Birth parents

[Scarlett]

Adoptive parents please know this is not about you or your role as parent. 
If you had a child out of wedlock and later married and this child was raised and maybe adopted by a step dad….help me understand. 
 

I was such a child. I believe my mom suffered extreme guilt that I did not have a father. So she tried hard to make step dad number one my father. Honestly he IS who I think of as father a good majority of the time but he was not a good dad. He died in 2015. In the meantime my mom had remarried to a wonderful man and . sometime around the time I was 45 years old my mom told me her husband wanted to adopt me. That was super weird to me, but at first, I was just like whatever what does it matter. Then one day she called me and said send me a copy of your birth certificate because we’re going to the lawyers office tomorrow. I pulled out a copy of my birth certificate and looked at it and realized there was no way I could allow myself to be “adopted”. So I texted them and told them that I appreciate the offer, but that my life, as messy as it has been is still my life and my identity.  They barely acknowledged that response . 
 

My son’s 18 year-old girlfriend is going through something similar. She was adopted by her stepdad when she was around 10 years old and had only met her bio one time before that. He acknowledged he was her father and he paid child support, but he did not fight the adoption. When she turned 18 he contacted her and she went to see him for the first time the other day. She told me the night he contacted her on Facebook that she sobbed and cried for 24 hours straight. I can completely recognize this reaction and I can tell you it is not fabricated or exaggerated. When she told her mother, her mother just could not understand why she would need to be in contact with this man. 
I don’t understand what is so difficult to understand about wanting to “know” the people who gave you life. 
Anyway, opening for discussion. 

[Katy]

This is why we work so hard to keep some biological connections for our adopted children. 

[Spryte]

Just now, Katy said:

This is why we work so hard to keep some biological connections for our adopted children. 

Yes, this.

[SKL]

If the mom is open to it, there are lots of books to help parents of adopted kids to understand how they may process things.

Ultimately, each person's journey is going to be different.  Two adopted kids in the same family have different feelings about everything.

I have friends who are adoptees and who have adopted kids.  Some of them are very dismissive of the way others talk about adoption trauma etc.  It wasn't their personal experience.  That, of course, is no guarantee that it won't be their adoptive kids' experience.  And vice versa.

I will say that my impression of the OP is that the girl has always felt completely rejected by her birth dad, and she shelved these feelings because (a) they are just too big to be set free and (b) she didn't want her mom or step-dad to know she had grief about it.  However, it was still always there.  Now her bio dad has reached out and she feels, maybe I'm not completely rejected after all.  It's a big deal.

[Scarlett]

5 minutes ago, SKL said:

If the mom is open to it, there are lots of books to help parents of adopted kids to understand how they may process things.

Ultimately, each person's journey is going to be different.  Two adopted kids in the same family have different feelings about everything.

I have friends who are adoptees and who have adopted kids.  Some of them are very dismissive of the way others talk about adoption trauma etc.  It wasn't their personal experience.  That, of course, is no guarantee that it won't be their adoptive kids' experience.  And vice versa.

I will say that my impression of the OP is that the girl has always felt completely rejected by her birth dad, and she shelved these feelings because (a) they are just too big to be set free and (b) she didn't want her mom or step-dad to know she had grief about it.  However, it was still always there.  Now her bio dad has reached out and she feels, maybe I'm not completely rejected after all.  It's a big deal.

I do think you are in a fair place to understand although you are not the birth mom. It seems to be a bit different when there is a birth mom and an absent birth father vs complete adoption. 
 

M sons gf was no where near as rejected (if she was) as was I.  He acknowledged her, paid cs, etc. kept up a phone and zoom relationship until at some point the girl told him to not call any more. Which request he honored until she was 18 and she got a FB account. But yes I can imagine from my own trauma that there was grief there. Loss. 
I guess I can’t understand why the moms in these situations can’t understand it. My mom is still dismissive of my birth family on my dad’s side. She recently told someone I was ‘all about the money’ because my new found bio brother has money. No one who knows me would say that about me. So it’s pretty hurtful my mom is saying it. But I believe it has to do with her annoyance that I have a relationship with them. 

