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What is the meaning of this sentence?
Ever since I was a child, I have been confronted with questions about my 'real' parents and my 'real' country.
and what if I say
Ever since I was a child, I am confronted with questions about my 'real' parents and my 'real' country.
"I am" doesn't work because it refers to an action that happens now, where as "Ever since I was a child" refers to a whole period of time, most of which is in the past. "I have been" refers to a continuous action over a period of time that began in the past and continues to the present, so that's what you want to use here.
Here, the preferred choice is 'present perfect'.
I am confronted... will not serve the purpose here. Because...
if you want to say that you are confronted with those gruesome questions from one point of time till now, you use have been.
Cambridge Dictionary defines it:
We use 'ever' before 'since' to emphasise that something has been true from the beginning of a specific period of time:
Why not the present?
It is occasionally used and used especially in sentences that talk about the 'change'.
Swan's PEU (Entry 522) says it:
In sentences with since (referring to time), we normally use present perfect and past prefect tenses in the main clause.
However, present and past tenses are also occasionally found, especially in sentences about changes
He further gives an example:
You are looking much better since your operation.
