Safe Surrender

Certainly, babies have been abandoned and later found with tragic results. I was aware of Baby Safe Haven boxes at fire stations. I wasn’t aware that the concept has expanded. Advertisements for the option include words like “No Shame, No Blame, No Names”.

Today, I read an informed person’s thoughts about Safe Surrenders – she wrote there is “so much ick surrounding the “safe surrender” story line, when with resources and help, the family would have been intact. It just broke us. I understand the “reason” for the anonymity of the surrender but I really wish there was some kind of question to determine why they felt this was their option. Do they need funding? Housing? Clothes? Material things? Emotional support? Physical or addiction needs? There really isn’t a situation, that without services, couldn’t be resolved and the family remain intact. I wish our country (US) was more willing to put the programs in place but I wish communities were also more empowered for this. It breaks my heart that these moms and children are separated when possibly very little is needed to help them.”

It is a refrain that I read over and over again. A point I make about our society being unwillingly to appropriately support families in crisis.

An adoptive parent noted – The “safe haven baby box” doesn’t necessarily have to be a part of it. My daughter was surrendered at a hospital. None of the safe haven babies I know about (around 30) were surrendered to a box in a wall…… they were surrendered at hospitals (the mother gave birth and left or simply walked in and handed the baby over). Some are surrendered at fire stations to an actual person or in a police station to a actual person.

To which someone asked – Isn’t there a window of time the mom or dad could come back for their baby? The answer was – Yes. The window does depend on the state. I’m in Wisconsin and here it is 3 months. If someone steps forward, then the case turns to a “regular” foster care case AFTER DNA is proven. ANY blood relative can step forward. After 3 months, the case continues as an adoptive case and adoption can occur after 6 months.

Again, the really is when local groups rally around a mom who’s struggling, very little help is necessary to support them. It can make a huge difference in a woman feeling so desperate that dropping her baby off at a hospital is a rational decision vs having that community support so that she can be successful in providing for her child. It’s almost insane. I think this is the reason people are very quick to point out a double standard. Too often, society will rally around an adoptive mom but a single mom struggling ? She really has a much more difficult time receiving the same offers of help. To the sad situation that a lot of them get shamed and so will not ask for help.

Many hopeful adoptive parents will sign up to foster “safe haven” babies. Their hope is to adopt (yes, this is actually a thing). In another person’s state, the natural parents have 14 days to come forward. I can’t imagine how bad a situation would have to be, to surrender your newborn. And there is heartbreak for that mother … and heartbreak for that child as they go through life not knowing their parents or medical history (or even their real birthdate).

Little Orphan Cassidy

I am somewhat a fan of the program Saturday Night Live though I never watch the whole program and rarely the sketches. Usually on Sunday morning, it is a guilty pleasure, to look up the cold open and weekend update segments. I started doing this in 2016 after our former president was elected. Therefore, I missed this sketch until I learned about this in my all things adoption group.

The video, LINK>YouTube, for this indicates that an orphan (Chloe Troast) sings to the moon (Timothée Chalamet) about not getting adopted in a Saturday Night Live sketch – Little Orphan Cassidy. I noticed the old building has a sign over the door – Ms Pippinstuffs’ Home for Unwanted Girls.

So, I just watched the sketch (link above, if you want to watch it your self). Certainly, the feeling expressed at the beginning won’t be totally alien to people who were adopted later in childhood but not as infants. However, if she is really 26 years old, she should have aged out of the system 8 years earlier. Actually, then she admits that she is already 27 years old. It goes downhill from there. No wonder some adoptees found it troubling, however, SNL sometimes does go a bit too far attempting humor.

Here is what some adoptees said about this sketch –

First, the adoptee who shared a link to the video wrote – I saw this SNL skit and feel a lot of emotions about it but don’t know exactly how to express them. I’m curious what everyone else thinks about it

Adoptee – not cool or funny. Two things really irk me. [1] I do not enjoy having my trauma being the gag. How many other traumatized people have theirs twisted like this? [2] The theme is there is something wrong with you to not get adopted. Like it’s a life goal.

From someone in foster care as a youth – I also saw this and not sure what to think. I love Timothée Chalamet and SNL, but they do offensive things all the time and that’s their thing. For me, I think the most important voices are former Foster Care teens or adults who have lived through group homes.

