Should I Tell My Child He Was Conceived in Rape? My Response
— Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 —
Below is a “Questions and Ethics” query I posed a while back. Some of you weighed in on the question. Below is the question again, with my response.
Dear Dr. Moore,
My wife has been hurt horribly by a secret no one knows but her parents and me.
Years ago, when she was shortly out of high school, she was brutally raped by a man she had known since childhood. For various reasons, she didn’t report it at the time (I know that was a mistake, and she does too). The man later raped again and, ultimately, committed suicide. After her rapist’s death, it started to be known in our small hometown that he had done this before, many times, including the molestation of minor children. That’s in the past, but we’ve got a real ethical dilemma in our present and in our future.
This rape resulted in a pregnancy. During this time, she and I started dating and we were both convinced (and still are) that abortion is wrong, so she carried her baby to term. We married, and have raised this child together. He is nine years-old. He’s gentle, loving, and a delight to me. I couldn’t love him any more if I were biologically his dad. He recently professed faith in Jesus and was baptized.
Here’s my problem. He doesn’t know. I know from reading Adopted for Life that you think children should know about their adoption from the very beginning. Whether you’re right or wrong, that’s just not what we did. He only knows me as his Dad. Maybe even more important, we just don’t know how to tell him he was conceived in rape.
I don’t think a nine year-old could understand that. I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to understand that, without it shaping the way he thinks about himself. Might it even lead him to think that he’s genetically “predisposed” to that kind of behavior himself (whether rape or suicide or whatever)?
So here’s my question. Is it my Christian obligation to tell my son about the circumstances of his birth or is it my obligation to protect him from that knowledge? If I do need to tell him, at what age and how?
In Christ,
Agonized Dad
Dear A.D.,
I am sorry to hear of this horrible hurt that your family, particularly your wife, have been through. This won’t be easy. Here’s what I think your ethical obligations are.
You’re to pattern your fatherhood after another, an already existing eternal Fatherhood of God (Eph. 3:15). But our Father in the heavenly places also adopted his children after a horrific tragedy (Rom. 8; Gal. 4; Eph. 1). Model your parenting of your son through this after the way our Father has parented us.
Yes, you must be honest. God honestly speaks to his children about the circumstances of their backgrounds, whether back there in Ur or back there in Egypt or back there in the “power of the air.” You must not hide this from your son. Imagine what it would be like if he were to find this information out from someone other than you. He would then wonder whether everything in his life is fraudulent and illusory.
Having said that, you must not “exasperate your son” (Eph. 6:4) with knowledge he can’t handle. A nine year-old lacks the maturity to understand this horror in its fullness.
Our Father God doesn’t tell us everything he has to say to us as soon as he announces the gospel after the Fall (Gen. 3:15). He speaks for thousands of years “in many times and in many ways” until finally in “these last days” he speaks to us in Christ (Heb. 1:1-2). It isn’t until the “fullness of time” that God reveals the mystery of Christ in a way not known to the previous generations of prophets (Gal. 4:4; Eph. 3:5). But God did, in all those times, reveal Christ. When we received the full revelation of the mystery, everything else he said tied together in Christ.
You must do the same, preparing your son to be able to see himself apart from the circumstances of his conception.
I’d start by, as the years go by, telling stories about children who came from an evil parent or an evil situation. Take time to find these themes, and not just in Bible stories (Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker will do, if that’s what your son likes), and teach the truth of Scripture that one isn’t biologically determined toward his forefathers’ sin. Point out all the evil and treachery in Jesus’ family line, evil and treachery that didn’t implicate him in the least.
In your son’s life, show him all the ways he resembles you, and tell him why: because a son learns to be like his father by watching his father (John 5:19).
Start out, very soon, by telling your son, when you tell him his adoption story, that he was born after a lot of hurt and a lot of pain, but that God brought good (your son) even out of some of the most tremendous times of hurting. You don’t need to go beyond that, for now. But start showing your son how God continually brings blessing out of curse, even out of sin.
When you determine that your son has the maturity to receive this knowledge, tell him. Expect him to be hurt by this news. There is no easy way to take it, for all kinds of reasons. Honor your wife in this. Show your son what a hero she was in protecting and loving her son. Point out all the ways he is like her.
Assure him that, despite the human horror of his conception, he’s not an accident. God watched out for his mother, and for him, by seeing to it that he would have a father who would love him and raise him.
And then tell him what your Father has told you in Christ: “You are my beloved son, and with you I am well pleased.”
Do you have an ethical question? Send it to me at questions@russellmoore.com. I’ll keep it anonymous and change all the identifying details.
Dr. Moore, you provided a great practical and theologically sound answer (as always). I always appreciate your writings. (I’m making my way through the sermons on your site and enjoying them, too.) Thanks for the good you are doing!
Dr. Moore,
This is a beautiful response and I love how you harmonized scripture to bring forth this edifying teaching. I’m afraid a lot of people today would treat this as “situational ethics” and try to take a pragmatic approach and advocate lying under the guise that it’s the most loving thing to do, etc. I love how you have illustrated that telling the truth is the most loving thing you can do and just because the details are difficult and wrought with pain and suffering it doesn’t negate our obligation to the truth.
