Unconventional Wisdom: A Sexual Legacy

I began a sexual relationship with Susan, who is six years my senior, when I was 16. We attended the same church. Our sexual relationship continued on and off after I left for college. While in graduate school (I became a pastoral counselor), I learned that she was pregnant and, considering our periodic encounters, realized that the baby could be mine, although I was pretty certain I was not her only sexual partner. I asked Susan if the baby was mine. She said no, and I let it go, but was never sure how she could be so certain. Many years later, the sexual encounters ceased, but we kept in infrequent touch. Not long ago, I received a phone call from a relative who knows Susan, but nothing of our relationship, and had, at a social event, seen Susan’s son, Robert, and noticed uncanny physical and personality similarities between me and him. I also learned indirectly that Robert has always doubted that the man Susan says is his father actually is his father. I confronted Susan. She again maintained that Robert is not my child. I threatened to confront him directly and request a paternity test, which made her angry. What is the appropriate thing to do? I am in my early 50s, Susan is in her late 50s, and Robert is in his late 20s. To add an unfortunate twist, Susan is undergoing treatment for a life-threatening disease.

Your question raises many legal, ethical, and psychological issues, and they do not all point to a single answer of what is “appropriate.” Appropriate for whom? Susan seems to think that what is appropriate for her is automatically appropriate for her grown son. And what was appropriate for you for a long time no longer seems to suffice.

There are strong moral and psychological reasons, but not necessarily legal ones, why a child—even one who is now an adult—should know his biological parentage. Whether through abuse of parental power or out of a desire to protect themselves or a child, parents lie to children (and to spouses) all the time about many things, including who their father is or may be, and you can be sure that there are more than a few men raising the children of others. A father is more than a sperm donor; a parent is someone willing to contribute resources of some kind, establish and nurture an emotional bond.

Arriving at a resolution to your dilemma will depend greatly on why, after nearly three decades of living with uncertainty, you are suddenly interested in establishing whether you are the biological father of a now-grown child who may or may not have been lied to all his life about his father. Perhaps while the child was a minor you were only too happy to avoid any financial or emotional obligation. If you are now seeking certainty to satisfy your own curiosity or get some psychological closure, you may get much more than you bargain for.

You cannot assume that the now-grown son wants to know, although you can find out relatively easily yourself. If you are willing to assume at least some of the psychological responsibilities that come with the job, you may wish to proceed with determining whether or not you are the father. Outside guidance—from a lawyer or a psychologist or both—will probably help. The best interests of the son are the strongest guideposts in this situation. In no way do they include threats or confrontation.

The simplest way to ascertain paternity is for both you and the boy to submit to a DNA test, usually requiring just a swab of cheek mucosa. Because the boy is now an adult, you do not need his mother’s permission to approach him, and he does not need her permission to respond to you. But a caring adult would not want to shock or upset a child—to threaten his relationship with his mother or surprise him about a father possibility he never considered. You have no way of knowing what he has been told about his parentage or whether another man contributed to the boy’s support.

“The child has possibly been denied knowledge of his origins all his life,” says Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center for bioethics and public policy. “The child has a right to know. He is an adult. He can decide what to do with the information, but it’s his decision alone.”

You would have to find a way to approach the boy with great sensitivity, carefully explain who you are and why it is possible you might be his genetic father, and then allow him substantial time to process that information. Further, you have to be prepared to accept whatever the boy decides. He may not want to open the issue. “Or he may be angry that he was denied certainty about his parentage. He may have anger at his mother, anger at a long-missing father,” says Johnston.

Randall Kessler, a divorce lawyer in Atlanta and immediate past president of the family division of the American Bar Association, raises further possibilities. If you are committed to becoming part of the child’s life, then you can establish legitimation proceedings that declare you as the father. You don’t need legitimation proceedings to reach out to the child and help him in any way, if that is your motivation, Kessler stresses. And you don’t need a DNA test to build a relationship with a child.

Because you now sense some urgency to uncover the truth, you could approach the boy’s mother again, with conviction but not threats. You might discuss that it is unfair to leave a child in doubt about his origins—and to deprive him of the participation of a caring adult in his life, which will be even more important in his future if she is facing a critical illness. This is not an easy conversation, but a desirable one.