Young Adult Decisions

A woman writes in my all things adoption group – I work in child advocacy. Full transparency, I’m hoping for support but definitely open to hearing the hard things.

I’m so conflicted after being in this group. Some young adults I advocated for in their youth (today they are 21 and 23) have asked to be adopted by me and my husband and we’ve agreed. It was completely their idea and I’ve shared the complicated reality of what it would look like (changing their birth certificates etc). Should I try to get them to further discuss in therapy, or should I accept that this is truly what they want? Both aged out of foster care after 4-6 years in/out of the system. Though they continue to have contact with their biological parents, they have largely felt abandoned and say that they just want to feel “claimed.” Should I trust that they are adults and going into this eyes wide open? It feels wrong to celebrate, but they are honestly bouncing off the walls with excitement about it. They have requested to change their names and everything. I hate to diminish their joy, even though I have reservations. Maybe adult adoption really is that different and I’m worried over nothing.

If I do go through with it, I will have to start identifying myself as adoptive mother in this group and that feels icky to me after all I’ve learned from you. Yes, I know it’s not the same as infant adoption, but I still feel conflicted.

The response from an adoptee – If they are adults and are making this request on their own without any prompting from you, then I see nothing wrong with it. They are old enough, and seem to understand what it is they’re asking for.

A Multi-Generational Journey

A woman wrote on a page I follow that adoption is “a multi-generational journey. It is a stone thrown into the familial pond that ripples outward ad infinitum.”

She went on to share – Today my grandson-lost-to-adoption turns 34. My son-lost-to-adoption, along with his girlfriend, surrendered him when my son was just 18. My grandson found me last December and so far, I am his only connection to his family of origin. He has experienced “abandonment” by both of his birth parents twice: at 6 months of age when they terminated their parental rights and then recently when he learned of his father’s suicide and his mother’s reunion refusal.

Another woman commented – Four generations and counting for me.

blogger’s note – In my family too. Both parents were adoptees. Both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption. One also lost custody to her son’s grandparents (she also gave up my niece with coercion from our adoptee mom – unbelievable but true) and I physically lost custody to my ex-husband and his second wife (though my parental rights were never terminated, he ended up raising her – would not agree to paying child support and so, I found another way to get that financial support but at great cost to me). Thankfully, my grown daughter and I are very close, even though. So far, our children are not losing their own children.

With all of this in mind, I went looking. It is hard to find anything related among the numerous pro-adoption links.

At the American Adoption Congress, I found an article by Deborah Silverstein and Sharon Kaplan about the LINK>Lifelong Issues in Adoption. From that article –

Before the recent advent of open and cooperative practices, adoption – had been practiced as a win/lose or adversarial process. In such an approach, birth families lose their child in order for the adoptive family to gain a child. The adoptee was transposed from one family to another with time-limited and, at times, short-sighted consideration of the child’s long-term needs. Indeed, the emphasis has been on the needs of the adults–on the needs of the birth family not to parent and on the needs of the adoptive family to parent. The ramifications of this attitude can be seen in the number of difficulties experienced by adoptees and their families over their lifetimes.

blogger’s note – Certainly, both of my parents adoptions in the 1930s were NOT open adoptions.

The authors article above goes on to note – Adoption is created through loss; without loss there would be no adoption. Loss, then, is at the hub of the wheel. All birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees share in having experienced at least one major, life-altering loss before becoming involved in adoption. In adoption, in order to gain anything, one must first lose–a family, a child, a dream. It is these losses and the way they are accepted and, hopefully, resolved which set the tone for the lifelong process of adoption.

The grief process in adoption, so necessary for healthy functioning, is further complicated by the fact that there is no end to the losses, no closure to the loss experience. Loss in adoption is not a single occurrence. There is the initial, identifiable loss and innumerable secondary sub-losses. Loss becomes an evolving process, creating a theme of loss in both the individual’s and family’s development. Those losses affect all subsequent development.

blogger’s concluding notes – I found no resolution to this whole subject but at least people are reflecting and contemplating upon the issues.

For my own self, my feelings about adoption are complicated by the fact that – if there had not been adoption in my parents lives – I simply would not have existed. I am left with no choice but to accept this as best I can. I am not a fan of adoption. Recently I connected with a woman who knows quite a bit about adoption in general – she said, “I’ve never met anyone with so much adoption in their family.”

