Parents conflicted, 'Now that our 15 yo daughter is pregnant, should we tell her who her real mother is?' AITA? WEIRD UPDATES.
When this dad is worried about his teen daughter and doesn't know if he should tell her the truth about her mom, he aks Reddit:
"My (53M) daughter (15F) is pregnant, how do I tell her the truth about her mother? AITA?"
So me (53M) and my wife Rose (53F) had our older daughter Sarah (31F) when we were 22. We were young and broke, but managed and now we raised Sarah the best we could.
She got pregnant at 15. It was a very depressing time for her, she had to go to therapy, and never told us anything about the father, which always upset her, so we never pushed the issue.
She originally wanted to terminate, but kept canceling, and eventually told us she wanted to give her up for adoption. But five months into the pregnancy, when she was discussing with a social worker for a couple to adopt, the couple dropped out of the adoption.
After trying to find more couples, Sarah asked us if we wanted to adopt. Me and Rose were both 38 at this point, and we had both been discussing having another child, so we ended up adopting our daughter Ellie when Sarah had her at 16.
Two years after Ellie, me and my wife had our son Logan (13) biologically. Growing up we always planned on telling Ellie she was adopted, but we knew with telling her that, we had to tell her Sarah was her bio mother.
Sarah never became close with Ellie, not even as siters. She moved out after the birth and lived with Roses sister. She has always shown sisterly love to her Logan, but never towards Ellie.
There has always been conflicting feelings with Sarah I have seen posts on Sarah's Instagram where she posted a picture of what was supposed to be the five of us, but Ellie was cut out.
I confronted her about this and she says its too painful. However, a couple years ago Ellie's real mom showed up drunk begging us to let us see her "daughter". We talked to her and let her stay but did not let her near Ellie since she was drunk.
We found out from her husband she had suffered several miscarriages and was told to consider a surrogate.
She ended up doing that four years ago and has since had twins Jack and Jill (3M and F) who are biologically hers. Ellie has loved being an aunt to the twins and Sarah has encouraged this with Ellie, and has been inviting Ellie over her house for family time with Logan, who loves being an uncle.
We have asked Sarah that in light of the twins, and Ellie being close to them, wouldn't it be time to tell Ellie the truth, but Sarah keeps claiming she is not ready.
Recently Ellie came to us and has told us she is pregnant. This time it is a completely different situation, we have met the father, he is a child hood friend of hers and they decided they wanted to lost their virginities to each other.
We had the talk with Ellie long ago, as we did with Sarah. We approached the situation calmly and have since met with the father and his parents. Ellie is insistent on keeping the baby. She is 3 months along.
We have not told Sarah yet, we do not know how to approach the situation, we dont know how she will be able to take it. Me and my wife are considering telling Ellie the truth but we need Sarah to be there.
Readers had a lot of questions. Let's take a look!
haunteddew writes:
Trigger warning. Did you ever consider Sarah was raped and that's why she never told you about the father, wanted to terminate, and is incredibly distant from her daughter because she is the offspring of a rapist? Just a passing thought.
OP: Yes she has never said anything but we haves always suspected that is what happened, her therapist would be the only person who knows but whatever is said stays between them.
lianavan writes:
Please discuss contraception with your son if you haven't already. Also, why is her being pregnant a nudge to tell her she is your other daughter's biological child? Wouldn't that be a bit much just this second?
OP: Yeah we might hold off on telling her, but at the same time we dont know how Sarah will react fining out Ellie is pregnant. We have had the talk with all three of our children about contraception, they didnt want to use protection the first time, and thought "being careful" would not risk pregnancy.
TransportationFun219 writes:
I did think this straight away, wonder what will happen when one of them does a off the shelf dna test , probably will happen at some point
OP: I would not do a DNA test without Ellie knowing anything, because if Sarah was assaulted I would not want him around Ellie.
OP also cleared up some confusion about his familiy history:
OP: I apologize the reason I was so specific about it is cause its the reason we have always been distant. My father died when I was 20, and we were all devastated. My mother was as well, but than told us months after my father died she was pregnant by a coworker, they married three months before Ethan was born.
Although we are distant I'm the closest sibling who communicates, none of my sisters have anything to do with him.
Graycy writes:
Sarah shoulda fessed up at the start. Did Ethan know Ellie was his when she was adopted? Surely it was no surprise. How could he go 15 years living a lie? Sarah too. This is so messed up.
OP: Ethan knew about being the father of Sarah's baby, he wanted Sarah to abort, which is why she wanted to abort in the beginning, but she decided on adoption.
