I want to meet my Grandfather for the first time

I have never had the misfortune of being pregnant.

I believe safeguarding a persons privacy is of paramount importance, not to be tossed aside because of someone elses yearnings to connect, or whatever phrase they choose to use.

I feel so strongly about this in particularly because most people can't see this opinion other than anything but hostile, or that "have you had this happen to you, hmmmm?"

I feel it is a human right violation to attempt to seek out someone in such an indiscreet manner such as on an open internet forum.

If it's such a soul wrenching need to find someone, go at it. But attempt it in such a way that will absolutely minimize contact with the person being sought via legal means. That means letting the agency or lawyer do their work, not you, making contact if found as low key, private and unintrusive as possible. If the person sought says no, that means no. It would be a much worse crime than saying no then being raped for the seeker to continue to pursue, and that should be addressed to the full extent of the law.

We're not living in the days of the Magdaline Sisters anymore, where infants were wrested from young mothers with no warning. Mothers give up children for many reasons. Some because they want to, some because they have to, and make that choice. If they want to leave the door open for future meetings, it should be in the files.

Otherwise the adult child does not have the right to meet this person. They have the right to look, but not to meet. The more important right is the sought after persons privacy.

well said
[/quote]

I guess it would be well said if I had been spewing any hate.

What is ridiculous is saying because Some people do care, that means everyone has to put themselves in the position of submitting to having their privacy violated.

It's like someone saying "You don't believe in God, so you must be a devil worshipper"

No, I'm interested in causing as little trauma in someone life as possible.

And if that means someone can't find their birth parent, so be it.

Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and in many other international and regional treaties. Privacy underpins human dignity and other key values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech.

Quote chai:

You think the prospective grandfather's name is actually Mr. TinTin? These are screen names.

However, the poster also known as Tin Tin is a real person and has every right in the world to research his/her own history as much as anyone else. Lot of people are researching their deceased ancestors, that's a growing pastime. Who the heck said you can't research your live ancestors?

Tin Tin can be as discreet as he/she likes. So far, all she's gotten is a name and address in another country, and the story that the person does not want to be involved. Well, no does not mean you can't ask again, I don't see where you get these ideas from. From the beginning you have acted like what TinTin is doing is morally questionable, and it isn't. And Tin Tin has the right to try again, and to make an offer of money to make it worth the while for the person to determine, one way or another, if they are her grandfather and to give TinTin the information that he/she has the right to ask for.

Good luck, Tin Tin.

I am not specifically addressing this case but the overall casualness of people thinking they can go out and selfishly think they can look for the someone because it's important to them. This without considering the damage they may do. Keep cherry picking what I have to say, and pretend you think I'm imaging the screen name is someone's real name. What I said was people have come on here announcing for anyone who cares to look the name of a person they think is or may be their parent. That is stupid, unthinking and selfish behavior.

Anyone can say "but it might go really great" I'm saying it might go really wrong and it's more important that be prevented.

How come it seems to be more girls than boys who wants to meet the bio parents?
By coincedence meeting siblings or finding siblings is a bit different than a parent. Siblings were never involved in a big a difficult decision.
I think when wanting to meet bio parents or grandparents it should go thru an
agency, simply because you just do not walk into someones life and say hello.

There was a few years ago in a Danish newspaper four girls who had met their bio mother. Three were more than disappointed and the fourth got a long with her, found her nice, but had no wish to see her again.
I think this is rather realistic. Of all new people we meet and like to keep in touch with is it even 25%?
Think about our family and relatives - how many do people really get along with everybody in a family of siblings, their kids, their in-laws and your own in-laws.
At what age do these young people want to meet their bio mother? Is it at a mature age or when they are younger and in a period when they do not get along with their parents? How often don´t young people wish they had other parents, who would understand them and allow them to do this or that.
Haven´t we all gone thru something like that and had no place to go.
PS
I have an adopted daughter and I grew up without my mother who died. Would have been very sad if my daughter started search for her bio mother.I have asked if she wanted to and she said no.