I did like the image I posted for this blog today. I do feel like I was preserved within my family (not given up for adoption when my teenage mom discovered she was pregnant before marriage) so that I could fulfill my own Life’s Purpose – knitting back together the fragments of my parents’ original birth parents’ families, so that our identity is now more whole.

Disconnected by Fear

An adoptee writes –

I was adopted soon after birth in a very closed adoption. Through DNA testing and Facebook stalking, I found my biological mother in 2021. Though reserved, she agreed to meet in July 2021. I flew to her state (11 hours driving distance) and spent 4 hours with her in a restaurant, and then we went our separate ways. She was nice but said she had “memory issues” and couldn’t remember a lot of that time in her life. She has no pictures on social media and I didn’t take one when I met her.

In June this year, she said she wanted to drive the 11 hours with her husband and their camper to see me and my family. I was both ecstatic and very anxious, but made plans with her anyway. I checked in a few times between June and this weekend, because I knew she might change her mind. She frequently “likes” my posts on Facebook but we don’t talk much outside of that. She drove 10 hours in my direction and camped overnight on Friday in a town 1 hour away.

Saturday morning, she was supposed to come over to my house to meet my kids and husband and have breakfast. I scrubbed the whole house, bought a fruit and cheese tray, croissants, donuts, etc. At 8am, she texts me and says they need to bail and go back to their home state, because “storms” were in the forecast that night (storms were forecasted about 15 hours after she texted me, so not imminent.)

I’m struggling so much with feelings of abandonment and rejection resurfacing. I want to totally shut down and block her from my Facebook (where she gets daily insights into my life and my family, and I get nothing in return because she never posts and has no pictures on hers). How could she drive 10 hours in my direction and turn around with only 1 hour to go? I’m really having a hard time knowing how to navigate this. She hasn’t texted me since and I just told her I hope she has a safe drive home, because I don’t want to admit how much this hurts. Is it futile to try to have a relationship with someone so closed off and inaccessible?

One direct response was – She is afraid. She feels bad and she doesn’t want to hurt you more that she already has.

Blogger’s thought – it really is difficult to build a relationship, even with the advantage of genetic familial connection, when there is no physically shared family experiences and there has been no real relationship for so many years, decades even. This has been my experience in connecting with biological, genetic relatives as the child of parents who were both adoptees. It is awkward and so much is lacking due to the passage of time between people with no daily, monthly, yearly history together.

To make the point, another person commented – I’ve been in similar situation with my “biological father” and he never makes any effort. It hurts. I drove half way across the country to meet him and don’t hear from him unless I reach out. I’ve spoken to him maybe 2 times since 2017. My biological mother isn’t any different really, except she’s much closer.

Another person reaffirmed the earlier comments – I read your story. What I infer from it is that she is struggling mentally / emotionally with how to navigate a relationship with you, and unfortunately that has an impact on you, causing more harm. For her to want to make such a long trek and to get 10 hours into an 11 hour journey tells me that a motivation / desire is there, but stopping one hour away and bailing with a pitiful excuse indicates to me that she is overwhelmed or afraid, she doesn’t know how to handle the emotional toll and show up for you, so she ran away. Fight / flight / freeze; she chose flight.

A mother who surrendered a child to adoption wrote – She panicked. Maybe even had a anxiety or panic attack. She might also have PTSD from this whole situation and from being that close to you. I went up to DC so my husband could meet my family. It was the closest I’d been to my baby since his adoption finalized. I was on edge for two hours as we were leaving and even cried, while holding my second child.. It is truly so hard to navigate those feelings. Nothing can replace you and nothing can help that pain except for time. Give her time.

Unofficially Adopted ?

Many people have discovered that whether biological and genetic or adoptive, there are people who feel closer at heart and in mind with some other people, who are not actually either of those mentioned above. One hears about “chosen” family – not being chosen by hopeful adoptive parents – but choosing to feel like “family” with certain friends, even ones we have never met. I had never heard of being “unofficially adopted” before today but it does appear to be a situation that someone might experience, but NOT adoptees.

Here’s the story about it, that I read today (and this person is NOT an adoptee) – Did anyone else grow up with a highly dysfunctional family but have a friend’s family say you are one of their own and they were “unofficially adopting you”? I had 1 friend whose family “unofficially adopted me” and within 2 years turned against me. Then another friend whose family “unofficially adopted me” for over 10 years before turning against me harshly over something stupid. They built me up so much, only to tear me down worse in the end. I thought they were my family. I couldn’t imagine how it would actually end between me and both friends and their families.

