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What would you do if you found out your mom or your dad was not really your parent?
| You would confront them about it. | 2 | |
| You would ask about your real parent after confronting them about it. | 18 | |
| You would say nothing about it. | 6 | |
| You say nothing about it and cut all contact with them. | 0 | |
| You confront them and cut all contact with them. | 1 |
I always knew, they told me from a young age.
My “Mom” was at the zoo and i was so small I slipped thru the monkey bars and into her purse
Then they took me home and raised me
It explains my lanky build, hairy legs and affinity for bananas
I would be thankful my adoptive Dad didn't abandon me. Single parent families suck. A good Dad is the wind beneath the wings of his family.
I really wouldn't give a shit. As far as I'm concerned the person that takes care of me is my parent.
Depends. If I was already an adult at this point I would ask the question, but just out of curiosity. It wouldn't change my relationship with my parents at that point. Tbf though I don't have a very close relationship with my parents so maybe if I did it would bother me more.
If I was still a kid then this would freak me out and I'd definitely need to know what was going on.
I know I am my parents child, cause of the birth certificate. You can't change that, but for the sake of the poll, let's say I found out I was adopted... I wouldn't give a shit.
For all I care, my real parents are the ones that raised me and loved me and I would do anything for them in return.
I would ask who my original parents were, but leave it at that. They left, I didn't know them, they are no longer my family.
Birth certificates are very rarely wrong about the identity of the mother, but they are not proof of biological paternity.
Lots of spurious figures have been given for the number of fathers who are listed as parents on birth certificates but aren't actually the daddy. It's very difficult to know the truth for various reasons, but credible researchers believe that at least 1% of people have biological fathers who are not named on their birth certificate.
That's a very small number, but 1% of the population of the USA is more than 3 million people.
I'd ask about my real parent, be a little disappointed that the adoptive parent lied to me, but certainly not cut off contact.
My mother's been a good parent.
I would congratulate them on managing to adopt a child who was a perfect blend of the pair of them. They must have hunted far and wide.
Id just ask whos my real dad. Id be surprised because I look and sound exactly like my dad.
For my mother, it wouldn't matter. For my father, it would be somewhat of a relief, but it's not like he's been in my life anyway.
You say "confront them" in several of your options. That seems to me a harsh word to use in this context, and it implies that anyone who discovers this would have to be angry.
Learning this can lead to someone asking very big questions about who they really are, so confusion and uncertainty is certainly understandable, but I don't think anger would be a helpful response in most cases. Knowing you're not the biological child of one or both parents is just knowing a fact; what isn't clear is how the situation came to be, and the motivations for them lying to you.
More and more of these sorts of family secrets have been coming to light since the advent of cheap DNA testing. Sometimes, this knowledge can rip apart families that were previously reasonably happy, even if they were founded on a lie or two. But just as some people who only learned that they were adopted as an adult still think of their adoptive parents as their "real" parents, so some people who learn that they are not their father's biological child (which is obviously the most common discovery) can still see him as their father, and he can still see them as his child. Once they learn the true background of their conception, some children can even feel sympathy and understanding for their mother, although sometimes that's difficult.
As it happens, I'm on the other side of this story from a child who learns that the man who he or she believed to be their father isn't actually related. DNA testing has proved that the daughter my first wife had about a year after we married is not my child. Learning that didn't really change my feelings for the mother or her now adult daughter. I divorced the mother because of her lies and unfaithfulness, and I never felt any huge affection for the girl (when we were together and for years afterwards, I thought that was terrible of me, but now I suspect it was due to an instinctive understanding that the child wasn't mine).
However, one very real negative effect of my ex-wife screwing around was only discovered a generation on from the girl whom she tried to pass off as my child. Two of her four children have relatively rare genetic diseases, and since my ex-wife is not a carrier of those illnesses, the guy she screwed around with has to have been the source of one set of recessive genes.
Therefore, it would seem to me very wise for anyone who learns that they are not related to both people they believe to be their parents to have a DNA test to determine if they are carriers for any genetic diseases. DNA tests can also lead to contact with people you didn't previously know were related to you, and some people find that very positive.