Here is an excerpt from chapter 9 in our book Let’s Talk About Egg Donation where we suggest scripts for talking to kids and others about how you built your family.
When Do I Begin?
“Hey, Mom,” Daniel called out. “Can that donor lady come over for dinner tonight? Then she can go home again.”
You never know what kids are going to ask. One minute they are not the least bit interested in knowing anything about the donor; the next, they want to know if her favorite color is purple.
Beginning conversations with your children long before they may fully understand egg donation sets the stage for casual conversations at unexpected times. This allows you to demonstrate for your children that how you created your family is a subject like all others—it does not need the right time or the right place to be discussed. Whenever your child has a thought or a question, your child will know he or she can simply ask you. Although that may seem really terrifying to you at this moment, by the time this actually occurs, you will find you really enjoy talking to your children about the amazing way you found to create your family.
There are no right answers. You don’t have to know exactly what to say. Your child is not only looking for answers; your child is looking for engagement, willingness, honesty, and validation that her or his curiosity is something you embrace. The answers we give kids are not nearly as important as how we approach their questions. Children are curious about so many things and certainly say the “darndest things.” We encourage our children to ask a lot of questions, and we delight in their adorable questions. “How high is up?” “Where does the sun go when it’s nighttime?” “Where was I before I was your little girl?” To children, there is no difference between asking these questions and asking whether the donor liked the color purple or was great at basketball. Our job is to be as comfortable as we can with the way we became parents so that we can talk to our kids as casually about egg donation as we do all their other many questions.
Stay tuned to our blog for more Let’s Talk About Egg Donation-available everywhere books are sold.
Summer 2019