Now I fully accept that my only family are my two kids. I completely cut contact with all of my blood relatives. I love my kids and I love loving them. But I wish I had family to love me the way I love my kids. I’ve had a lot of anger over what my blood relatives put me through and the people who said they were unofficially adopting me. Rage even. The constant reminders on a daily basis from the mistreatment I received by my blood relatives that left me with many terrible internal messages. And the two betrayals from “unofficially adopted family” leaving me completely devastated. It’s taken a lot to not think of revenge daily. I wish the worst for all of them. I’m otherwise a very understanding person. But they will never have my understanding. Has anyone else gone through this or feel this way?

Oh, and my grandma, who was my only blood relative that was truly there for me growing up. I don’t think I should hate her but I started hating her when after 5 years into adulthood I realized she made no effort to be in my life pretty much the moment I became an adult. Somehow I hate her the most out of all of them.

blogger’s note – this does break my heart and I feel so much compassion for this damaged soul.

An adoptee responded – I grew up with a highly dysfunctional adoptive family. I’ve also had to question what “family” means since birth. I’ve never been “unofficially adopted”, even though others have tried to claim the would/did. Nope. I don’t want anything to do with adoption and that includes fictional ones. My family is made up of biological relatives and those I’ve chosen to become legally family with. That’s it. There are no exceptions. Close and long friends aren’t “family”. They’re close longtime friends. This is important enough on its own and we don’t need to pretend it’s something else. Others have already tried to blur these lines for me. I refused to comply with that. Family isn’t replaceable or interchangeable.

Another person with a similar role in the group was compassionate – I think what might help you is to look at rage=hurt. It sounds to me like you’ve not processed your feelings. Discussing this in therapy would likely be helpful. I hear you. You’ve had so many people let you down and walk away, and because you love your kids, you can’t imagine how your family could’ve not loved you with that all encompassing love. And you feel the lack of love. That sounds very lonely and deeply hurtful. When you’re in rage, you’ll push away people who are open to getting close, and you may be less patient or kind than you want to be with your own children as a result. I strongly suggest getting into therapy to process those feelings. I get that – Rage is safer than hurt, but you need to be able to move through hurt, in order to move onto the next stage.

Compassion also from an adoptive mother – From your post I am hearing that you feel alone, you feel angry towards your biological family, you feel angry towards old friends, and you are currently feeling the most angry toward the people that you were closest to. I am also hearing some red flags like “rage” and wishing harm on people from your past. Is this all correct? I am absolutely NOT saying that there is anything “wrong with you.” I am saying that sometimes we get lost in ourselves and forget how to find our support network, and it is helpful to be reminded HOW to know, if we need them, and HOW to find them, if we do. It sounds like you may be calling out for help here. Are you?

Because many in this group actually are adoptees, who are privileged voices – there was more than a little bit of criticism – “Did you really just hijack an Adoptee/FFY PV space, as a mother who surrendered a child to adoption no less, to talk/complain/center your experience about friend’s families saying they were going to ‘unofficially adopt’ you?” And this one – “Being ‘unofficially adopted’ is nothing like real adoption girl. I can’t believe you brought this bs to this group. Seek therapy. That’s the only advice you’re gonna get. For you to even think this is appropriate is beyond me.” Then this, “I’m very confused. Are you not actually adopted…. It is wildly inappropriate to compare the two. Honestly, how dare you. That is just a GLIMPSE of what we actually feel. Reality check for you is – this isn’t the platform for you to talk about this in – and in all sincerity I hope you get help to heal from the trauma of a dysfunctional family…. But again in my flabbergasted voice it isn’t at all the same….”

Also a note of caution from someone who experienced foster care – Some of my friend’s parents were really abusive and would often offer me security and a sense of belonging as a control tactic to be honest. They’re the only ones who “considered” adopting me.

blogger’s note – Maybe the take away is to take such complicated feelings to the appropriate place to deal with them.

Fear of Abandonment

Very short on time today but I came across the image above and went looking for more from Dr Heidi Green. Not that I found much. But I do get the concept that it isn’t just the bad stuff. It is the good stuff that could have been but couldn’t be because of having been adopted and raised by strangers instead of the family you were born into.