Crypto_gambler952 writes:
Maybe it's time that you older daughter do for "her daughter" what you did for her!
OP: Ellie and her boyfriend fully intend on raising this baby as their own, with the support of me and my wife and his parents.
Before we give you OP's major update, let's read some other top responses to his original post:
dssy7 writes:
Not to sound cynical or judgmental but this is absolutely gonna sound both cynical and judgmental but parents who managed to raise their grandkid after their daughter got knocked up and then have that kid manage to get knocked up as well probably aren’t the brightest bulbs in the package where sex Ed and reproductive health are concerned.
silver1991 writes:
Unless Sarah is lying about it being consensual, I don't get why OOP blames Ethan for them having sex. Both are responsible, and around the same age. I also find it strange that OOP expected Ethan to step up.
Sarah didn't want to be responsible for Ellie, and didn't want to reveal who the father was out of shame. I doubt he had the means to take care of a kid, and getting involved would've probably made the situation worse.
Maybe he should've stepped up, or talked to OOP at some point, but I don't think it is any worse than the situation already was. Also, I don't get why Etha's wife left him over the situation.
It's messed up, yeah, but it happened 15 years ago, so unless they were together at the time and he cheated on her with his niece, it's... I dunno, it's fucked up, but it's a stupid horny teenager thing, and doesn't change who the person is right now.
OOP feeling Ethan isn't safe to be around for Ellie is weird to me...The Family Shrub is strange and messy, but there's no SA involved, so I think outside of making family gatherings more awkward, I think reactions are exaggerated here...
toneaway writes:
This whole family is fd up. TWO generations of teenage pregnancies, two counts of incest, and everyone is so nonchalant about it all. OOP and his wife failed at whatever sex ed they attempted to teach their kids, if any.
If these 15 year olds were "careful", they probably just did the pull out method and called it a day. OOP's brother needs to stay away from his kids. Someone needs to drill proper sex ed into all of these people. Ellie needs to leave that town as soon as she's able to do so safely.
localbrill7 writes:
Ellie sounds like she needs therapy. There’s no way she text that man wanting his side of the story if the text was more or less you’re going to be a grandfather that was just such a weird course of action even for a 15 year old Sarah good lord double therapy And I honestly have some doubts about op and his wife’s parenting if both children under your care were pregnant teenagers because tf.
johsman7 writes:
To be honest, context from people alone. Nothing else. Sarah is an adult. If Sarah doesn’t want to tell Ellie that she is her mom okay. Let’s leave that there. Remember she wants that.
Ellie however, is 15 and pregnant. Sarah is an after thought. Sarah is not the adopted parents. You are.
Bar going down these threads like everyone does about repeating cycles and sins of the mom and dad stuff we will leave that alone.
You guys need to plan. You’re in your 50s. You’ll be in your 70s when this child is of age. Cribs, diapers, formula, clothes, bathing supplies. Shit I’m going through this for my second kid now at 31 myself.
These teen parents need part time work split with school work. Or they drop out, and start the entry level job market train. As children these days are expensive. I’m sure you two are going to help however you need to get through to these two.
Life’s going to be different for those three. I have a high paid career, a supporting partner, and a house with no bill stress. I have the means to do this and it’s still difficult. These are children that want to have a baby.
Once these teens experience sleep deprivation on a full day of work / school. Followed by another sleep deprived night. These kids are gonna crack. There’s no breaks lol. You don’t get to leave. 24/7 time. Even after their 18. Look at Sarah.
Whatever Sarah wants is an afterthought right now. Your adopted child need’s you right now. If you don’t get in front of this it will be a disaster. Hopefully the boys family is in on this as you and your SO.
You need to be on that teens ass about supporting his child too. If he wavers in his duty. Line up with child support. You should know by now raising these children is not a game. It is very difficult and takes years to do.
Your almost 40 year old adult daughter can handle her self right now. Ellie needs you 100% > Sarah needs you 0%TLDR: Sarah irrelevant atm, adopted child needs you for immediate life structuring for a child.
choiceintention writes:
Ellie is going to be devastated. You should have told her she was adopted a decade ago. Her whole life has been a lie. She won’t be ok. You suspect it wasn’t consensual, but she will ask point blank who her father is.
It’s blow after blow for her. 1- her parents aren’t her parents 2- her sister is her biological mother 3- she’s probably a product of rape.
Get her into therapy ASAP, she will need it. I’m not blaming you, this is a horrible situation. It should have been handled differently, but it’s too late for that now. Just try to minimize the damage. Let her know she’s loved. Her family hasn’t changed the pieces just fit differently than she thought.