Probably for the same reason more girls than boys dream of fairy princess scenerios where you meet the perfect Prince Charming, get married and have beautiful blissful babies. Then get all disappointed and act like they've been cheated out of something when their intended turn out to have feet of clay and are unwilling to play into their imaginary scenerio of how life should be.

Why do more girls dream of their magical wedding day where they are completely loved and admired by all, for no other reason than "This is MY day"?


Thanks for sharing that about your daughter saab. I'm glad she said no. Sure she's obviously wondered about them to some degree, but she knows you are her parent. It's very touching and says much about her.

Chapter 19 of Silas Marner link below.

Where Eppie makes it known she has no other father but Silas:

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/196/silas-marner/4265/part-2-chapter-19/

There's definitely a teenaged/young adult female component to the vast, vast majority of these searches.

It's romantic and fun and interesting to have a father (or, in this case, grandfather) who is, I dunno:

• rich
  
• handsome
  
• famous
  
• connected to and can introduce you to some celebrity you have a crush on and/or
  
• is an outlaw of some sort.

Because all of them are far more interesting than Dad, who tells bad jokes, has a paunch, and wears black dress socks with Bermuda shorts and sandals.

But he's the guy who disciplined. He's the one who paid the bills. He fixed the washing machine, or made sure someone else did. He changed and fed this adopted child, too.

But hey, he's boring, when Dad could instead be George Clooney or Matt Damon or Idris Elba or the like.

So true jes.

Especially the females who say they want to find a parent that is the result of a one night stand, or very brief encounter. Or, despite being told by the parent who has raised them that this person was irresponsible, a ne'er do well, or just plain uninterested, they "just want to talk to him/her"

As if the parent who raised them is lying and just trying to keep them apart.

There's a reason that person wasn't even in the picture since you've been born honey. And it's not because they were so great your parent just forced him/her out of their lives, instead preferring to raise you alone.

I also wonder how many of the people who have come on here saying they want to find a parent within the week or month were saying something like "Look! Pokemon!"

Yeah well, too late. You've already splashed some poor persons name out there.

You know, the latest figures I've read is that 1 out of 3 women have abortions, and most of them don't regret that decision down the line. Not that they're happy about it, but they know it was the right thing for them.

How many more women go through with the pregnancy to term because of practical things like they couldn't afford to have an abortion, can't get one where they live and can't travel to where they can, family pressure and many other reasons?

So, they either keep the baby, or give it up for adoption. How many people are walking around out there, being raised by adoptive parents, wouldn't even exist if their birth mother could have come up with a few hundred dollars, or were able to get themselves to a location where they could have a termination done?
How many birth fathers would have just as soon had the woman they got pregnant terminate, frankly would have preferred it?

So many of us are so used to a movie having some bad twists and turns, but everything ends up fine in the end. All the naysayers are proven wrong and gosh I'm sure glad I didn't listen to them!

I know it's impossible to know, but I'd love to know the following. How many people out there who are living fine, happy normal lives have this person they know nothing about show up in their lives saying "I just wanna" and it to some degree it causes them trauma? They absolutely do not deserve that. There is no "you deserve to feel bad because of what you did"
We don't hear about that because (a) in the first place they most like don't bring up to people they have a kid out there (b) they really don't want to tell people that some person they have nothing to do with suddenly decided they have the right to show up, and I'm just supposed to be happy about that.

How many people have someone show up like this in their lives, but because of their personality, are unable to say "I don't want to see you", instead just going along with it, not wanting to, but don't know any other way to be?

People don't have happy lives because everything they want is given to them. They are happy despite the fact that they don't get everything they want, even decide not to pursue it,and learn to appreciate it was probably for the best.

What concerns me is these mothers not pressing for financial support. Of course, some if not many of them may have tried. But for those who did not, then that should be an enormous red flag to the daughter. Because it costs bucks to raise a kid. You go after those bucks, not because you (usually) are in it for an expensive car. You go after that money because it puts shoes on your kid's feet.

For mothers who do not do this, why not? I have to figure this means Dad is somewhere within this wheelhouse: dead, in jail, married, exceptionally poor, impossible to find, or impossible to remember.

Most of those are not conducive to a happy ending.

