Reply to Telling donor conceived kids about half siblings

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We will not be bringing strsngers into our family either. Some of you people are obsessed. So funny the way the obsessed ones want to tell other people how to raise their kids snd conduct their lives. [/quote]

You can do as you please but in 20 years when your children no longer wish to speak to you you’ll only have yourself and your ego to blame. [/quote]

Wow, you’re the one with the ego. I am not the PP, but I feel the same way about bringing complete strangers into my life for no legitimate reason. Sharing DNA does not make someone family. Full stop!

While people are obsessed with genealogy, I couldn’t give a rats ass about who my great-great grandpappy was or what he did. I have a sibling, close in age, with whom I grew up, but we barely speak. We’re both professionals with the same religious and political views and the same completely normal, upper middle class childhood but we have nothing in common. We prefer to disengage.

And don’t get me started on the many, many cousins I have out there…

Just because other people picked the same donor as I did doesn’t make us a happy commune. It’s not like our kids will instantly bond and be all kumbaya with each other.

All we have in common is that we sought out donor sperm for many different reasons and then ended up settling on the same donor, also for a variety of very different reasons. That’s no link at all. I might as well form a club with people who bought the same onsies as I did.

(You do realize that we’re all pretty closely related to a lot of people out there, right?)

As for my child, while there’s been a definite interest in knowing more about the donor, DC couldn’t care less about the other kids whose parents used the same donor. DC said, “Well, they wouldn’t know anything about him either would they? Maybe I’d like to meet his real kids to learn more about him. But what good would meeting other donor kids do?”

Even my ten year old realizes that these people are not our family. I guess my kid takes after me. Why do you suppose that my DC will suddenly adopt your views and perspectives? I’d say that’s pretty egotistical, no?[/quote]

This is sad. Your kid is saying what you want to hear because your approval is important to them and they want you to be happy. But in a decade if they start to question, or decide their roots matter, your disdain toward their donor connection may end up causing both of you a lot of pain.[/quote]

It’s sad that you think you know how other people, complete strangers, currently feel and will one day feel about everything.

My 45 year old husband is adopted. He won’t even consider taking a DNA test to “discover” his roots. The people who raised him are his parents and he isn’t interested in learning anymore. And that’s without knowing either of his biological parents. He most definitely doesn’t care about potential biological siblings. Can’t you imagine that some people are not interested in knowing anything about their donors?  Especially when they were raised in loving homes?

Why are your opinions the only one that matter? Why do you think you speak for everyone?[/quote]

Your husband’s experience is valid but not the norm. [/quote]

How do you know what the norm is? There’s no way to measure it. These things are like a private diary, you mostly only hear complaints from the people who are unhappy. [/quote]

I mean, there has been research into how adult adoptees and donor conceived people feel about their biological relatives.  Some (but not all) studies have statistically reasonable population sizes and well written questions.

PP is right that the majority of adults not raised by their biological parents/donors feel some curiousity at some point about that.  How much and when varies and the DH’s total lack of interest isn’t unusual either.  The problem is that you don’t know how your kids will feel about it when you choose to have them so there’s a general societal movement toward giving the eventual adults choice in the matter, hence to move toward open adoption and openid donors (and banning of any anonymous gamete donation outside of the U.S.).[/quote]

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