My aunt’s boyfriend recently took his ex to court for sole custody of their 7 year old son. This woman has had no contact with the boy for over 5 years, he knows my aunt as mommy and wouldn’t know who his biological mother was if he ever saw her. My aunt and her boyfriend wanted to protect their son from his egg donor because she, in the last couple years, has been in and out of rehab and has been arrested several times. She became interested in knowing Derek only because she lost custody of two of her other sons to their fathers (she has five sons with four different men). Derek only knows one of his brothers, his older brother and every few months gets to see him. Because of this Derek is not clueless, he knows Joshua is his brother and that they have different fathers but my aunt is the only mother he knows. In court the egg donor continuously lied to the judge and gave out of service phone numbers in the court documents so she was denied visitation but ordered to pay $40 a week in child support – she claims she can’t afford that and has no begun talking about terminating her rights so she doesn’t have to pay. The court appointed Derek his own attorney even though he has no idea what’s going on. This lawyer told Derek my aunt wasn’t his “real” mom and that he was never in her belly. She also informed my aunt and her boyfriend it “must be” confusing to him to have an older brother – she said this because Derek told her about his older brother and said his brother lives with his father but couldn’t remember the name of his brother’s father. I think this woman had no right to tell Derek my aunt wasn’t his mother when its likely that soon his egg donor will be completely out of the picture for good. My aunt and her boyfriend obviously have no intention to lie to him if he asks about his biological mother but at this point they did not want to confuse him. My aunt wants to do something, such as inform the court that this woman was wrong but doesn’t know how to go about it.

In your opinion should my family be upset about what this woman told my cousin?
While I do appreciate all of your opinions I have to make it clear that one person in particular obviously did not read clearly. My aunt and her boyfriend never kept the truth from Derek about his biological mother. She came around once in awhile when he was young but never made an effort in the last five years to contact him. My aunt never told Derek she was his biological mother, in fact when he was little they tried getting him to call her by her name but he refused to call her anything but “mommy”. Derek is not completely clueless as some of you pointed out he knows he has brothers and obviously my aunt and even his father is not the parent of any of his brothers. As far as my aunt not being involved at all in this court system she had more rights than his egg donor because she’s been supporting him most of his life and he lives in her house. For example if she and his father split up my aunt could go to court and be given visitation b/c its the best interest of the child.