Globally, June marks NPE Awareness Month. While people might be unfamiliar with the acronym, many have experienced the shock of unanticipated DNA results. They discover that their parents are not who they believed they were. NPE. Not Parent Expected or Non-Paternity Event. Usually, this refers to when one’s dad turns out not to be the biological parent. Less often, but just as consequential, NPE refers to the mom not being their biological parent. Such a startling discovery is devastating . It totally upends a person’s world. It affects their identity and damages their ability to trust.
How does this happen?
Many scenarios are possible. All result from secrecy and incomplete truth telling.
- A woman conceals the child’s paternity from her partner. (The biological father may agree to hiding the secret. Or, he may be unaware he has fathered a child.)
- A couple intentionally pass off the dad’s child as the couple’s biological offspring
- A couple intentionally pass off the mom’s child as the couple’s biological offspring
- A couple use sperm and/or egg donation and pretend the child is the couple’s biological offspring
- A couple pass off the child of a friend or relative as the couple’s biological offspring
- An adopted child is not informed they were adopted
- A woman does not know the identity of the birth father. (This could be because the event was casual or by coercion.)
Adoption and NPE
How does NPE connect to adoption? After all, adoptees already know that their adoptive parents are not their biological parents. Well, they should, however, sometimes adoptees are never told they were adopted. This happens even now when DNA makes it impossible to hide the truth. These families hide the adoption. Until… a DNA test reveals the truth. The most fundamental thing that the adoptee knew about themselves is a lie. Everything becomes questionable.
LDA — NPE from another angle
This acronym specifically refers to a Late Discovery Adoptee—a person who learns later in life that they were adopted. This discovery might not be the result of a DNA surprise. However, it is still an NPE event, and a cataclysmic one at that. The adoption can be exposed in many ways. For example, A friend, relative, even a stranger can let it slip, or the adoptee stumbles upon adoption paperwork after the parent has died. And, since children are curious beings, the discovery can be made when they search through file cabinets of boxes of family papers. Regardless of how they uncover the secret, the revelation rocks their world.
Rootlessness
Suddenly, their family ties are phony. Their roots are falsified. Imagine their bewilderment, sense of betrayal, and anger. Questions abound. How many people knew the truth and kept the secret? What else did they lie about? What other secrets have been hidden? Was I the only one who did NOT know?
They begin to doubt their ability to trust their own judgement. Instability, depression, anger and estrangement from their family often ensues. Sometimes the relationship can eventually be salvaged. Sometimes the fracture remains permanently.
The impact affects not only relationships within their family, but also their relationships in their world at large. Who else has been lying to them? Who else hides important secrets? How could I have been so misled?
The TriSpective impact
Unquestionably, the person most devastated by an NPE experience is the adoptee. Of course, others feel the impact as well. The unacknowledged birth parents are denied an opportunity to have a relationship of any degree with their child, as in the case of a birth father who was never informed of his child’s existence. This secret keeping denied him any chance to assert his parental rights.
Although open adoption is the norm today, these agreements are not legally enforceable in most states. Adoptive parents sometimes choose to end the agreement—often with no substantive cause.
Birth mothers are left in the cold. Left to wonder about their child’s safety and happiness, they too, feel heartbroken over the severed connection. And betrayed. By the adoptive parents. By the system.
An understanding of Tri-Relational Interconnectivity reminds us that all of this deceit has an impact not only on the individual but also on the family system. Secrecy builds shame and fear and anger and pain. That’s not healthy for anyone in the family, particularly for the adoptee.
What to do
Take immediate steps to rectify the damage. Find professional help to guide and support the family, particularly the person or persons who were lied to. Allow them the space and time that they need. Repair is hard, complicated, emotional work and takes time. Apology is an ongoing process and accountability is essential. A restored relationship is not guaranteed. Adoptees must determine for themselves what is possible and healthy for them.
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