[Frances]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

I do think you are in a fair place to understand although you are not the birth mom. It seems to be a bit different when there is a birth mom and an absent birth father vs complete adoption. 
 

M sons gf was no where near as rejected (if she was) as was I.  He acknowledged her, paid cs, etc. kept up a phone and zoom relationship until at some point the girl told him to not call any more. Which request he honored until she was 18 and she got a FB account. But yes I can imagine from my own trauma that there was grief there. Loss. 
I guess I can’t understand why the moms in these situations can’t understand it. My mom is still dismissive of my birth family on my dad’s side. She recently told someone I was ‘all about the money’ because my new found bio brother has money. No one who knows me would say that about me. So it’s pretty hurtful my mom is saying it. But I believe it has to do with her annoyance that I have a relationship with them. 

Maybe it’s hard for your mom to understand because she did everything to raise you and your bio father and his family did nothing? I’m not saying what she said about it being all about the money is right and it was a hurtful thing to say, but I’m guessing she is hurting too, likely about lots of things including maybe your bio dad’s treatment of her (?), maybe how his family treated her(?), maybe everything she went through as a single parent until she married, maybe guilt about your stepdad not being a good dad, maybe sadness about her good husband not being your step dad instead, etc.

[Carrie12345]

I’m not in any form of an adoptive relationship, but I have a messy family.

When I was an older teen, I was working hard to have a relationship with my infant/toddler brother (half, paternal), and it caused a lot of issues with multiple adults on my maternal side. As an adult, and kind of even at the time, I knew it was less about them “not understanding” and more about the pain my father caused by knocking up his mistress and leaving.

I think adults tend to forget that their experiences and their pain belong to them and that children involved, whatever their age, have and/or recall different experiences and emotions separate from them. Pain can be so darn consuming!

Not so ironically, I couldn’t take my father’s narcissism for very long and cut ties before I was 20. I had my own negative experiences and pain that was entirely different from my mother’s.  
I think maybe she gets that today, decades removed from the situation. Maybe. Or maybe she still sees it as an extension of her own?

Regardless, I think it’s very difficult for someone to be able to look outside of their personal trauma and accept their children walking toward the source.

Which isn’t an excuse, just a proposed explanation.

[Indigo Blue]

13 hours ago, Scarlett said:

She recently told someone

That was unkind of her to do that. 😕

[PeterPan]

15 hours ago, Scarlett said:

I believe my mom suffered extreme guilt that I did not have a father.

I mean this really nicely, but do you think she's doing these odd things now, at an advanced age, because of trauma/guilt from 45 years ago or is she possibly experiencing some dementia and impairment of judgment?

15 hours ago, Scarlett said:

around the time I was 45 years old my mom told me her husband wanted to adopt me. T

impaired judgment

14 hours ago, Scarlett said:

She recently told someone I was

impaired judgment

Revisionist history, odd decisions, etc. can go with the impaired thinking from mild cognitive impairment. She's at the age where it would be showing. Has she ALWAYS been like this or just in the last 10 years? 

You clearly have coping skills or you wouldn't be as stable/successful as you are. 

[Frances]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

I mean this really nicely, but do you think she's doing these odd things now, at an advanced age, because of trauma/guilt from 45 years ago or is she possibly experiencing some dementia and impairment of judgment?

impaired judgment

impaired judgment

Revisionist history, odd decisions, etc. can go with the impaired thinking from mild cognitive impairment. She's at the age where it would be showing. Has she ALWAYS been like this or just in the last 10 years? 

You clearly have coping skills or you wouldn't be as stable/successful as you are. 

