Way To Keep Your Cool, Daddy-O

I’m a known sperm donor. I’ve donated sperm for a few individuals who needed help. I make it clear that, while I’m always happy to help, I always prefer if I can meet the children I donated for, and luckily, a few parents have allowed me that opportunity. In particular, the parents of two kids have made me an “honorary uncle” for their kids. I often visit and play with them, and these two kids in particular have also become close friends and playmates with each other.

My “nephew” is around three and my “niece” is closer to four. The niece’s mother has been very open about explaining how I donated sperm for her. Meanwhile, my nephew’s parents haven’t chosen to explain my donation for him.  

There is an annual fair that I always attend with my niece happening this day, and we invite my nephew, as well. His parents are both busy with moving to a new home on that day, so we offered to take him with us to the fair as a way to keep him out of their hands while moving.

Nephew: “Daddy, can we… Oh.”

Me: “I’m not your daddy!”

This was clearly just a slip-up on my nephew’s part; he forgot who he was talking to for a second. Unfortunately, despite knowing better, I was foolish enough to comment on it. My nephew decides that this is funny and proceeds to call me Daddy over and over as a joke. The problem is that my nephew already has a wonderful dad, even if that dad wasn’t able to produce sperm for him, and as a donor, I am quite aware of how important it is that he not call me daddy, even as a joke.

Me: “[Nephew], you shouldn’t call me that. I’m not your daddy.”

Niece: “Well, actually, you gave his mommy sperm, so…”

Now I’m freaked out. I was aware that my niece knew I donated sperm, but I honestly didn’t think she had connected “gave Mommy sperm so she could have me” with the concept of “father” yet. I absolutely did not expect her to interrupt my attempt to distract him with this little speech.

I rush to cut her off.

Me: “Which makes me a donor, but that’s all I am!” *To my nephew* “I really don’t like being called Daddy; it makes me feel bad. How about we think up some better names to call me? Like ‘The Amazing Uncle’ or ‘Sir Awesome McCoolName’?”

Thankfully, my nephew was easily distracted enough at that age that he didn’t appear to have registered or understood my niece’s statement at all and was quickly distracted with funny names to call his uncle.

Later, when I could catch her in private, I spoke with my niece about how some parents weren’t as open as her mother was and that it was important to respect parents’ wishes when it came to what to tell their kids. She promised not to tell any of the other donor siblings about my donating to them unless an adult told her she could, and she has been very careful about not doing so ever since. Luckily, she is one of the few kids you can trust to actually keep a secret when asked! And so, I barely scraped by our fair visit without any upset parents!