Adoption is a beautiful process.

But when you’ve adopted a child as a baby, when do you choose to reveal to them that you are not their birth parents?

While some countries encourage this conversation to take place as early as possible, in other places little guidance is available, leaving the truth up to the parents to reveal as and when they please.

For the woman in this story, that time was after she turned 18.

And it was after that point that things started to get weird.

Read on to find out how her parents chose to share the truth with her, and what they requested she do next.

AITA for telling people I’m adopted?

I am a 22-year-old woman, and when I was 18 I found out I was adopted as a baby.

I’ve always known something was funky, because both of my parents have tan skin, dark brown eyes, and medium brown hair while I have extremely fair skin, light blonde hair, and green-blue eyes.

When my parents sat me down to tell me the story, my mom demanded that I never tell a single soul that I’m adopted.

She even got a bit aggressive in her demands, but never explained why.

Yikes! This situation only continued to deteriorate.

I’ve asked why, but the most she gives me is “it’s none of their business.”

This is true, but I don’t understand why she’d get aggressive and demanding.

There was one time where she found out I told someone and she absolutely flipped out. She yelled and screamed at me saying that I didn’t do what she asked.

I talked to my dad about it and he said he doesn’t mind me telling people, as long as I’m wary of who I tell. He didn’t really understand why my mom was being like, that so we are both kind of in the dark.

Let’s see how the woman felt about having to keep this important part of her secret.

The way I see it is that it’s also my story, so if I feel the situation is right, I can tell the person. It’s a part of my identity, especially since I called it at just 3 years old.

If my doctor needs to know family medical history, they need to know so they don’t rule anything out and can be extra thorough.

There have also been times where big things happened with my biological family that I needed to talk about (i.e., recently my biological mom passed away), so I went to people I knew I could trust.

Personally, I think I have the right to cautiously tell people I trust, and that to get angry at me for that doesn’t seem justified. Maybe I’m just not fully understanding the situation here.

AITA?

Sure, maybe her mom is insecure or simply wants to maintain the secret she’s kept for over two decades – but now that her daughter is an adult, she gets her say in this too.

And her reasoning is sound: if she kept the information from her doctor, or even kept her grief buried deep, it could have some serious repercussions on her mental and physical health.

Let’s see what the folks over on Reddit thought about this.

This person, with experience in the situation, agreed that the woman had the right to tell whoever she wanted.

While others encouraged self-compassion and for the woman to keep following her own wishes.

And some Redditors even speculated that something more untoward could be at foot.

Her mom is being completely unfair.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.