Identity Matters

#identitymatters

Some thoughts about identity...growing up not knowing your true identity...but knowing that things don't add up.

Our parents were told not to tell anyone about mixing donor sperm with the dad's sperm.  So, it starts with the parents not knowing with certainty the true biological father and our true genetic identity.  Create confusion...genealogical bewilderment.  Create the belief that the social father could be the biological father...confusion in the family relationships.

My parents didn't know for sure, but according to mom, they suspected that the sperm donor was our biological father.  Indeed he was.  As often happens in gamete donor families, the biologically related parent, in this case the mother, feels more like the "real" parent.  Mothers can become more domineering/entitled in the parental role.  There is a power differential in the couple's relationship.  It can't be talked about, so it is brewing under the surface.  In donor gamete families, there seem to be a lot of divorces, emotionally distant fathers, fathers leaving the family or dying early.  Not sure what the statistics are on this compared to all families, but it would be an interesting research project.

As the donor offspring, you know things don't add up.  You wonder about the arguments behind closed doors.  You wonder why your dad asks you if he should divorce your mother, you tell him yes, but he doesn't do it.  You wonder about the strange comments, e.g. your dad saying that somewhere in his Jewish background there is Native American blood...huh?  What is going on here?  Confusion...

As the donor offspring, you wonder why your body is conveying one thing, but your parents are telling you something else about who you are.  Confusion.  For example, my parents were told that I had a high IQ and needed to go to a school for the gifted.  My parents chose to keep me where I was in school, which I believe did limit my growth and potential.  Another example, as many teenagers/young adults do, I questioned my religious/faith/spiritual beliefs and decided that my parents were hypocritical in their religious practices and I rejected my Jewish upbringing.  Turns out genetically I'm only half Jewish anyway.  My parents were city people; I'm a country girl.

It was never okay in my family to be who I really was.  I was not accepted for who I was, didn't fit into the family in a lot of ways.  There is an underlying sense of shame, when you are not okay for who you are.  You have no idea what the basis for this is...the secret, genetic donation that helped create you and the family.

When I talk about my parents here, I want to emphasize that they were good people, they were doing the best they could in the circumstances of their lives.  This is not to condemn them.  I share these things to make a point about the effects of the confusion of unknown genetic factors in the family and how that impacts the family relationships and identity of those conceived in this way and raised in confused families.

I had a lot of identity confusion.  My body was telling me I was one person and my parents were telling me I was someone else.  They had a strong need to make me fit into the family, so that it wouldn't be apparent to others that there were differences, so that others didn't question that perhaps I wasn't totally biologically connected to the family.  My parents worked very hard at fitting a square peg in a round hole...trying to mold me in their likeness.  I had a lot of confusion, anger, depression growing up.  I withdrew.  Neighbors were able to abuse me because I didn't know how to assert myself.  I never knew "what I wanted to do when I grew up."  As an adult, I changed majors in school frequently, went back to college several times, switched jobs every couple of years due to lack of passion for what I was doing and boredom, had trouble maintaining lasting relationships.  My life has not been a straight journey.  I have been all over the place and tried so many things, trying to resolve myself.

My apologies about the meandering babbling in this post, but the point is to convey the identity confusion of growing up in a family that doesn't know your true identity and the personal impact of not knowing who you really are.

A message to parents of gamete donated people...please accept your children for who they are, both in ways they are like you and aspects that are not like you.  Accept, embrace, and encourage them to flourish for who they are in their own right.  No shame. Tell your children early on, in age appropriate ways, who they are and allow them to know their genetic relatives as a part of who they are.  This is their life story.

#identitymatters  When intentionally creating people from a gamete donor, the parents and/or the physician doing the procedure know who the donor is.  The offspring have a right to know their true identity and who they are genetically connected to.  Identity matters!