re: Need advice, adopted daughter, what to tell her?

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sparkinator

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That’s a really sweet story. Good for y’all.

My son is 10 and he’s always known he was adopted. It’s just always been his reality. We had a kids book we used to read him about it and my wife always explained how he was in another mommas belly because she couldn’t carry him in hers. His baseball team was joking about adoption and how nobody on the team was adopted and he just told em. After a lot of questions and some disbelief from his buddies, I don’t think it’s ever come up again. He’s a great kid and my wife and I are the luckiest parents in the world that we’ve all found each other. I don’t know if this helps the OP, but maybe it helps someone else reading this.

Instead of telling her. Just leave this thread up on the family computer so can read it and join the OT

You should have told her when she was very young, but it's too late for that now.

Not telling her is terrible advice. So tell her. You and your wife chose her and you are her parents. That's a beautiful story, don't be afraid to tell it.

Tell her about her birth mother too. No secrets.

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But she has begun asking question as other than Latin skin tone she is taller and different body type than both us.

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Depending on what questions she is asking you need to judge whether she suspects and needs "the talk" soon or whether it can wait a little longer. You do not want her to find out from someone else though. If you decide to tell her, do it during the holidays or vacation when she will have some time to process it while school and friends aren't immediately in the picture. Emphasize that you CHOSE her, or that God or some sense of direction guided you to do it because she would be special to you, and that has been the case and nothing will change the love you have for her as a daughter-in-fact if not biologically.

You appear to recognize that at 16 she is more mature than a younger age, but still perhaps vulnerable to peer pressure. Consider suggesting to her that the fact that you and she know does not mean she needs to immediately announce it to her friends and the world, and life will go on as it has. But there is also no reason to think of it as some dark secret or scarlet letter either. Her family and friends love her for who she is to them. When I say don't immediately spring it on everyone I particularly have in mind her younger syblings, who may then wonder if they were adopted or treated equally, etc. I know adoptive syblings who get along lovingly, though.

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I wouldn’t say shite.

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What, you’d rather wait until she does a DNA test at some point in her life??? I’d much rather find out from my parents than 23 and me.

Thanks Dave. They are really great kids and pretty well adjusted. They both just graduated high school. She was valedictorian. She is going on to Tech and he’s going to trade school for instrumentation.

They both have a really good relationship with their birth mother. They go and stay with her and go on vacation with her. She has a great husband and another daughter they are raising.

The twins both know us as mom and dad. But there aren’t any secrets in the whole family. They don’t know how screwed up my step daughter was when they were born though, but they know enough that they understood why we adopted them.

Whats the question here? Tell her what you know about her birth parents and why you adopted her. Tell her the truth. Dumbass.

Bless you and your wife for giving her a great life. Prayers that everything works out with your situation.

At this point I would think you have to be direct. Tell her she was adopted and whatever you know about her mom's situation. Assure her you love her and just be honest with whatever she ask. No reason to lie about anything.