What I did find from Dr Green gave me the title for today’s blog –

Where does fear of abandonment come from? For most people, it comes from trauma related to early childhood relationships, especially with our primary caregivers. If you couldn’t depend on your parents to be there for you and meet all your needs (physical and emotional) as a kid, you might very well be an adult who also thinks you can’t depend on people to be there for you. This creates the anxiety-driven behaviors of codependency, people-pleasing and self-abandonment in an effort to do whatever it takes to keep others from abandoning you.

Both of my parents ended up adopted. Back in the 1930s, the child might be older than newborn. At least that was the case for my parents. My mom was probably 6 months old. My dad was 8 months old. Both of them had some period of time to be in a relationship with their original genetic mothers. I can only imagine what their baby brains interpreted when mom disappeared and a stranger took her place.

I think more so for my mom, than my dad, there was no small amount of people pleasing and I have acquired a lot of my own behavior in that regard from being my mom’s daughter. However, back to Dr Green’s point – neither of my parents could totally depend on the people raising them to be there for them. My dad even experienced more than one adoptive father and was adopted a second time and his name changed yet another time when he was much older and his adoptive mother remarried, after throwing an abusive husband out of the house.

Got to run now but I hope I can spend more time on this blog tomorrow.

It Actually Is A Big Deal

I have seen the impact – in my mom and in my niece – both adoptees. Body image issues where the adoptive mother is determined to be thin and the adoptee has a body that is naturally larger. This can set up issues related to self-worth in an adoptee.

I belong to a mom’s group – all of our children were born within a 4 month period back in 2004 and were donor conceived. Many are going off to college now. Our family will relocate once our property sells because we have become aware and have accepted that there is a lack of social, educational and employment opportunities that match the interests and needs of our two sons. They are both egg donor conceived. They have the same genetic sources and so, are mirrors for each other. Their dad is also genetically related and I do see specific traits from him mirrored differently in one boy or the other. Because college is an issue right now among the other mothers in my group, I was attracted to this article today in Severance Magazine LINK>An Adoptee Confronts an Empty Nest by Sarah Reinhardt. Do take the time to read this well-written piece. I will only excerpt some thoughts from it.

What I had not considered until I read this story is the impact on an adoptee who finally has a genetic mirror in her own biological, genetic child and then, that child leaves to go off to study for their own higher education. My husband and I will likely experience this with our sons soon. They are ready to test their independent wings and fly off to their own separate futures. Many adoptees have deep abandonment issues and I can understand how these could be triggered when their own genetic, biological child leaves home, leaving behind an empty nest. My own parents conceived me when they were very young (it’s a miracle I didn’t end up adopted). It was always a given with them that they expected us to “leave.” With my sons, because my husband and I are older parents, I never cared if they didn’t leave but now I am facing that inevitability myself but without pushing them out the door. My heart knows the time is right for them to fly.

Sarah writes – “Sure, intellectually I’d known it was coming. In fact, I’d encouraged him to apply to out-of-state schools because he could ‘always come home,’ but I hadn’t truly emotionally prepared for the actual leaving piece of it. The unslept in bed that took my breath away the morning after I got home. Seeing the lone t-shirt that hadn’t been packed on the floor of his closet. Not hearing Spotify during his long showers or staying up until he was home from a night out with his friends, waiting to start a new show until he had a night free, or any of the myriad things that made up our routine.”

“His going had been, until this moment, just a concept—part of the plan when you have kids, or a kid, in my case. They graduate high school and they go to college—or at least that’s what I understood. And as other parents have throughout the course of history, I wanted better for my son in every area of his life—a better foundation of love and self-worth than I had, better opportunities than I had, better exposure to whatever it was he expressed interest in.”

“So I drifted through his childhood, showing up in the way I knew how, by being available and loving him and laying the groundwork for him to live out his dreams. But I forgot about me. I forgot to plan for me.” Sarah notes. blogger’s note – they really grow up so fast !! One day they are little tikes and the next they are large, young adults.

