When I learned my dad was not my biological father, I didn’t want platitudes

What not to say to someone grieving their identity

When I told close friends about the shock of learning that my dad was not my biological father and that I was half Italian, that my life story was untrue, that my birth mother and other relatives I trusted had kept this truth from me, that I couldn’t bear to see strangers’ faces looking back at me in the mirror, or seeing them in my own children’s faces, that I was mourning the loss of 50 years of knowing where I came from, of experiencing my Italian cultural heritage and bonding with relatives who were like me, that my identity was disintegrating bit by bit, fading into nothingness, I was often met with remarks that left me confused, angry, and frustrated. People meant well, but when they tried to comfort me with platitudes, they completely invalidated my feelings. 

Like all traumatic experiences, only people who have gone through something similar can understand what it does to a person. Mine was a familiar story to viewers of Jerry Springer and countless other television shows and movies (The Star Wars’ triad of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leah and Darth Vader is arguably the most well-known) – mis-attributed parentage is a common trope often sensationalized for entertainment. Trust me, when it happens to you, it’s not so entertaining. It’s the shittiest shit show.

Mis-attributed parentage, or not-parent expected (NPE), is remarkably common in this era of consumer DNA tests, especially for people middle-aged and above. When I was born in 1971, abortion was not yet legal in Canada and unwed mothers were often sent off to a maternity home to carry out their pregnancy in secrecy, then forced to put their child up for adoption. In my case, with abortion not a religious or legal option, my birth mother endured parental pressure to marry her fiancé, my dad, much earlier than planned, so she could raise her own child in an acceptable traditional family. As much as she hated the arrangement, it must have been more palatable than telling her Protestant parents and fiancé that the father of the child she carried was an Italian immigrant with whom she had a one-night stand. She lasted a miserable 16 months before running away, leaving dad as my sole parent, until he married my stepmom a few months before I turned three.

Research studies suggest that up to 5% of consumer DNA tests will reveal an unexpected biological parent (Avni et al., 2023). That’s quite a large number of people who have discovered, or may discover, should they or a close family member send their spit, or cheek cells, off for DNA analysis, that the person they know as their father (or mother), is not biologically related to them. Whether because of parental infidelity, rape, donor sperm, and/or lack of access to reproductive healthcare, that’s a lot of people struggling with identity crises and having to navigate old and new family relationships, possibly while dredging up past traumatic events from their childhood, or their parents’ past. It is likely conceivable (pun intended) that either you, unsuspecting reader, or someone you know, will find out some shocking DNA news, and I want you to be prepared. 

If you have had a new NPE discovery and are looking for resources and support, there are private Facebook groups you can join, websites to peruse, memoirs to read, documentaries to watch, and/or therapy to help process it all. I’ll compile and share a list of resources in a later post. (There’s so much I want to write about and share – it will take time to get to it all!) Feel free to comment or reach out to me in private if you have any questions or just need to talk to someone who understands. 

In the months after my discovery, I was truly lost to myself and I didn’t know where to turn. Some friends and family were there for me in ways that I needed, and thankfully my partner and kids were great, but others made well-intentioned but insensitive comments that would send me spiraling into deeper self-doubt. DNA discoveries that reveal lies the secret-keepers never expected to be exposed wreak havoc within families. Family members involved react based on their own personal situation and their role in the keeping of the lie, so please keep in mind that the responses and actions of those very close to, or in on, the secret are often much more complex than what is presented here. With the exception of #4, which specifically references family members, I present below some problematic comments that friends and extended family more removed from the situation might want to avoid.

In the hopes of creating a supportive network of people rallying around loved ones, patients, or clients struggling after an NPE discovery, I offer suggestions of what not to say, why you might not want to say those things, and what you might say instead. These suggestions are targeted at friends, and family slightly removed from the situation. This list does not capture all possible insensitive comments, only those reflective of my experience. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments, fellow NPEs! 

Five things NOT to say to someone who has just revealed to you they are going through an identity crisis related to an NPE discovery: 

1.     “Your dad is still your dad.”

2.     “You’re still the same person.”

3.     “It's just your DNA heritage.”

4.     Complete silence – no comment or acknowledgement at all.

5.    “I can’t imagine what it would be like to find out I have a grown child I didn’t know about.”

These remarks, especially the first two, felt to me like a form of gaslighting. Let’s dig in a little deeper to explore why these seemingly innocuous responses might be so harmful. 

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“Your dad is still your dad.”

This was the most common response I heard, including from my doctor who somehow thought this meaningless comment, along with melatonin, would allow me to sleep at night. (I had called to ask for a temporary sleep aid since I hadn’t had more than eight hours sleep in total that first week.) This statement completely dismissed my emotional pain during the acute phase of a major life upheaval and subsequent identity crisis, and it certainly didn’t help me sleep any better.

Nothing changed about how I was raised and who raised me – what happened in my life happened and my dad will always be my dad – but hearing this in response to sharing life-altering news made me feel that I wasn’t being listened to and that my trauma was being minimized. In addition, relationships with my dad and the family who raised me have been irrevocably altered – I needed to tell my dad the news, knowing I could not hold this secret inside me. All family members have needed to adjust and relationships will likely never be the same again – and that doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing. 

It's important to point out that some people may be relieved to know their ‘dad’ is (or was) not, in fact, their birth father. Not everyone grows up in a happy home with a positive father-figure, and they may not want to explain the complexities of their past childhood trauma to you. 

