A woman who has raised her adoptive son as her own has been left torn over whether to tell him how they are really related.
She explains that she never really had a relationship with her own mother, who was ‘adamant she would have nothing to do with me’ and relinquished her parental rights the day she was born, leaving her dad to raise her.
He gave her an ‘awesome childhood’ and her mum would come and go every few years, getting her hopes up and bailing before it became ‘too real’.
When the woman was 22, she decided to try and repair the relationship with her mum, and although things were great at first, she says her mum was treating her more as more of a friend than a daughter and they lost contact.
A year later her mum turned up again and revealed that she was pregnant, but was considering giving the child up.
The woman, then 23, was already married and offered to adopt the baby ‘as he was family anyway’ and when her mum gave birth, she and her husband officially adopted the boy as their son.
Her mum completely disappeared out of the picture but now, five years later, has come back to say she wants to try and rebuild a relationship with both of her children.
The woman said: “She seemed genuinely remorseful and acknowledged her mistakes.
“She then asked me how I was doing as an older sister and I corrected her by saying I’m a mum. She got really angry and said I had no right to make him think I was his mum and [her husband] is his dad.
“I reminded her that she relinquished her rights to both me and him and she has no right to tell me how to parent. I also said he knows me and my husband as his parents, my dad as his grandpa and that if I’ve mentioned her briefly, he thinks she is his grandma.”
It led to a huge argument and it’s left the woman with a dilemma over whether she should tell her adoptive son that she is actually his half-sister.
She said wants to make it very clear to her mum that she will tell him the truth one day, but didn’t want to yet as he is only five years old.
Asking for advice on how to handle the situation on Reddit, one person who said they were adopted themselves advised: “Adopted kids should never have to ‘find out’ that they are adopted. Start having that convo with him now.”
Another said: “You need to make a plan for telling him the truth because this woman is one hundred per cent going to find a way to do so eventually, whether you cut her out of your life or not.
“You do not want him finding out from her, especially if she’s feeling spiteful about being blocked from his life. I would speak to a family counselor about the best way to handle this.”