More from this blogger – Hmmm. I know this is what my husband is worrying about now. This is going to be a radical change for him, as he has had this wild forested environment of hundreds of acres of trees to care for. It’s not just our boys going off on their own as happens in so many families – we are being uprooted with them. We do intend to buy another house, once we relocate, and think of it as a “safe harbor” that the boys could return to if they needed to. But we do know they will probably leave and find a place to live independently – probably sooner than later – but one never knows. The older one is very ready to do that as he is now 22 and looks forward to having full control of his own living space. They have made our life much richer by making us a family. Both have been educated at home and both want to experience going to a traditional kind of schooling – so both expect to attend community college when we move. Still, for my husband, the property we will be living on will be a lot smaller and he’ll lose so much of what he spends time doing. He is a doer so I’ve no doubt he will find his way into doing something with his “retirement” years.

Sarah notes that as an adoptee – “Beker was the first person in my life with whom I shared blood. And that might seem like no big deal, but for adoptees it’s a profound experience. You grow up with no mirror, no explanation for why you shot up to 5’10” and have blonde hair and green eyes, a gap in your teeth and long arms and legs, or no reference for why you twirl your hair or dislike certain foods that the family around you loves. And later, when you’re older, you wonder where your penchant for pairing vintage and new clothes, alternative music, and your pursuit of a creative life originated. And on a cellular level, never feeling ‘quite right’ with the people around you. There’s no real way to understand it—you’re just… different. And awkward. And everyone knows it but no one says it.”

She later adds – “From that point on, Beker became my focus. . . . I thought . . . the right way to parent—undivided devotion to my child.” blogger’s note – It appears that is the kind of parents my husband and I have been. It has often been about the boys – the zoo, the circus, etc. Following my oldest son around taking directions as his camera person because he showed a strong interest in telling stories through a visual medium early on. Just one example of many I could cite. My genetic, biological daughter calls my husband and I “doting parents.”

Wound In The Soul

An adoptee writes – last month I reached out to my mom (biological) and how hurt I was that it went unanswered. She responded the other day, it looks like we’re going to give it another shot. I’m not really looking for anything, just sharing. I’m hopeful but really nervous. We’ll see. And if nothing else, I will know I tried.

She added, I just saw a screen shot of an adoptive parent talking about the kids being “MINE” – if you’re an adoptive parent you should know you don’t own the kid you adopt, we grow up and and into ourselves, we don’t owe adoptive parents our lives or even a connection.

There is no amount of lying, guilt tripping, manipulating, or being so great and or loving that, for some of us, could ever possibly fill the gaping wound in our souls for our actual biological family.

An adoptee suggested – Hopefully you both will try. No expectations except to be yourselves and get to know the other at this place of your lives. Maybe you can have some unanswered questions answered that will be meaningful for you. Wishing you everything you wish for yourselves.

Yet another sympathized – Wishing you good luck in your reconnection. My messages went unanswered for awhile as well. Just know you’re not alone and there is always hope for a good outcome.

Another adoptee chimed in with this suggestion – Adopters (and foster caregivers): STOP forcing/suggesting the children in your care call you their parent/mom/dad. YOU.ARE.NOT.OUR.PARENT. You are our “caregiver”. Stop pushing your imaginary narrative on Adoptees.

Another adoptee notes – I don’t understand how people genuinely think they own other people. We own ourselves. We share ourselves with those we want to. No one else can claim us, regardless of whether they have paperwork. We aren’t cars that they just get a title to and then own. Some adoptive parents overshare about their adopted kids on public social media, when the children are too young to consent and were adopted at a young age. Their biological parents might have eventually be able to care for them again. If it’s not about ownership, why not enable the parents to keep their kids or be temporary guardians rather than adopting their children ?

Yet another notes – Some people just don’t appreciate that adults are entitled to make their own decisions. My biological family spent years guilt tripping me and demanding that I see my biological mom because she was dying from cancer. I remember being told “she gave you life,” as if I’m indebted to her for all of eternity. She wasn’t there when I was sick and scared as a child. She never acted like a mother to me but I was supposed to step up and comfort her when she was sick ? Having and raising children is the reward for parents. There are no additional requirements to apply.

This one further explains – my biological parent gave me away to someone else to raise (I was not adopted). Then, when I was forced at 13 years old to go live with my biological mom. She blamed me for loving the person who raised me, who walked me to school the first day of kindergarten, who stayed up all night with me when sick, who (although she was not able to walk herself on her own) encouraged me to take first steps, who taught me all she knew with only a second grade education, who basically treated me like her child – while my mother lived her life as if I didn’t exist. She also blamed me for having some of the same mannerisms as the person who she had left me with. In other words, my mother blamed me for her bad decision and took her resentment out on me physically.