My advice: Just listen. Avoid saying this loaded comment and don’t make any assumption connected to someone’s relationship with their dad or father. Don’t tell someone how they should feel about their dad, or new DNA-father, or that nothing has changed in their family, because that person’s world has been turned inside-out and upside-down. 

“You’re still the same person.”

This was another response meant to be reassuring, I’m sure, but it directly contradicted the feelings I vulnerably divulged. I’m literally not the same person I thought I was before. The DNA flowing through my body and making me who I am is different than I had always thought. The genetic relationship to the family who raised me is now non-existent. While going through a monumental identity crisis and feeling dissociated from everything I thought I knew about myself and my family, being told I’m “still the same person” was unhelpful and trivialized my experience.

My advice: Validate what your friend is telling you. Believe them when they say their identity is shattered and they’re trying to put the pieces back together. Perhaps say something like, “This seems like a huge shock to your identity. I still think of you as the same person that I know and love, although I can imagine how different you must be feeling. I’m here for you when you need to talk.”  

“It's just your DNA heritage.”

 This comment came after sharing my grief and sense of loss over having missed out on being part of an Italian family, experiencing Italian culture, and the significance of learning Italian and traveling to Italy to connect with my roots. I reacted with stunned silence over the insensitivity of this comment, as I was already grappling with my own insecurities and feeling like an imposter. I felt unworthy of claiming my newly discovered heritage, while also no longer able to claim my dad’s heritage as my own. It was like a sword thrust into a festering wound I didn’t know how to treat – I had nothing to stop the bleeding or cure the infection. This remark invalidated all my confused thoughts and feelings around my newly discovered ethnicity. It told me I belonged nowhere.

You might say, “What’s the big deal? They just mean you didn’t grow up in that culture.” I would ask in turn, “Do you really think I wasn’t aware that I didn’t grow up in that culture?” I am living with a huge sense of loss that can never be rectified – I have no time machine to take me back 50 years. What I interpreted is that I should have no claim to this lost culture and even no desire to explore what it may mean to me, since it’s “just my DNA.” Would you tell an adopted person they have no right to explore the culture of their birth parents because they should fully embrace the heritage of their adoptive parents? I hope not. 

My advice: As above, validate, listen, and show interest in what your friend is learning about themselves and their new identity, without judgment. Perhaps say something like, “I can only imagine what it must be like to find out your genetic heritage is different than you thought.” If you identify with that culture yourself, offer to speak the language with them for practice, teach them your recipes, share some family stories, help them feel like they belong.

Complete silence – no comment or acknowledgement at all

One of the most hurtful things was being ignored by the family I grew up around. I knew aunts, uncles and cousins, even a somewhat estranged sister, got wind of the story, but likely didn’t know what to say to me, because I never heard from them. I didn’t mind that everyone knew, I was glad the secret was out. But after being lied to about where/who I came from, my trust in family members was shattered. I didn’t know who knew what and when, or who was thinking and talking about the situation, because nobody was thinking and talking about it with me. In the midst of questioning my place within my family and losing my paternal family background, it would have been nice to hear that my family cared about me. In retrospect, I recognize that although the discovery consumed my thoughts, my extended family likely glossed over the news and didn’t give it much thought.

My advice: Reach out to your no-longer-biological relative and offer your support. Tell them you love them and share whatever information you may have from the past to help them fill in the gaps. Apologize for your part in keeping the secret if you knew all along. I needed to understand the story of my life, and honest discussion would have helped me know who to trust going forward. I imagine that not everyone would appreciate being contacted by all their relatives, so use sound judgment and tread lightly.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to find out I have a grown child I didn’t know about.”

I expect many male friends, upon hearing my story, considered the possibility that they may have an unknown child out there in the world. But these musings are best kept to oneself when you are hearing your friend’s story for the first time. I needed my friends to support me in what I was going through, not empathize with unsuspecting birth fathers (at least not in conversation with me). I was thinking about this all the time as I navigated new birth family relationships, but when a friend said it to me barely a month in, I heard that they cared more about a man they don’t know, or an off-chance that they could be that man for someone else, than they cared about me at that moment. In those first months after discovery, I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to philosophize out loud with others about how they might feel in the position of my DNA father. This wasn’t an exercise of guessing emotions for me, I was swirling in my own mega shitstorm of emotions.

My advice: Try instead, “I can’t imagine what it’s like to find out the man who raised you is not your father.” Or “I can only imagine how I might feel if I were to find out my dad was not my birth father.” 

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To be supportive, just show up and listen, validate, give space, but check in once in a while, and be patient. Do not dole out advice, unless you’ve been asked for it. Just listen. I think it’s easier for people to understand when someone is grieving a parent through death, but it’s more difficult to understand that the NPE experience involves a long grieving process as well. I withdrew from most social interactions for quite a while, especially family events and holidays, because I didn’t know how to be with others – especially others who remained bio-relatives while I was not – while I was so unsettled within myself. 

For me, the most supportive responses acknowledged the difficulty of the situation and how hard it must be to go through it: 

“Wow, I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

“I don’t think I could handle receiving news like this. I really feel for what you must be going through.” 

“How are you doing? I’m here if you want to talk about anything.” 

Those friends made me feel heard and justified in my turmoil. I am grateful to them, and grateful to have them in my life.

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Do you have experiences with NPE conversations? Feel free to share in the comments, whether you were the one who had discovered your biological parent wasn’t who you thought, or you were in a position to respond to a friend or family member sharing their shocking news with you. 

With love,

Tracey