This is the story of a Malaysian man who discovered, by accident, that his parents were not his parents, and his sister was his mother. It’s about family secrets, religious hypocrisy, trauma, and learning to live with a truth you never asked for.
I grew up in a conservative family in Kuantan, with my parents and older siblings. By the time I was born, most of my older siblings were already off to college, besides my sister who was 14 at the time. She took care of me a lot as I was growing up before she went to university. Even when she left, she always made sure to come back during breaks to visit me and when she started working she also always treated me to gifts and school supplies. I honestly never thought anything weird about it as it seemed like a thing an older sibling would do, especially given our age difference.
My parents were always the oldest parents among my friends. My mom “had” me when she was 45, and she always said I was her “miracle accident baby”. Since I was the youngest in the family by far, I was always pampered and got everything I wanted.
It was all smooth sailing until the year I entered STPM.
At some point during the admissions process, I was required to submit my birth certificate. I’ve seen my birth certificate before but I never really paid close attention as it wasn’t really something of interest. For most of the admission process you don’t need to use your birth certificate, but there was a form that you needed to fill in and attach it.
I just filled in the forms as I usually do, attached the birth certificate and sent it in. Then I received a call, saying there’s some issue with my documents and I needed to come into the office.
When I got there they said I filled in the wrong name for my mother’s name and asked if I was adopted. I said no, and took a look at my form. It was correct. My mother’s name was spelled correctly. I told the staff and she asked me if I was blind (very rudely) and passed my birth certificate over.
For clarification, my mom and my sister had very similar names, of course but with different last names after ‘Binti’ and two letters differ for their first name. Think “Rosa” and “Riza” (names changed). At a quick glance it looked really similar. So, I just told them maybe they misspelled her name on my birth cert. She rolled her eyes and said I need to get that changed. Since I needed the form to be filled, she just told me to fill in a new form but to make sure that the names were spelt right.
That night, when I went home, I told my mom about what happened. I asked her, did they spell her name wrong. She kept asking me why I was asking and once I told her, she said yes they did, but it was a long time ago. She quickly changed the topic in a very obvious manner, not even allowing me to finish asking my next question.
I went upstairs and dug into the files with the original copy of all our important documents and took a look at it again. I also found her passport copy and I was checking the name spelling. That’s when I realized that they put my mom’s last name as my dad’s last name. Now, the whole name was wrong besides the obvious “Binti”. No way this could have happened and they didn’t do anything about it for so many years.
I went downstairs again, this time with my evidence. I started asking my mom why they let this mistake go on. In my head, I really believe that they misspelled my mom’s name to resemble my sisters.
and mistakenly put her husband’s name as her fathers.
Just as I was confronting my mom, my sister walked in. She didn’t live with us anymore. She was already in her 30s and married. She had a baby who was a year old. That evening she came alone to drop off some groceries. She told me to sit down and that there was something that I needed to know. My parents were raising their voice asking her to stop causing problems and things were fine. I started to get worried.
That’s when she told me the truth. She got pregnant at 13, from a family friend “uncle”. Since she was so young, she didn’t even know she was pregnant for a few months and when my grandparents found out they said that they would raise the baby. Of course terminating the pregnancy was not even discussed given the fact that they were a conservative muslim family.
When I found out this truth, it shook me. Not just the fact that my sister was actually my mom, or that my parents were actually my grandparents, but the added fact of how I was conceived. Obviously she was underaged and could not consent. The truth about my biological dad disgusted me.
I couldn’t believe I was the product of such a heinous crime.
It’s still something I’m working through with my therapist as an almost 40 year old man. I later found out that the man that impregnated my mom/sister was actually a prominent figure in the religious community in our kampung. My mom/sister was blamed and the disgusting man never got any repercussions as no one in my family confronted him, as according to my parents/grandparents there was no proof except the words of a child.
We’ve long moved to KL, away from that community. My mom still feels like my sister. I still am close to her and would go to her with my problems. And my grandparents still retain the parental figure in our family. In a weird way, I guess we made it work, the cards we were dealt with.
Write in. Tell your story. Get paid.
Share your story on our Facebook page and you may become a contributor for In Real Life Malaysia.
More from Family Drama
‘My parents only cared about our family image’ shares 29 year old Malaysian woman
This story is about a Malaysian woman who grew up thinking her childhood was normal, until therapy helped her understand …
‘My husband took RM100K in loans to fund our holiday’ shares 35 YO Msian woman
This story is about a Malaysian housewife who trusted her husband to provide, only to discover their dream life was …
“I Don’t Regret It” Shares 35 Year Old Woman Who Put Her Mom in Jail as a kid
This is a story of how a young girl ended up getting her mom caught and prosecuted, ending up in …