I pretty strongly disagree that suggesting her wonderful husband adopt Scarlett as an adult is due to impaired judgement. I would imagine she feels extreme guilt over first getting pregnant outside of marriage, then raising Scarlett first without a dad and then with a not great stepdad. So when she finally marries someone wonderful, she naturally wants Scarlett to also benefit and maybe in some way make up for her failures with men affecting Scarlett over the years. It seems very reasonable to me and not at all a sign of impaired judgement. 

[Scarlett]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

I pretty strongly disagree that suggesting her wonderful husband adopt Scarlett as an adult is due to impaired judgement. I would imagine she feels extreme guilt over first getting pregnant outside of marriage, then raising Scarlett first without a dad and then with a not great stepdad. So when she finally marries someone wonderful, she naturally wants Scarlett to also benefit and maybe in some way make up for her failures with men affecting Scarlett over the years. It seems very reasonable to me and not at all a sign of impaired judgement. 

Yes I think your understanding is probably spot on. 

Everyone has been helpful in helping me process this. I have had many conversations with my mom over the years with me telling her what a great mom she was how she only ever thought of us etc.  (and that is how I really feel) I am very happy she gave me life and happy she did not give me up for adoption.
 

Also I know it upsets her that I was so soundly rejected by my birth dad all the way up until til he was 79 years old and about a year away from dying.  It was the last time I ever saw him that he finally gave me a hug and said, ‘we have wasted a lot of years’.   I was very kind and just nodded but I was saying in my mind, ‘we?’  And SMH in my head.  But I had not been seeking a relationship with him at that point anyway.  I HAVE a relationship with my sister in spite of our father’s decades long attempts to keep us from each other.  
 

I could always tell she wasn’t crazy about me having a relationship with my sister and then with our new found brother. But I decided years ago that I am not obligated to make her happy about my relationships with anyone else.  I am my own person.  So I am pretty open about general things yet don’t confide everything to her.  

My mom does view me as an extension of herself and since she is now 79 years old I doubt that will change.  

So now with my son’s gf’s very similar situation….it is all rushing back to me.  I asked her what her mom had to say about her meeting up with bio dad.  She said, ‘well, she did not act mad, just more like she couldn’t understand why I wanted to see him. ‘ And I said, ‘but it still affects you negatively that you have to explain to your mo why you want to see your birth dad’. And she said ‘yes’.  This conversation just happened today after I started this thread.  It was in that moment that I realized that my mom’s reasons do not negate the harm she did (especially when I was younger) by behaving as if my paternal side of the family should be dead to me.  
 

 

[Scarlett]

4 hours ago, PeterPan said:

I mean this really nicely, but do you think she's doing these odd things now, at an advanced age, because of trauma/guilt from 45 years ago or is she possibly experiencing some dementia and impairment of judgment?

impaired judgment

impaired judgment

Revisionist history, odd decisions, etc. can go with the impaired thinking from mild cognitive impairment. She's at the age where it would be showing. Has she ALWAYS been like this or just in the last 10 years? 

You clearly have coping skills or you wouldn't be as stable/successful as you are. 

My mom is not really Impaired.  The one thing I notice is how she talks a lot more about the time period when she got pregnant and what all happened. It was a lot y’all.  The other day we were in the city where she had to change bus lines when she was going home to her parents when I was 3 months old.  She had me drive around looking for the bus stations.  We found one….I believe one has been closed down for decades.  I lived in that city as an adult for about 29 years but it has only been in the last year or two she has been talking a lot about that time period. Apparently she had to have travelers aid help her get herself and her 3 month old baby the few blocks to another bus line.  Mom was very com earned about finding a way to clean my bottles etc.  The travelers aid lady ask my mom, when is the last time you ate?  Mom looked at her blankly and said ‘I am fine I just need to clean my baby’s bottles.’.   So the lady set mom up at the counter and brought her a grilled cheese and some soup.  
 

So I think she is processing a lot of trauma from that time period now that she is old and feels secure and safe.  

