History VideoGame / MyChildLebensborn

** "SinsOfOurFathers: The Video Game" would almost be a viable alternative title for the game. The main motivation behind the bullying undergone by the child is resentment towards things ''their parents'' did. Their father for being part of an occupying force, their mother for being in a relationship with him.

* TheHerosBirthday: One of the first things the player will discover on the first evening of gameplay is that the next day is the child's birthday. The friend the child was just playing with has given them a birthday present and it's up to the player whether they get to open it early or not.

The game covers most of Klaus or Karin’s first year in school, during which the child will need to be parented, fed, kept clean and entertained. Accomplishing the tasks helping towards those goals consumes time units, of which there is only a handful available each day.

* ActuallyIAmHim: The game has a correspondence-induced case. [[spoiler:The child's German grandparents are dead, so the letter sent to them to ask about the child's biological father gets read and answered to by the biologicial father himself]].

** Going to the store doesn't use a time unit, which is a good thing as unforseen events (that can use up a time slot meant for cooking) or free time (turning out to have time to cook after all) can quickly change meal plans.

* CopeByCreating: One of the means by which the child deals with what is happening to them is by drawing. There is at least one event during which the child spends a time unit unvailable for tasks that require their physical presence because they are busy drawing.

** Liv can't come visit for the child's birthday because she's visiting her aunt elsewere. The child turning out to have an aunt on their biological mother's side allows for one of the steps towards getting in contact with their biological father.

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway King Haakon VII]] gets a few mentions and happens to be visting the small town in which the game is set on the very last day. One of the very last decisions made by the player is to decide whether or not to [[spoiler:allow the child to get a glimpse of him before the two of them leave town for good]].

The game puts the player in the shoes of a single adult who has chosen to adopt either a little girl named Karin or a little boy named Klaus with the full knowledge that the child’s biological father is a German soldier. For the following three years, the Player Character and their child grow into a loving family. However, the child’s origins become much more relevant to their everyday life when they start school soon after turning seven: their classmates start bullying them for being the product of the Nazi occupation and adults are turning a blind eye when they are not engaging in ostracization of their own. It soon becomes clear that the child’s only true support is their adoptive parent, making it almost entirely up to latter to ensure that the child stays optimistic, assertive and open in spite of the situation. Unfortunately, the right parenting choices are far from obvious when any effort to do right by the child can potentially backfire because of the community’s hostility towards them.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The child is ostracized by the community for being half-German in a country formerly occupied by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. The player's role is partly to help the child deal with it as they see fit. The community is shown to not be a big fan of the PlayerCharacter either, some of its members outright assuming they are a Nazi sympathizer because they adopted the child.

* CallingTheOldManOut: The child will only sit in quiet misery while being belittled by [[spoiler:their biological maternal grandparents]], but the player, as their adoptive parent, can do choose to invoke this trope on the child's behalf.

* ChangingClothesIsAFreeAction: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Changing the child's clothes takes up a time unit, same with changing their hairstyle using the comb.
* ChildOfForbiddenLove: One of the first things that come out about the child's past is that they were the product of a consensual and loving relationship. It was still a relationship between a local woman and a member of occupation forces and plenty of people consider the child to be the product of something that shouldn't have happened.

* DarkReprise: The game's main theme has a darker variant that plays during long-drawn events that are very hard on the child, such as [[spoiler:the meeting with their Norwegian grandparents and aunt]] and the night on which [[spoiler:the are not home at their bedtime because bullies left them tied to a tree]].

* FeaturelessProtagonist: The PlayerCharacter's gender is hidden for the entire game and they are always referred to has the child's "parent". Their age gap with the child is unclear as well. Anything else about their personality is determined by the player's parenting choices. Their hand is seen holding the child's at the very end of the game, but all it shows is skin the color one would expect from someone living in a small Norwegian town in the 1950s.

** The journal entry added in response to finding out that the child's father is a baker includes a comment according to which the child must take after their father because they enjoy baking. It's entirely possible to get to that point of the game with the only cake ever baked being the child's birthday cake, which is used for the cooking ''tutorial''. Any subsequent instance of the child baking is up to the player buying the ingredients and choosing to cook them while the child is in the house, but buying those same ingredients is a non-negligeable strain on the household's finances.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The official trailer shows a man in robes skipping Klaus while giving out hosties in a church. In the game proper, the PlayerCharacter's only time interacting with any sort of church official is asking for the local vicar's help during the search for the child's biological family. The vicar refuses to help, which is in tune with what is shown the trailer.