May it all be for His glory,
W.
Thank you Dr. Moore. Our children were brought to us by God through horrible circumstances of drug abuse. Even at 3 we are already discussing that God had special plans for them in the circumstances of their births.
I’m not disagreeing with the point or conclusions, but i’m curious about the connection you are making between the child’s origin (rape) and “the circumstances of their backgrounds” that “God honestly speaks to his children about.” Since the child wasn’t sinning in his own conception, this doesn’t seem like the right comparison on which to base this decision. please correct my ignorance.
@Dave,
i too am wondering if the connections and comparisons made are the right ones, so thank you dave for your comment.
Very insightful, thanks.
One aspect is that there are births with a loving father and mother and then births, such as the birth of Jesus, where there is the potential for shame. It is important to teach that the potential for shame rightly rests on those that acted shamefully, NOT on the others. Mary was a very courageous to have Jesus, as the mother in this story was also; and I would make this mapping explicit to the son.
Wow.
No more words to say how God illumined you to share this biblically sound and discerned answer.
God bless you.
Not that my origins compare with the horrors of rape, nonetheless, my origins grieved me until I was close to 30 years old. Although my biological mother and step father did the best they could, I wrestled mightly and angrily to reconcile my self-identity with the story of my origins.
In fact, God taught me after many years that my identity has nothing to do with who I called “Dad”, but Him. God chose to bless me by removing me from the many abuses I could have been subjected to and providing me with a man that truly worked every day to live up to the Biblical role of “father”. God spared me from torments my mother endured for a time and provided me a loving environment many could have only dream of.
It very much mimics the love story God has for all of us. We are all born into situations that are less than ideal (sin). But God provides us a way to receive more than we ever could imagine… and for a time, we don’t really even understand it. But we will.
Ultimately, I believe God gave me this story so I can tell my own sons. I want my boys to know that God loved me so much He took a situation that was less than ideal, even ugly, and used it to bring even them into this world. God used me to end generations of physical and substance abuse. God used me to point to Him. My sons are continuing in that journey.
What more could I possibly ask for?
@Jason, Thank you for sharing your story. You have spoken into my life; rather, using your words, God had spoken into my heart the assurance of His love for me. Your sons are truly blessed to have such a man for their earthly father. And their mother is truly blessed in the husband given her by the Lord.
First time I comment, but glory to God, by this answer. I am crying of joy. Thank you.
Dr. Russell,
Great reflection on our shameful situation before being adopted by the Father through Christ.
As for the parents of this child, this would be a great opportunity to magnify the truth of adoption in the Gospel even when we were “children of wrath, like the rest of mankind,“ (Eph 2:3)
God bless you all.
Amazing thank you for your Godly and gracious answer
In a class at a secular college, in a discussion of abortion, a female student in our class shared that she was a child resulting from a rape. She was able to say, “Look at me - I’m a person - not a tragedy. I’m so glad my mother chose not to abort me.” This background allowed her to speak with amazing experiential authority in the matter.
I was 14-15 yr old when circumstances forced my “parents” to reveal to me the truth - that I was not their child but they had taken me in following my mother’s abandonment of her marriage and her baby (I was less than a yr old), then soon after my father’s deciding he was not able to care for me himself. He passed me off to his brother and sister-in-law, who had a daughter of their own just a month older that I. Long way to get to the point. My new “parents” were not Christians. They loved me the best they were able and I am grateful today to the Lord for having placed me a stable, secure environment. BUT — I felt unimaginably betrayed. I felt as if my entire life had been a lie. I wondered what, if anything, was true. And I think, between the original abandonment by my parents early on compounded by the revelation of the deception, that I was never able to believe from that point on that my “parents” truly loved me; and consequently it is very difficult for me to believe that my heavenly Father truly loves me. (By His grace He opened my heart to receive faith in Jesus 15 years ago, when I was 48.)
Bottom line — ABSOLUTELY begin at once to tell the child the truth, with all the assurance of their love for and acceptance of him that can come only from parents who themselves know the love and acceptance of God in Christ Jesus.
I’m sorry this is on your plate. I’m not sure you would hve been given this burden if God didn’t have something in mind to do through you. Apparently, and I might add, in beautiful fashion, He already has. I Honestly believe you will be shown the perfect time to share this news with your son. And with the gift that you already are as a husband and a father, any thoughts of predisposition will fade. Praying now for that day. If it were any of us, we would want to know something like this. So I believe timing is everything. Plus, he has an earthly Daddy as well as an eternal one, who will love him through. Love wins.
Dr. Moore,
I so appreciate your response and your heart to bring God’s love and truth into hard situations. My husband and I have been so blessed by your book, Adopted for Life. I hope I can relay the wisdom and clarity that God has given you (both in the book and on this site), as I speak to others about similarly difficult situations.
Thank you.
Tae
I want to pose the question: is it necessary for him to know at all? If it’s possible to keep it from him, mightn’t that be better?