Telling and talking

Finding the language to talk about how your family was made, and giving your child language to explain things too, is an important part of having created a family in a different way.

As a single man, it will be obvious that you needed some other person to help create your child so keeping things secret isn’t really an option. You’re likely to be asked questions, and so it’s a good idea to think through just how much you’re prepared to share and with whom. People are naturally curious and it’s not uncommon for people to overstep the mark, without meaning to or even realising it.

If people don’t know that you are a solo dad by choice, they will probably assume that you had your child with a former partner . Once you mention having used an egg donor or surrogate, other people can often assume it’s fine to ask a whole range of very personal questions. You may be asked things like: What fertility treatment did you use? Did it work the first time? How much did it all cost? Is the egg donor a friend? Will your child be able to meet the egg donor? How much did you pay your surrogate?

You don’t need to answer all, or any, of these questions – you can choose who you are happy to share what information with and when.

What about telling the child?

Even though you won’t be able to keep things secret, telling friends and family that you‘ve used or are planning to use donor conception and surrogacy may make you feel uncomfortable. Similarly, the prospect of explaining to your child that they are donor conceived and answering questions around the surrogate, the egg donor or who is ‘mum’, can feel daunting.

Young children will notice that other families have mums (even if the parents are separated) and your child may ask where their mummy is out of the blue. We know children can ask questions in the most unexpected (and inappropriate!) settings. Out of the blue, at the doctor’s office getting checked for asthma and perhaps talking about family medical history, your son may suddenly say ‘So is auntie Emma not really my auntie?’

Mixed families – what about if you have children with different beginnings?

At DC Network we have lots of families where not all the children are donor conceived. Sometimes there are adopted children or step-children from a previous relationship. This is what we call a ‘mixed’ family and we have some specific resources for mixed families – connections through membership and one of our Telling and Talking booklets ‘Mixed Blessings’. The principles are all quite similar and we mainly stress parents getting confident and comfortable in themselves with what they are choosing and how and when they are talking about it.

Being open

We recommend telling children about their origins by donor conception from an early age, ideally before the age of about 7. But being open is also about feeling confident answering questions from others. We have some principles which guide us and are detailed here as a starting point.

Telling your child about their genetic origins:

Puts honesty at the heart of family relationships
Is respectful of donor conceived people as individuals in their own right
Ensures a true foundation for the child in terms of their genetic identity
Allows donor conceived people to make choices about their lives in terms of their connections through the donor
Allows donor conceived children to learn about aspects of their history, integrate the knowledge as they grow up and accept their story without shock or distress
Means that significant differences between a child and parent (in looks, talents etc.) can be easily explained
Means that a true medical history (or lack of it) can be given to doctors, making diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions more accurate. It also removes anxiety about the inheritance of disorders from the non-genetic parent.

Building confidence

As a charity, we were founded on a principle of openness at a time when secrecy was the norm. But just because it might be right doesn’t mean it’s easy. One of the reasons the DCN was set up as a membership community was to provide resources and services to support parents around how to build confidence in telling their family story and answering questions about their family, where appropriate.

Check out DCN’s Our Story books for children and our “Telling and Talking” series for parents. And don’t forget that through membership you can connect with other people who are considering these issues. Speaking with other parents who have done this for real and can offer guidance and experience to others can really help build confidence.

What language should I use?

Parents often worry that starting to share information with a very young child means that they will have to start talking about sex and reproduction in a way that is inappropriate for such a small person. Using the ‘building block’ approach where information is built up in very small chunks over time means that language can remain simple and sex and reproduction does not need to be addressed until a child is ready to take this on board.