Ellie is your daughter and she needs you now. You needs to have a realistic talk about what has happened. About the teen pregnancy and the possibility of infertility later. This isn’t an easy decision.
Abortion is probably not the right answer since her bio mom had extreme difficulty getting pregnant in her twenties. There are a lot of factors to consider. Good luck to you.
And now, OP's bizarre update:
So I decided to write in an update as I'm still getting messages on this account. First I want to address the main issue.
I was wondering about advice on what to do after finding about my daughter Ellie 15 is pregnant, but that we had the exact same situation with her older sister Sarah 31, who is actually Ellie's biological mother.
Well, I decided to just focus on helping out Ellie, who is four months pregnant. We didn't want to stress her out by telling her about the adoption yet, in fact, we know we should have already told her a long time ago...
despite Sarah's emotions on the matter, its not like we even knew the details on Ellie's father, so that would have been Sarah's talk, but we as Ellie's -parents still should have told her the truth when she was younger.
A week after I made the post Ellie told family about the pregnancy. She had since told my parents, her boyfriends grandparents, and then of course, she has told Sarah. Sarah didnt react well, but told her she would support her.
Of course Sarah reached out to us after, very upset, but said she was ready to talk to Ellie, first about the adoption with us, and she said that she wanted to tell Ellie about her father alone.
We sat down and had the discussion, Ellie was of course upset, but calmed down after a while.
She of course had questions about her father, Sarah had that discussion with her, at the time I didnt know what she was told, and it was none of our business, but Ellie told us she knows who he is, and said she didnt want to reach out, so we moved on after that.
The other day I got a call from my sister-in-law Renee (31F), my brothers wife. She was angry and was asking what kind of sick ideas was Sarah putting in Ellie's head. She started mentioning stuff about Ellie's adoption, so after I got her to calm down she told me what happened.
She claimed that Ellie had messaged my brother Ethan (32) and told him about the adoption and wanted to talk to him.
This confused me because me and Ethan dont talk much, we were never really close because we are 21 years apart, he was my mothers late child and he always got along with mine and our sisters kids as they were all around the same age, and Ellie only saw him on the holidays, so telling him about the details in her life didnt make since.
Renee explained to me that Ellie claimed that Ethan was her father because that is what Sarah had told her and told him that he was going to be a grandpa. I had to sit down for a while. I called Sarah and we had a long conversation.
She told me that yes it was true that Ethan is Ellie's biological father. Sarah and Ethan were close when they were young, they were only eight months apart.
Sarah says that when they went thought puberty feelings changed and that every time she went to her grandmothers they would hide away from everyone and have "there own time".
Sarah was upset talking about this but told me that he never assaulted her and that it was always consensual. She never wanted to tell me because she was ashamed of the fact that the father of her baby was her uncle.
I have since talked to Ethan as well. He denied it to Ellie over text but told me that it was true. We exchanged a few words back and forth, even if this was consensual, how could he sleep with his own niece?
He had all these but I wasnt hearing it. He knew of the pregnancy and being Ellie's father the whole time, and he never even bothered to step up to say anything! I have talked to Ellie about it, she says she was upset when she found out, but she always thought she looked like my step-dads side of the family.
It upset me when she mentioned that because honestly I see it, its pretty obvious now. I always knew that Ellie favored whoever her father was because she didnt look like anyone on our side, but I never suspected Ethan.
My mother and step-dad have found out and Ethan told Renee it was true. She has left with their kids to stay with her family. Ethan has tried to reach out to Ellie now but I dont want her speaking to him, I'm still her father and I dont think she is safe being in touch with him...
Ellie has shown no interest in talking. I asked her why she reached out to him before talking to Sarah or us about it, and she said she just wanted to know his side of the story, but feels betrayed for being lied too.
Readers continued to weigh in on OP's update:
cuteshine7 writes:
OP is a great-grandfather at 53-54. He raised two girls who both got pregnant at 15.
One refused / didn't dare to name the father to OP and OP just shrugged and dropped the topic and when she was talking to the other one OP raised about this OP said "fine I won't be there it's not my business what you tell my adopted daughter".
The other one didn't tell OP what she heard, what was happening and she felt more comfortable reaching out to biodad she barely knew instead of talking to OP about it.... If this post is real, at some point OP...
seriously needs to look into the mirror and ask himself what the hell wrong with him that he failed parenting in such a spectacular way not even just once but twice, before he becomes a second-great-grandfather by 69-70.