Donor-conceived kids should be told

DEAR AMY >> I have read advice in your column suggesting that it is wisest to tell children about their adoption starting very young.

My six-year-old twin grandchildren have never been told that their momma's eggs came from an egg donor.

The parents are now divorced but are very friendly.

Should they tell the kids?

Their momma carried them and gave birth to them.

— Wondering

DEAR WONDERING >> As with children who join their families through adoption, parents should also tell children who were conceived through donation their true birth story — ideally starting when the children are pre-verbal.

This gives parents lots of practice in telling the story, and normalizes it for everyone.

What parents should NOT do is treat this as a mystery or a family secret. Families are made in many different ways, and children are capable of understanding this because they see it in their own world.

Kids notice that not all families are the same. For instance, your grandkids' folks are divorced — but the parents and kids are still in a family together. They are also quite curious about their own origin story.

Not knowing the truth and then finding out later can prove genuinely traumatic for people — who upon learning that their birth is the result of sperm or egg donation can struggle understanding their true identity and wonder why nobody ever told them the story surrounding their conception and birth.

Another reason for parents to tell — and retell — this story is that in this day of easy DNA testing (and certainly in the future), all children will eventually have access to this knowledge when they are older.

Because these parents are divorced, they should both talk to the twins about the very happy way they came into the world. They should answer all questions as they arise. Even though some donorconceived people eventually meet their biological relations, they know their parents are the people who raised them.

There are a number of charming children's books describing this process in age-appropriate ways.

One I like is, “The Pea that was Me: An Egg-donation Story,” by Kimberly Kluger-bell (2012, Createspace Independent).