Children of rape raise difficult questions

By Brian Palmer

Although GOP leaders have condemned Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's claim that "legitimate rape" rarely causes pregnancy, the party this week adopted antiabortion platform language that does not include an exception for rape.

Researchers estimate that about 12,000 children are born as a result of rape every year, and the majority of them are raised by their birth mothers.

The few scholars who have addressed the question of how to parent these children suggest honesty is usually the best choice.

Concealing the facts of a child's conception requires an elaborate lie. Many children eventually discover the truth, often when a family member refuses to participate in the fabrication. When the facts come out, the child usually expresses frustration or rage at the mother.

In contrast, children who learn about the circumstances of their conception at an earlier age often struggle psychologically, but eventually report that they prefer knowing to not knowing.

A child who has just begun to ask about his origins is probably too young to be told that his father was a rapist. The best response a mother can give at that time is simply to say that she didn't know the father very well. (Unless she was the victim of acquaintance rape or incest, which can complicate matters further.)

Mothers often use what psychologists call a "soft truth," saying the father wanted to be with her more than she wanted to be with him. When the child gets slightly older, some mothers decide to explain in vague terms that the father committed some act of violence against her. These disclosures begin to prepare the child to hear the truth once he's old enough to understand it.

Most mothers wait until a child is about 12 or 13 before fully disclosing the rape. Children at this point become curious about the full details of the incident, and mothers typically feel that the only option is to answer those questions honestly.

People involved in these cases say the most important thing is to avoid painting the father as a monster: Even small children worry that they might share some of a rapist father's traits.

One study estimated that 6 percent of children conceived in rape are given up for adoption, while another put the number at 26 percent (compared with 1 percent of children in the general population). While concealing the facts of conception is easier in these cases, some adopted children learn the truth as adults from a caseworker or the biological mother herself.

Adoptive parents typically have an easier time divulging the truth about a child's conception. During early childhood, they can honestly say they didn't know the biological parents. That allows the parents to choose the appropriate moment to tell the full story.