A Moral Dilemma

Back on the topic of my niece....I have a bit of a problem and not really quite sure how to handle it. I have discussed the issue with my hubby who agrees with what I think but I am still unsure if it is the best solution for all concerned.

As a quick background, my sister fell pregnant with my niece in her mid 20's. She was living in a squat with her then boyfriend, who was only 19 at the time and his brother and a couple of other girls. Neither my sister or her boyfriend were keen on becoming parents. He had a criminal record we discovered later as he and his brother did a lot of break and enters and I suspect my sister may have been involved as well although she was never caught and it was never proven. He was also a drug user, something my sister denies, but my brother was with him once and saw him shoot up which upset my brother knowing my sister was getting involved in this kind of stuff.

Anyway, Nic almost became an abortion statistic until mum and dad stepped in and said they would help her support the baby if she kept it. At this stage she was still living on the street with her boyfriend until one day they decided to move from Brisbane and go to Gladstone. So my sister, her boyfriend and his brother moved to Gladstone to live. They found a really cheap place to live in and the pregnancy progressed. My brother then decided to visit them for a few days hoping to check on my sister and make sure she was ok. The boyfriend was really a nasty piece of work especially on the drugs and what my brother found made him very angry. My sister was basically treated as their slave and wasn't allowed to eat until the men had and even then it was the scraps. The story gets worse but I won't bore you with the gory details. Let's just say the fact Nic was born a healthy baby is a miracle.

A couple of months before Nic was born, my sister made a tearful phone call to mum and dad to say the boyfriend had deserted her and she had no money, no food and was desperate. The boyfriend had also stolen her car which was never seen again. So mum and dad made a desperate dash from Brisbane to Gladstone to go collect my sister.

Nic was born just over 8 pounds and she was the most beautiful baby I had seen. My sister never again mentioned Nic's father nor is he included on the birth certificate

Now, for the hard part...a few years later my brother happened to run into Nic's dad in his line of work. This guy seemed to be a changed person, dressed nicely and mentioned to my brother he was getting married soon. Never once did he ask about my sister or his child and my brother didn’t tell him as he was still very cautious about the sincerity of this guy. My brother asked about the car and he said that my sister had told him he could have it as it was an old wreck anyway and he and his brother only got it as far as Rockhampton before the car died and they sold it for parts.

In the past few months, Nic has started to wonder about her heritage. She looks nothing much like her mother so it has her wondering. And my sister has never really got on with her daughter, I suspect because she looks so much like her dad. And she does. Her facial expressions are so much her father…she has the same sly look her dad got when he was being evasive about things, she has his eyes and even though I only met her dad a few times she really is the image of him.

The question is…do we tell her about her father? She has never asked questions about her dad or even if she had a dad. To her, my mum and dad were her parents as she was raised by them the past 16 years even though they were grandma and granddad to her. That’s not to say she may not have ever wondered…she just never asked any of us. And because so many of her friends come from homes with solo mums I think she figured it was a normal thing. One of her friends made a comment recently that she thought Nic was part Asian because she has almond shaped eyes which do give her a slightly Asian look. But then her dad has the same eyes. So she wanted to know why she didn’t have eyes like her mother. I really want to tell her she has a father and his name etc but without going into any details. I think she has that right. But what if she decides to go looking for him and decides she would be better off with him every time she and mum fight? I don’t want her to find out that her father never wanted her and beat her mother so badly so she would miscarry. True…he may be different now and he may be married with another family of his own. I don’t like secrets. It turned out Dad had secrets of his own which we didn’t know about until after he died and I don’t want her to go through that…always wondering who you really are.

I want to protect her and there could be things that she is still too young to know. I do know he had family in Toowoomba so maybe somewhere out there is another whole set of grandparents and cousins and uncles and auntys. I guess I am scared too of losing her. I just really wish I had some answers.