Should Children Know Who Their Biological Parents Are? Or Their Half-Siblings?

When the now adults-in-training were just starting middle school Tucson Unified School District changed their borders, again. We had already moved as far West of the city as we could afford; we were on West Grant, tucked into the smallest of the foothills on the edge of the West Saguaro National Monument. Man, we loved it there too. However, when we made to tour to see where the kids would be going to school we knew we had to move. We looked in the desert, of course, and in New Mexico, but in the end, hormones won out.

That's exactly how I feel about the whole, entering mainstream America and getting a better life for our family. We did it for all of us, but mainly for Katie and David Wyatt. I was so afraid of the gangs and the drugs and the violence in the big city and after seeing where they would be going to school...I mean, there was coiled barbed wire at the top of the fence! And sixth graders with their hands through the fence!

I freaked out. However, freaked or not, my husband and I do not regret the decision to try and find a safer, more stable environment for our children’s teenage years.

One of the things we have learned, of course, is that one can run but one cannot hide. There is nothing new under the sun and there is no safe haven. The most you can do as a parent is talk and talk and talk and oh, did I mention talk? Talk to your kids! I know, the eye rolls and the "I know all this already" answers make you want to pinch their heads off but try to call up that lovely baby head smell, you know the one higher power put on their soft spot? He put that smell there to keep us from killing our children!

The good thing about living in a small town is you get to know most of the people in it that go double for the kids. Teenagers sometimes stick with one group of friends their entire teenage years. Others may have more than one group they associate with, such as one for college prep English and another for ROTC or the art club. Sometimes teenagers just fire their friend and never speak to that person again! I know, total shocker isn't it? It happened in our house; somebody copied one of my daughters many styles of hairdo's and my daughter got so mad at the friend for copying her they never saw or spoke again, to this day! Apparently, plagiarism in the form of hair does not have to be written, it only has to be seen!

Now, this has been really fun to write, up to this point.

Now is when it gets a bit dicey.

Living in a small town has its down side. The teenage pregnancy, multiple partners, children being born during the same two to three year time period with the same father is extremely high. If I were not a part of my daughter's life when she was a teenager, if she did not find the situation appalling, if she had not talked about how she felt with her father and me, this may have escaped my knowledge together.

I am afraid it has been seen but not acknowledged by the majority of the people I know, people I work with, people I go to church with and people I see in the W store daily. If there is one thing Southerners excel at, it is their ability to pretend anything that is sad, uncomfortable, embarrassing, frightening, humiliating or potentially harmful even exists.

Exist it does, not just one instance but several. One father, several girls, all pregnant by the same male and all their children will now go to school together, be in friends groups together, see each other in a whole, friendly way together. All without knowing they are related by blood.

Oh, you say you are sure that sooner or later they will find out? I'm sure they will as well. I certainly hope they find out before it is too late! You say you doubt they would be attracted to the other? I would have to say that blood ties are very strong. My sister and I are very close, though we are many miles apart. We will still buy the same thing and then call the other to say guess what I bought? Only to find out the other had already done the same thing! If that can happen with my sister and me, it can happen with half sisters and brothers as well!

What a terrible thing to discover you are related when you about to get married! What a frightening thing to find out you're related by blood when you are expecting a child! No one should have to suffer that.

Should children be given information related to their true biological parents from the earliest age?

To answer with my favorite teenager-ism...Well, DUH!