Dear Carolyn: I was contacted via a DNA site by a grown daughter. I had earlier suspicions. I sent her a warm letter welcoming her into my life. I told all my siblings immediately but not my two adult daughters, because I wanted to meet her face-to-face first.
A niece came upon the site and asked my brother about it. I told him I was trying to meet her after exchanging emails. I asked the niece not to approach her, but she ignored me and had lunch with her.
The niece then called up six of her cousins, against my expressed wishes. She said, “They have a right to know.” All were put off by her ruthless actions. I was extremely angry.
There is now a huge estrangement between my brother/his family and mine. He says his family is “100 percent blameless” and demands I apologize to her. His argument? The lunch was great, so what’s the big deal?
I’ve since advised my daughters and met the new daughter (went great), but everyone is angry.
Was this solely my story to tell? Did the niece cross boundaries, especially after I asked her not to? I wanted privacy. Help!
— P.
P.: What if I said it was solely your story to tell? What difference would that affirmation make to your situation?
Maybe validating your outrage at your niece’s “ruthless actions” would make you feel better, but it wouldn’t mend your family.
Worse, it would extend and legitimize the wrong path of your current reasoning. There is no “privacy” about a human being’s existence. This discovered daughter is yours in genetic terms but not yours in a sense of ownership. She has agency, ideas, her own interests, her own right to be heard, seen, welcomed, her own channels to the rest of your — her — family. You never controlled this. It was never your information alone for which to carefully orchestrate the release.
I could make a moral argument for that, but ultimately, it’s the practical one that won’t be denied — and it just drove its bulldozer through your plans for a controlled reveal. You said yourself your niece happened upon the truth. A person is public information. That’s in the driver’s seat, always was and still is, while you’re in the way-back bickering over who’s right.
Now, was your niece’s approach thoughtful or kind? I wouldn’t say that, no. But being wrong on style doesn’t make you right on substance. Arguably her approach was more respectful of your daughter than yours, because she simply invited her new cousin in and refused to keep a person secret.
Regardless: To get caught up in her methods — or in your clear and understandable discomfort with so much change at once — is to miss the more salient point of inevitability.
People do need time to absorb profound disruptions. I am not anti-feelings or dismissive of shock. I am simply pro-understanding that events will rush onward and dealing with feelings privately vs. vainly trying, ragefully failing, to slow the onrush of events.
I am sorry this all moved faster than you wanted it to. I am.
