Time Is Of The Essence

An adoptive parent writes – With my older two kids with unknown fathers I waited until they asked and then purchased the kit (both around 13 years old).

My oldest got no results (only very distant cousins) but he was okay because his older half sister’s dad claimed him when he was born and even though unable to parent continues to have a strong parental bond with him. I still monitor the account on occasion to see if we have any new leads with his permission.

With my middle daughter it went horribly wrong. I take some blame as I should have taken steps to make sure she received the information in more appropriate ways. There isn’t any possibility of meeting for several years and at this point it isn’t something my daughter wants to pursue. It has been devastating for her.

I now have a 3 year old with an unknown father. His mom doesn’t know who he is and only meant him once. Part of me wants to do the DNA test so when he has questions I hopefully have some answers and maybe even contact his dad prior to see if he has any interest in contact. But I almost feel like that is a violation of his privacy. He is too young to give consent too it which is why I waited until my kids asked.

A donor conceived person wrote – I have heard of hundreds of cases of children or adults becoming connected with genetic relatives, sometimes establishing loving relationships in the process, and learning important information about themselves in the process, including by obtaining a fully updated family medical history. Even if the biological parent turns out to be someone who isn’t good for your child to get to know, it’s arguable that this can be important information to find out ASAP to set reasonable expectations for talking about who this person is, what they are like, and how they might connect with them in the future. Importantly, they might find other close relatives who connect beautifully with them and offer love/support in some capacity for the rest of their lives. Some of these relatives (for example, a biological grandparent) might tragically pass away before a child reaches adulthood and pursues the testing on their own, and so I personally believe time is of the essence in exploring/building genetic family connections from as early an age as possible. I believe this is a decision parents can reasonably make for their young children without “consent” while keeping their best interests at heart, just like how children are introduced to extended family members without being asked for their interest or consent (or like how children are born or adopted away from biological parents without consent).

Pluses and Minuses

A Former Foster Care Youth, then Adoptee writing her thoughts… contemplates – Am I the only one that struggles with going back and forth with being – glad my parents gave me up and then, at the same time sad that my extended family didn’t keep me ? I can’t imagine the person I would be, if I was raised by my biological parents… if I were to guess, I probably wouldn’t have finished high school and would be living off welfare. But being given up also caused additional trauma including feeling unworthy, unloved and abandoned. I was sexually abused in the first foster family I was placed with. Then, the second family had so many foster kids, I never got attention. The family that adopted me did so because their biological daughter passed away at 20 years old, so they took me in. I always felt like I had to be who she was… Then again, my adoptive mother did teach me to be a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need to depend on anyone including the government, financially. So I think, there are pluses and minuses in being given up and adopted. However, I also think, if my biological mother had received the help she needed, mentally and financially, maybe I would not have had to go through any of my imagined or my real outcomes.

I am not an adoptee myself but I have thought about such things. Both of my original grandmothers could have raised my parents had they had the proper support and assistance. I have no doubt about that. My mom may have grown up in more poverty because her adoptive parents were financially very well off. This did allow some benefits and privileges for my mom and for me and my sisters. I’m less certain about how my dad may have turned out.

His original mother was unwed and had an affair with a married man. I doubt he ever knew he had a son as his extended family here in the United States and still living in Denmark did not know he existed. DNA proved my relationship to them. My paternal grandmother did go on to have other children but also a rather difficult life as I have been told. No doubt he would have been loved. He was very important to his adoptive mother as well who had a huge influence on the outcome of my own life. She was a strong woman in her own ways.

I grew up with good adoptive grandparents, aunts and cousins and I am grateful for all of them. Learning about my original family has had a bittersweet effect on me. It has left me more lonely in odd ways – not part of the adoptive or the genetic families – in reality. More alone than I was before I knew . . .

I Am Now My Own Parent

I’ve told some version of this story before and can’t promise I won’t again, though with evolving perspectives, these likely do change over time. My dad died only 4 months after my mom. She died first in September 2015 and he followed in February 2016. It was a profound event in my own life as I am certain it is in many lives. After my dad died, my youngest sister said, “We are now orphans.” I remain estranged from her. The cruelty she expresses towards me when we are in contact with one another causes me not to want to be involved with her. Not long ago, the state of Missouri informed me that they held some abandoned asset of my mom’s and I jumped through hoops and ended up with a whopping check for $20. Because I needed to provide my sisters names and addresses, so they could receive their own shares, I contacted my youngest sister’s conservator, who had been appointed to manage her funds. Turns out, he has been free of her for 2-1/2 years and no longer has that responsibility. The judge turned him loose and I understand. My sister is difficult and uncooperative and so, she is on her own now. So be it. I never wanted to take her freedom away from her. It was her own lawyers and the need for a family member to ask the court to look at her circumstances that forced my own involvement.