* VirtualPaperDoll: A realistic take on it. The child only has four outfits for the entire game, two of which are too damaged to be worn and need to be fixed during gameplay to be usable. Those same outfits can get dirty, will get damaged enough to need mending ''again'' over the course of the game and changing them when it's unnecessary is a waste of a time unit. There is also a comb that can be purchased at the store that will unlock two alternate hairstyles for the child and will cost about the same as a semi-expensive meal. Actually using the comb costs a time unit, as well.
* WhamLine: At some point late in the game, the child [[spoiler:refuses to have a bath]] out of the blue. It's the first impossible to ignore clue that [[spoiler:they have been sexually assaulted]].

** Some choices will result in the child outright asking why ''they'' are being for bullied something done by a father they never knew.

* RelationshipSalvagingDisaster: A platonic version. [[SadisticTeacher Mr. Solheim]] beginning his tenure at the school is what prompts [[spoiler:Liv to ask the child to be their friend again (albeit only in secrecy)]].

A [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-07-20-theres-a-follow-up-to-the-acclaimed-my-child-lebensborn-in-the-works follow-up game]] was announced in 2021, provisionally titled ''My Child: New Beginnings''

* WhamLine: At some point late in the game, the child [[spoiler:refuses to have a bath]] out of the blue. It's the first impossible to ignore clue that [[spoiler:they have been sexually assaulted]].

* ChangingClothesIsAFreeAction: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. Changing the child's clothes takes up a time unit, same with changing their hairstyle using the comb.

** Getting clothing clean falls into this. If the child's clothes get wet while playing, a bath or a change of clothes is necessary, but if it was cleaned as a byproduct of giving the child a bath, it will seemingly dry instantly, regardless of season. Dirty clothing that was removed will have been washed off-screen next time the child needs a change of clothes.
** Going to the store doesn't use a time slot, which is a good thing as unforseen events (that can use up a time slot meant for cooking) or free time (turning out to have time to cook after all) can quickly change meal plans.

** Getting clothing clean falls into this. If the child's clothes get wet while playing, a bath or a change of clothes is necessary, but if it was cleaned as a byproduct of giving the child a bath, they will seemingly dry instantly, regardless of season. Dirty clothing that was removed will have been washed off-screen next time the child needs a change of clothes.

** Getting clothing clean falls into this. The child getting it wet while playing will count towards the need for either a bath or a change of clothes, but clothing cleaned as a byproduct of giving the child a bath will seemingly dry instantly, regardless of season. Dirty clothing that was removed will have been washed off-screen next time the child needs a change of clothes.

* CallingTheOldManOut: The child will only sit in quiet misery, while being belittled by [[spoiler:their biological maternal grandparents]] but the player, as their adoptive parent, can do choose to invoke this trope on the child's behalf.

* FeaturelessProtagonist: The PlayerCharacter's gender is hidden for the entire game and they are always referred to has the child's "parent". Their age gap with the child in unclear, as well. Anything else about their personality is determined by the player's parenting choices. Their hand is seen holding the child's at the very end of the game, but all it shows is skin the color one would expect from someone living in a small Norwegian town in the 1950s.

* AdultFear: The parent's journal reveals their anxieties about how best to raise their child in the hostile environment, how to get them somewhere safer, and how much they should tell them about their birth parents (all questions that the player is allowed to choose the answers to). On the other side of the screen, it is very easy for sending the child to school (or leaving them alone while the parent goes to work) to provoke protective worry in the player about whether it is going to be a good or a bad day for the poor kid.

* FirstDayOfSchoolEpisode: The child's first day of school is the second major event after their birthday, which happens to be a few days before that. It serves as their first time interacting with the teachers and students who will to on to ostracize them for the rest of them game and the first time they get any indication that there is something unusual about them.

** When first taking about Mr. Berg, the child mentions that he's substituting for another teacher, Mr. Solheim, because the latter can't work for an unspecified reason. When Mr. Solheim gets to teach again later in the game, the player quickly finds out [[SadistTeacher why]].

* SlutShaming: Being knows as having been in relationship with just one German soldier is enough for women to be considered a slut in the time and place in which the game is set. It says a lot that "German slut" has become the standard slur towards those women.

* TeenPregnancy: The child's mother became pregnant with them when she was sixteen yeals old.

* CallingTheOldManOut: The child will only sit in quiet misery, while being belittles by [[spoiler:their biological maternal grandparents]] but the player, as their adoptive parent, can do choose to invoke this trope on the child's behalf.

** The child misses the fact that some of the acts of bullying they underwent were outright murder attempts.

* ButNowIMustGo: One of the factors leading to the DownerEnding is the departure of [[spoiler:Mr. Berg, whose time as a substitute teacher in the child's school ends]].

* ButNowIMustGo: He was only a substitute teacher, albeit a long term one, so he gets dismissed at the end of the semester.

* BreakTheCutie: This will inevitably happen to the child over the course of the game due to [[spoiler: poverty, bullying, and sexual abuse]].