was a big help in revealing enough details to what I already knew that The Salvation Army was then willing to reveal a tiny bit more. 23 and Me was the big breakthrough there, when a cousin received her results and contacted me to tell me we had the same grandmother. That led me eventually to another cousin thanks to Facebook. She had the final breadcrumb keys that my grandmother had left for me as to my dad’s father’s identity in a photo album.

Interestingly, almost a year before I received the breadcrumbs, Ancestry had identified a cousin. He didn’t reply to my inquiry right away. When he did, he apologized for not having a clue how we were related. By then, I had some details about my paternal grandfather. The man was able then to tell me that our grandparents were brother and sister.

Yes, I do believe in DNA testing and for adoptees given that half of these United States continue to refuse to unseal their adoption files, DNA matching may be the only way to learn your true cultural identity. Today, I read another story about how this helped. I will summarize.

The daughter of a Jewish patriarch gave birth, out of wedlock, to this person’s mother. That fact remained a secret within the family. This person’s mother died knowing none of this, much like both of my own parents. She was raised by another couple, just like my parents were. In the case I was reading about there wasn’t even a formal adoption or paper trail.

So it took DNA testing for this person to discover his ancestry. Thanks to that testing he discovered relatives, leading him to even more new discoveries. That is how it was for me too. I know of living relatives for 3 of my 4 grandparents. With my paternal grandfather, he had no more children but he did remarry. Thanks to Ancestry and Find-A-Grave, I came into contact with what I will call a step-cousin, who could give me some details about his life.

It is said that a recent survey showed about a quarter of the people who take these tests find some kind of surprising result. That sometimes leads to a book about the story of those discoveries. At the end of December, I completed the story of my own. I am now in the process of seeking a literary agent. May 2020 prove successful in my quest.

For more about the Jewish story I mention in my blog today, you can go to this link – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-dna-test-revealed-the-family-i-never-knew-2020-01-10/