The topic today was inspired by a Daily Guide for Sunday, July 10 2022 in the Science of Mind magazine written by Rev Dr Jim Lockard. That phrase that is my title today comes from an affirmation he put at the end of his essay. He mentions that some people have never known their family of origin. That was certainly true for BOTH of my parents – as each of them was adopted and they died knowing next to nothing about their origins. I was conceived out of wedlock by a teenage mom. I could have so easily been given up for adoption but thankfully, I was not. It seems that one of my purposes in this life was to reconnect the threads of my parents own origins and I have now made it as far as is necessary for my own peace of mind. I know who all 4 genetic grandparents were, something of their stories and am aware of quite a few living, genetic relatives now that I am in contact with.

After my mom died, I came into contact again with an aunt. She is the widowed wife of my dad’s brother (my uncle was also adopted). A profound experience for me in high school was witnessing my uncle’s slow decline from Lou Gehrig’s disease. She is a nurse who met him when he was a Marine and hospitalized due to an auto accident. I had been thinking about this aunt for several days. It seems we do have a “spiritual heart connection” and so, she had been thinking about me and called me recently. It has been true since my mom died that she still calls me to check in from time to time – mostly to hear the latest for me and adds a few insights into her own life. Mostly, she just listens. I find her easy to talk to, honestly, though she is much more conventionally religious than I am. She usually asks about my sisters and how are they doing. She used to tell me she was praying for my estranged sister and I but she no longer tries to reach me that way. She had only one child with my uncle and he died a few years ago, too young and somewhat unexpectedly. She lives with an elderly sibling and that sibling’s spouse. My aunt is now 90 years old and I never know how much longer she will be in my life but she is totally lucid and I am always happy to hear from her.

Mine is a strange reality to live. Learning who my genetic relatives were and are, has to some extent, distanced me from the ones I grew up with. Even so, I remain fond of the adoptive grandparents I grew up with (now deceased) and with the aunt just mentioned and one other (my dad’s step-sister, who he acquired when his adoptive mother remarried after a divorce). My mom also had a brother who was adopted through the Tennessee Children’s Home before her. I am not all that close to him but did see him at my mom’s memorial service. It was his daughter’s receipt of his adoption file that had her call to tell me – I could get my mom’s. That opened the door for me to become genetically whole again and fulfill an intended life purpose.

They Aren’t My Relatives

Even before I knew who my original grandparents were and something about their stories, back when I was cleaning out my deceased parent’s residence, I began to have an awareness that so much stuff my parents stored in their house as they were executors of their own adoptive parents estates, was not actually relevant to my life. As a historian, it did pain me to send to the landfill tons of genealogy and binders full of personal recollections from a life of far flung traveling, because in reality, I’m not related to those people.

This awareness came back full force yesterday as my family has been going through an extreme phase of de-cluttering. As I now approach my own 66th birthday, I seem to be even more able than ever to let a lot of irrelevant stuff go.

Of course, I do acknowledge those relationships that helped to shape me in my youth. The adoptive grandparents and the aunts, uncles and cousins related to them had influence in my life and I do have fond memories of loving gestures and concern, as well as any opportunities that actually did come my way through these people. There will always be a place in my heart for these people who chose to love and nurture my parents and because of them – for us who were the children and so were treated equally as being somehow “related”. Though we weren’t, not really.

Now that I do know who my original grandparents were, it is these people who I think of as grandparents and there are new aunts but most of that ancestral level of relationship has already died and I’ll never be able to know them but second-hand through those who are my true cousins in a genetic sense.

While I honor and acknowledge the more direct relationships that came my way because of the adoption of my parents, the siblings and ancestors of those adoptive grandparents have lost all meaning for me. I am simply not related to those persons and their familial history holds no interest for me any longer.

My mom belonged to Ancestry and found she had to quit working on the family trees that were based on the circumstance of having been adopted. She said, “They just weren’t REAL to me.” I understand. In a short period of time, I have come to feel the same way.

Family Is Important

Whether genetically related or adoptive, family is important. Both of my parents were adopted. All of the “family” I knew growing up was not at all genetically related to me (beyond my mom and dad of course). My grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were actually not related to me. I marvel at this now.

My adoptive grandparents were influential in my life. No doubt about that. My maternal grandmother lived in wealth and taught us good manners and what an abundant life might be like. I remember fondly sleeping in my mom’s old canopy four-poster bed and coming to a breakfast table set impeccably. My grandmother also made possible my only trip outside the United States beyond occasional forays into Juarez growing up on the Mexican border. Thanks to her I had an experience of attending Clare College in Cambridge England. She was metaphysical actually. I learned that at some point and she expressed gratitude for her financial comforts by being generously charitable.

My paternal grandparents modeled hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and humble surroundings as well as country living as I was growing up in a dense suburban environment. I remember going out into the cotton fields to pick boles and now know that my genetic maternal relatives (grandmother and grandfather lived such a life of necessity). I remember harvesting food from their property – pecans, peaches and asparagus. I remember the trains that traveled right across the street from their rural home.

I also believe I owe my granny (my dad’s adoptive mother) for preserving me in my parent’s loving care and not allowing my unwed high school mom to be sent off to have me and give me up for adoption. Later on in life, my granny caused me to realize a romantic relationship I had been in for some years was not a healthy one and I left it. Her questioning openned the way for me to meet and marry my husband and to have two wonderful sons with him.