“I have two kids, ‘Clark’ and ‘Kent’,” a mom begins her post on an advice forum, giving aliases to her sons.
She says that they have the same father, but only one of them is biologically her child.
“They were born within six months of each other. The boys are currently six, and for various reasons, I have full custody of both of them.”
“They’re practically identical”
“I didn’t speak to anyone in my family for several years, and we got back in touch in 2019. Due to the boys’ ages, my family know I couldn’t have carried both, unless I had the gestation period of a hamster or the longest labour ever,” she writes.
The OP explained to her family how the situation came to be, but in her explanation, she neglected to tell them which was her biological child.
Due to her ex having a type, the other woman looked enough like her that the boys could pass for twins. They had the “same dark hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and both cleft chins and dimples,” according to the mom.
They look so similar that the mom even said that she would have mixed them up as babies if she had full custody of both of them at that time.
“Aside from a few minor differences, they’re practically identical.”
“Biology doesn’t matter”
Her family started asking the OP questions last year, just before the birthday of her son, Clark.
“Shortly before his birthday last year, my mom asked if she could see his birth certificate. I asked why and she said she wanted to know the exact time he was born, so I told her. She asked if she could see the certificate anyway. I asked why. She said she just wanted to check.
“I said I’m his mother, I know when he was born. Then she asked the same thing about Kent and we went through the same conversation all over again. Mom eventually admitted that she just wanted to see the birth mother’s name on each certificate, which isn’t even how that works and I told her as much,” she explained.
This led to an argument where the OP ended up telling her mom, “I’m their mother, biology is irrelevant.” But her mom retorted: “If biology is irrelevant then it’s not a big deal to tell me which of them is biologically yours.”
“I said if she’s so hung up on biology, then clearly it’s a big deal to her and I don’t want it to be a big deal, especially as the boys themselves don’t know,” the mom wrote.
But her mom wouldn’t drop it and told her she was being “incredibly selfish, narcissistic, and overall wrong.”
She also thought her daughter was accusing her of potential favouritism, which in her opinion, was an “unfair judgement with no actual reasoning to it.”
“My boyfriend agrees that I shouldn’t tell anyone at least until my sons have decided for themselves if they want to know and want other people to know, but my entire family agree with mom that I’m being unreasonably selfish and that my actions now are more likely to cause issues than mom’s potential actions later,” the mom concluded her post.
“Your mother is looking for her ‘real’ grandchild”
The forum community weighed in with their thoughts, with one saying, “NTA. If she ever finds out, your mother will favour the biological grandchild, otherwise it wouldn’t matter to her who was on the birth certificate.”
“NTA, totally and completely,” another person responded. “You KNOW she’s going to make a big deal out of it the way she has pestered you and got the family to be her flying monkeys. I sincerely hope you have their birth certificates locked up tight in a safe or safety deposit box so she cannot say she ‘accidentally came across it’.”
And someone else concluded, “NTA. Your mother is looking for her ‘real’ grandchild. You’re right not to set your kids up for that heartache.”