Quote chai:

Oh, baloney. It is the most natural thing in the world to look for one's own roots. There is a whole field of science, archaeology, that looks for the roots of our ancestors and is further broken down into subfields of Asian, African, Native American archaeology, etc. There is the growing field of geneology where increasing numbers of people look into their family histories. It's a normal drive.

Moreover, since TinTin's grandmother gave an envelope with the guy's name to her daughter, (Tin Tin's mother), a few years before gramps passed away, and the mother made a try, the Tin Tin has admirably, in my opinion, taken up her mother's quest. Good. The grandchild has every right to make inquiries as to the roots of him/herself and their mother. Yes, there is such a thing as respecting a person's privacy, but you have spent the entire thread trying to shift the subject to Tin Tin and what's WRONG with him/her that TinTin would even consider looking for the grandfather. Well, nuts. There isn't a damn thing wrong with Tin Tin, and ehBeth is right, your insistance that there is something wrong with him or her is beginning to say more about you than about the poster.

I gave a suggestion to Tin Tin about how to possibly go about overcoming this man's reluctance to talk about this, and also verify that he is the grandfather. Maybe Tin Tin will use it, maybe not. But the discussion is supposed to be about how to make contact and find out at least if he is the grandfather, and you have spent the whole thread throwing everyone off maintaining that Tin Tin is not even justified in doing this.

Does anyone out there have some suggestions to help Tin Tin? That is why he/she came to A2K, to ask for help in this quest. I thought A2K was supposed to be a forum set up for people to share information, not to hijack threads into what right do you have to even look for information into your own ancestry.

Holy crap Jes, I hadn't even thought of the married situation.

Wow, that would be an interesting conversation "Honey/dad? Saw the funniest thing with your name in it today. Remember when we lived in Azuza in 2000 and you worked at the Heinz ketchup factory?"

Or if the biological child finds the birth father, we're going into a whole 'nother level episode of deception trying to keep the family from finding out about a mistake made back when you were going through that rough patch in your marriage, and maybe didn't even know about.

Oh no, not much trouble there.

Gee, was the title of this thread, "Am I justified in even CONSIDERING looking for my maternal grandfather"? No. It was asking for advice on how to do so, which is perfectly legitimate. Yet here we are on page 2, and most of the posts have to do with how DARE this person try to do this.

There is a thread hijacking underway here.

Get off this tin tin thing. We're way beyond that, and he won't be coming back.

The most natural thing in the world (in nature) is almost always the most selfish thing. Even if it involves teamwork like among pack animals, being this way is in the individual members best self interest.

A tiger is willing to sacrifice its life for it's cub in a fight in the self interest of continuing its genetic line. It's instinctual.

Humans are very smart animals, and have learned to be altruistic. That means we can override the desire to do the most selfish thing that may benefit yourself, and think how it could hurt others.

that wasn't the case in any of the situations I have personal knowledge of

Here we go
DNA Paternity Test Nigeria: Who's the Daddy?
In this case it would be Granddad.
Price: 90 000 Nigerian money which I have converted into something like
300 dollars.

Write him a letter - you have the address - offer him a check of 500for the test, the time and maybe a trip and see what happens
Do not send the check until he answers.
If you get a test which does not match neither you nor your mother you know he is no good. Trust you grandmother.

So what beth?

What if I or someone else said it was their personal knowledge of something exactly like this happening?

You would be quite correct in saying "So what chai?"

We all know this type of thing happens, or doesn't happen, or any number of variations.

or there is no other dad

or there's a man who seriously resents the step-child, who refuses to adopt the child, didn't want to adopt

adoptive/non-birth families aren't always a good situation

__

I studied adoptive sociology and psychology in university and have kept up with the literature over the years. Adoption is an area full of pitfalls for everyone involved.

Absolutely correct.

historically it has been people in their 30's and then there was often an additional attempt at around age 50

with social media, the ages seem to have been dropping but there are a lot of people well over 30 out searching these days

__

the comparatively newer adoption model seems to have somewhat better results for the entire set of people involved - but we won't know for sure til most of us posting are long gone