Over the last decade, I have encountered five main concerns that parents have about telling their child about donor conception. These are concerns about their child’s well-being, about the non-genetic parent feeling less legitimate, and about the social, family, and cultural alienation that they may experience as a donor-conceived family. Which questions below do you relate to?
The Five Most Common Concerns about Telling Your Child
1. Child’s well-being: What if my child is upset if they know?
2. Parental rejection: Will I feel like the real parent?
3. Social differences: Will we feel different from other families?
4. Family/cultural differences: Will our family accept our child?
5. Lacking knowledge: Does it really matter? We don’t know how to tell our child.
If you are not sure which category your concerns fall under, read the statements in Exercise 3 in Three Makes Baby and rate the level to which you agree with each statement. You may have concerns related to one or two categories, or you may have a few concerns in each category. This is completely normal. Rarely do parental concerns fall under one category alone.
