KIDS NEED A REAL PAST: Elizabeth Marquardt on donor-conceived children. Powerful.

A little boy is pictured with his hands raised high, eyes looking off camera, lips pursed pensively to show off his adorable chubby cheeks. It could be just another Internet picture of a cute 3- or 4-year-old, but this one instantly filled me with shock and anger, for his sake.

Why? Because the words on his crisp, white T-shirt read, “My daddy’s name is Donor.” …

Adopted children know that their biological parents, for whatever reason, could not or would not raise them. That knowledge is painful. At the same time, they also know that the parents who adopted them saved them from the terrible fate of having no family. They feel gratitude to their adoptive parents and love them as any child loves the parents who raised him.

By contrast, donor-conceived children know that the parents raising them are also the ones who intentionally created them with a severed relationship to at least one of their biological parents. The pain they feel was caused not by some distant, shadowy person who gave them up, but by the parent who cares for them.

This knowledge brings the loyalty and love they naturally feel for the parents raising them in direct conflict with the identity quest we all must go through. When they ask, “Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?” they confront a welter of painful uncertainties our culture hasn’t begun to understand.

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