I suppose my over-riding feeling was one of sadness. I cannot help feeling that this is “meddling” for politically correct reasons. Maybe it will be good for S to know that you have met her birth parents, maybe there is some mileage in her having contact with them – but I cannot help thinking that it is just unsettling for everyone involved, when really you all need to be getting on with being settled. I find it hard to believe that there will be real benefits for anyone. I would find it very very difficult to handle.

As for the appearance thing, I must say that, having an interest in genetics, I do always look at people’s children and wonder how they inherited this characteristic or that. But I doubt that most people do. I know many children who look very unlike their parents. One of my own sons is a real throw back to a great aunt of mine and looks nothing like either myself or Al – he is almost Mediterranean looking.

There were a couple of things I thought about the way you wrote that post – which was short but powerful. The first was the use of “x and y” as the names for the birth parents makes them seem (to me) very unreal, sort of scientific abstract figures. Maybe that is why I find it hard to believe that there is any value in them reappearing on the scene – because they don’t seem human, just the mechnanics behind why S is here at all. The other was that you called yourself “dad” but referred to G as S’s “mother” rather than “mum”. I do wonder if it is easier somehow for men to form a quicker bond with a non-biological child, than it is for a woman but that when the bond is formed between the mother and the non-biological child it is actually stronger. But I don’t know – I am probably talking out of my bottom!!

This was a piece that left me feeling very thoughtful. Actually most of your pieces do that.