More and more studies guarantee the need to explain to children born by assisted reproduction and even donation of gametes, their origin and what their parents needed to do in order for them to be born. Infertility is a disease declared by the WHO and there is nothing to hide around it. Many people look for the right time and way and in this video, Eva María Bernal of Creandounafamilia, an expert in supporting families in this process and who we already interviewed in February in Babies and more, gives us some ideas on how to approach it.
Under Eva's point of view, and of my own, It is convenient to tell children the truth about whether they were born by assisted reproduction. It is their origin, their way of being able to reach this world and if it was in a different way than usual they have the right to know.
Psychologists often recommend that after three years they start talking about their origin, but from experience Eva has told us that this conversation is difficult, so she recommends starting to tell her (even if they don't understand it) since they were born. In those moments it is more for you, to start putting words, than for them.
We have asked Eva what she thinks can happen if we take too long and find out another way they were born with assisted reproduction help or if the fact is hidden from them and this is what they have told us.
There will be all kinds of reactions depending on whether they are only fertility treatments or if there has also been donation of gametes through. A child raised today with an open mind will not have a problem in understanding that their parents have needed medical help or that their fertilization should occur outside the uterus. Romanticism we put it on! When I find out about other people, I worry if they will ask if there is something wrong with all this. I really don't think anything happens if they don't know it, although here it would also depend if there was a donation (the perspective changes completely), but it's not about that. It is your right to know. I repeat, it is its origin. And adults know that there is something they are hiding, they can remember it more or less, but it will always be there.
Conclusion, It is convenient to tell children who were born by assisted reproduction the truth. Explained in a simple way: that there are adults who cannot have children and great desires to have babies and that there are doctors and clinics that help them. At first you will not understand anything, but this vocabulary and this circumstance will be in your life forever. When the conversation grows, it will be complicated, but if we have it well assumed, we will be better prepared to accompany them.