[Scarlett]

4 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

That was unkind of her to do that. 😕

I know right?  She did not say it to me. But again I think it is more of her unhappiness that I have a relationship with them.  And looking for a reason that explains it in her mind. 

[Scarlett]

12 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’m not in any form of an adoptive relationship, but I have a messy family.

When I was an older teen, I was working hard to have a relationship with my infant/toddler brother (half, paternal), and it caused a lot of issues with multiple adults on my maternal side. As an adult, and kind of even at the time, I knew it was less about them “not understanding” and more about the pain my father caused by knocking up his mistress and leaving.

I think adults tend to forget that their experiences and their pain belong to them and that children involved, whatever their age, have and/or recall different experiences and emotions separate from them. Pain can be so darn consuming!

Not so ironically, I couldn’t take my father’s narcissism for very long and cut ties before I was 20. I had my own negative experiences and pain that was entirely different from my mother’s.  
I think maybe she gets that today, decades removed from the situation. Maybe. Or maybe she still sees it as an extension of her own?

Regardless, I think it’s very difficult for someone to be able to look outside of their personal trauma and accept their children walking toward the source.

Which isn’t an excuse, just a proposed explanation.

Yes…….I do understand it but I wonder why she can’t see it in herself….that she is trying to keep me from my relatives because one of them hurt her.  And the one who hurt her and frankly hurt me too is dead.  So why can’t she just let it go now.  
 

Also do you have a relationship with that paternal brother now?

[Scarlett]

19 hours ago, Katy said:

This is why we work so hard to keep some biological connections for our adopted children. 

Cutting biological connections should be the absolute last resort.  We all have a right to know where we came from.

Edited June 23 by Scarlett

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, Scarlett said:

Yes…….I do understand it but I wonder why she can’t see it in herself….that she is trying to keep me from my relatives because one of them hurt her.  And the one who hurt her and frankly hurt me too is dead.  So why can’t she just let it go now.  
 

Also do you have a relationship with that paternal brother now?

Pain and grief do messed up things. Of course it should be her responsibility to deal with those things better, but horse and water and all that.

Unfortunately, my relationship with my brother is primarily as FB friends. He’s closer with my younger sisters who spent more time with him when he was little. We had lunch together maybe 10 years ago or so. He’s a sweet “kid”!

On the bright side, my experiences helped me to keep myself in check as much as humanly possible with my firstborn’s father. 

[DawnM]

On 6/23/2024 at 6:13 PM, Scarlett said:

Cutting biological connections should be the absolute last resort.  We all have a right to know where we came from.

We had to use that last resort very early on in our foster to adopt journey.   She is so mentally ill and so drugged out.   I finally told her point blank, "Allison, I want NOTHING to do with you until you get serious mental health help!"    She is so far gone and says and does the strangest things.   Toxic things.   If I posted any of the disturbing things she has done or said, you would be shocked.   I am still shocked.

But I know where my son came from and I am his bio aunt, so at least there is that.

Wanna hear something funny?   I was talking to Andrew about some things and he asked me about his "other mom" and so I told him that she was not doing well and was living on the streets in Los Angeles.   He said, "She is living on the street?   Oh, someone should tell her to move to the sidewalk, it isn't safe in the street!"   🤣🤣🤣

But to address your question.   It is strange and I wouldn't not do it either.   My adoption story (my own personal) is so different that I can't really imagine it.   And I just went to my bio mother's funeral with my bio sisters and family.   I love finding out where I came from, but I honestly love the family I grew up in and was afforded so many more life experiences and my adoptive family is closer knit than my bio family.   I think finding them and knowing them has healed some of that "what if" thinking for me.   But I know my story is just that, MY story, and all adoption stories are different.

[Scarlett]

@DawnM that is adorable about Andrew.  But sad that his mom is in that situation.

And of course cutting ties with her is absolutely necessary.  I know there are times it is.  When the birth parent is unsafe, on drugs, mentally ill, abusive etc.  But even then,  you aren’t trying to erase his birth existence.