Which brings this person to this realization – shitty people will do shitty things to the people around them. Yes, it may be easier to forgive a biological parent for their actions, than it is to forgive an adoptive parent, but in my opinion – people are people and some people do things that hurt others. As people, we all are not perfect, and we all make mistakes, and our mistakes affect those around us, kids or adults.

To which one notes that sadly neither were some adoptive parents. So it is a matter of perspective. I was to be the cure for my adoptive mother’s “drinking problem” aka alcoholism. Guess what? It did not work.

Someone said – pretending like having a kid makes you a mother is also a false narrative. A mother is a lot more than just birthing a kid, and it is a lot more than just supporting that kid as they grow. Adoptive parents can be terrible people, because they’re people, not because they happen to have adopted kids, just like some biological parents are terrible people too. There are as many stories of terrible relationships between biological parents and their kids as there are of adoptive parents and their adopted children.

The one who started this goes on to note – I don’t like the assumption that mom and dad can be transferred so easily and based off opinions of people who really have no idea. How adopted people view their biological parents is up to them but from the outside, to claim to know who’s who, if someone is a mom or dad, seems wrong. I know how I view my biological parents and adoptive parents.

I guess the specific question of how a biological mom views herself would be for a first mom to chime in on, they know what they live. Maybe some would agree with you. I honestly don’t know. As far as saying things like “some biological parents are terrible too” and “there are as many stories of terrible relationships between biological parents and their kids, as there are of adoptive parents and their adopted children.” I am going to argue that.

I have not just seen in my own life how differently biological parents are towards their biological child vs an adopted one, even if they are bad parents, the relationship seems to be stronger, there is a natural pull. And of course, no, not always. But I don’t think you can claim those biological vs adoptive relationships are on equal ground, as far too many are not at all.

And, going a step further, I disagree with some adoptive parents not being terrible because they’re adoptive parents. I honestly believe that some could have chosen not to adopt, not to try and fulfill their wants, and avoided the stress the adopted child came with and turned into the person they did.

I think that some adoptive parents are so incredibly naive and by the time they realize the mess they’ve made from getting someone else’s child, it’s too late. They can’t / won’t back out, give the kid back, etc. and they become resentful, they might become abusive and yes, bad people – as an outcome of choosing to be adoptive parents.

Born Twice

At his website, LINK>David Bohl writes – I am often asked about the title of my memoir, Parallel Universes, and how I came up with it. There are many different reasons it fits for me, but the simplest explanation is that I needed to describe what it was like to be born twice during one lifetime—as someone who had been relinquished at birth and as someone who recovered from addiction and healed from trauma. And I also needed a title not just to my book, but to my life, something that would be stamped into the fabric of my world and signal both to me and to others as to what sort of story I’d been living.

Being able to share stories is what makes us feel less alone; it’s what connects us more than anything. Sharing stories is also how we honor and acknowledge both our pain and our joy, how we situate ourselves among others, and how we relate. Being able to share and being known is one of the first steps to healing. blogger’s note – I believe this. That is why I am often sharing other people’s stories – because we are able to learn from their experiences.

It’s a human pursuit to look for the meaning of life, to try to make sense of the world and of our past. Stories also inform how we might act in the future. He notes – I didn’t arrive at my Parallel Universe place out of the blue nor easily. I had to face my Reality, however painful, and I had to look back into my past for some answers. I got enough context that I was able to develop that narrative.

Every abandoned person has to acknowledge that there was a family of origin, but how they deal with that is unique to each person. blogger’s note – even for the child of two adoptees, it was somewhat startling to come to grips that there were these other people, to whom I am genetically related, out there living lives I was totally unaware of, as they were also totally unaware of me.

My own dad was one of these – There are people who prefer not to know anything about their origins, who don’t consider the alternative reality that never was – where they grow up with different parents and in different circumstances. And there are people for whom this knowledge is essential and who find solace in putting as many puzzle pieces together as possible. blogger’s note – And that one was me.

He end with this thought – There is no wrong or right way to do this. I’ve talked with people who shared that their apprehension comes from not being able to find closure and not wanting to add to their problems. There are people who have tried to find closure and ended up further traumatized. There are people like me for whom those findings were a bitter-sweet discovery, one that I’m still processing and probably will process for the rest of my life. What unites all of us is that we all need some kind of a narrative to our life to simply make sense of it.