Tag: Maintaining Contact

Difficult Conversations

Not the child in today’s story.

We have guardianship of a 7yr old. He has lived with us twice before through foster care but always returned home after sobriety was achieved.

Guardianship happened after the 3rd relapse in 6 years.

Grandparents have guardianship of some older siblings and often go camping in the summer and invite his mom to join them (their daughter and mother of the kids).

How would you navigate the conversation of yes he can go camping with his family but he can’t move back in with his mom, since she is still in rehab and we don’t know when/if he ever will, due to her substance abuse history?

Is it as simple as saying it that way? I don’t want to overcomplicate it.

He knows that his mom was arrested for drugs and that’s why he has lived with us through the years. His whole life we have genuinely had a good relationship with his mom. We send her pictures and he has had several supervised visits since the last relapse and they FaceTime several times during the week.

One suggestion – “All grown-ups need help taking care of kids. That’s why we are teamed up with the adults in your family, so that we can all help each other take the best care of you.”

One person formerly in foster care asks – Do you think he would want to go? I’m only speaking from my personal experience. I didn’t like events like that when I was a kid with my father because he would try to act like he was this good dad and it was uncomfortable and I felt out of place the entire time. That’s not to say he shouldn’t go but there are a lot of emotional things to navigate outside of just her sobriety.

Another one suggested – put it back on the courts, if he asks. “Right now the judge decided it’s best for you to stay with us. When the judge tells us you can come back to your mom we will absolutely make it happen.” And if he asks when, it’s okay to say that you don’t know but will keep him updated as soon as you do.

An elementary school teacher who has some experience with parents that have addiction issues said – the camping experience is an opportunity for an extended visit with your mom and grandparents. Your mom and grandparents are going to make sure you and your siblings have a great time together. Your mom is still doing some really important work to be her best, and she still needs some more time to do that. Which means you are not going to go home to live with her yet. She added – ask if he’s comfortable with that because it might be more traumatic for him to deal with that separation all over again. She also suggested a therapist to talk about the trauma he’s experienced, in general. She then shared – My mom struggled with addiction for years and, while I was never removed, I wish I could have had someone who didn’t make her the bad guy for fighting a really difficult disease. It takes an incredible amount of work to fight that addiction, and kudos to his mom to keep trying.

One adoptive parent said – Sometimes the answers are just what they are and there isn’t a nice explanation just a hard truth. we just talk about it honestly. Mom had a drug addiction and tons of childhood trauma herself. We talk about those things. How trauma and addiction can effect us. We always emphasize that it isn’t anything against them. She added – my experience is to always go with the truth. Sometimes the situation just sucks and it is ok to say that. And added – she never negatively talks about their Mom – ever – but the girls sometimes express anger. We validate those feelings but I never jump on that bandwagon.

Are Mothers Ever Strangers ?

How is it a woman whom grows HER baby in HER body for 40 weeks, shares DNA, blood supply, HER body nourishes and GROWS HER baby, she then births HER baby, breastfeeds HER baby the first 4 days of life and hands HER baby off to strangers and a year later she is a supposed STRANGER TO HER BABY??? Are mothers ever really strangers?????

There was a story where a woman had a baby. Like 6 months later she passed away. But she was an organ donor. She donated her heart. They put the baby on the recipient’s chest and the baby remembered her heart beat. I think a face may be strange but baby’s do remember their mom’s heart beat

My biological mom is a complete stranger to me – even after meeting her and seeing her a handful of times over the years. It’s also extremely weird and uncomfortable seeing her and her family in public.

I was raised by my biological mother. We have no bond or attachment, I wish her health and happiness but really just like I do for everybody else.

I did not breastfeed (though I wanted to), but my first visit with my son was two weeks after I left the hospital without him. He was always better with me…didn’t cry, or fuss, etc. When he was six months old, the adoptive parent got angry with me (it was actually the adoptive mother) and withheld visits for three months. Birth father got involved and they agreed to stop withholding visits (though they did this repeatedly throughout my child’s life), and I went to see him with the birth father. He didn’t want anything to do with me. I knew in my heart that there was something else going on, so I asked birth father to wait in the living room and I took him to his bedroom, where he came alive and couldn’t stop laughing and smiling. It was the presence of birth father he objected to. Me, he remembered. Still, each time they withheld visits, or moved to a different state, I had to re-establish my relationship with him. He never forgot who I was, though. And I always sent him cards and gifts on our special holidays, no matter where they lived. They did, at least, give those to him, as far as I know. I haven’t seen him since his high school graduation in 2016, but I just finished putting together his Easter box (formerly known as a basket)…later than usual because my mother in law passed away, but full of t-shirts and childhood favorites like action figures. They didn’t have Baby Yoda when he was little.

My biological mom is definitely a stranger, she doesn’t know me, she’s not part of my life or my children’s lives. I don’t have a mom.

My biological mother is and will always be a stranger, she never had any intention of knowing me despite having the chance to rectify that during reunion. Not every “mother” wants to be a mother to all of their children. I really hate the idea that all biological parents are supposedly wonderful caring human beings, some of them are simply trash.

In my experience, no. My mom was never a stranger. I felt recognition to the depth of my being when we met face to face. I am literally made of her.

My biological mother feels like a stranger to me. She does not feel that I am a stranger to her. It’s a very uncomfortable dynamic.

The above received this reply – I expect that is what my son is probably going through now. Does it make you uncomfortable when she sends you cards, gifts or money? I have not stopped this with my son, and maybe he is too kind to tell me to stop.

Which received this clarification – I may not be the best person to ask. Everything my birth mother does makes me uncomfortable but that has more to do with the way she has behaved during my adult life than anything. She sent me 30 roses on my 30th birthday and I literally felt nauseated. It didn’t have to be that way though. I did not feel that way when we first met. I think my advice would be to make sure that you’re dealing with your own trauma and not putting it on your son. My birth mothers emotional needs from our relationship were so great that there was no room for me to have any needs or boundaries. Her need for me to heal her felt smothering. I couldn’t do that for her and it wasn’t my responsibility to try. Otherwise, I think it probably would have been nice to get cards and gifts. My birth father has been respectful of boundaries from the start and genuinely cared about my well-being and I love getting gifts from him. I think the fact that you’re even asking the question is a sign that you’re looking out for his needs and being respectful! I don’t mean to minimize the trauma or suggest that you should just be able to get over it in any way. Just that it’s worth working thru with a therapist on your own so that your relationship with your son isn’t the only place you’re looking for healing.

I think there’s definitely something to the idea that some birth mothers may feel more connected to the adoptee than vice versa. When we met I had spent most of my 22 years not really thinking about her, while she had thought of me every day, carried me for 9 months, gone thru labor, etc. From the start, it felt like there was just so much more emotion on her side than mine. I was mildly curious about my DNA but happy with my life. She felt her life was ruined and needed me to fill this huge hole in her heart. It’s a challenging dynamic.

I just want my surrendered son to be…well. We were very close until he got to be around sixteen. I have been thinking of him every minute of every day for all of his life, and I know it cannot be the same for him, so I have been doing my best with guesswork about boundaries. I suppose it is good for him that he lives so far away from me.

Not a stranger but an associate really. I’m made of her but we don’t have that bond since we were separated a week after I was born. We’ve been in reunion for 10 years but I don’t feel like I know her. Still a mystery.

My husband was abandoned by his mom at a young age and she is definitely a stranger to him. He saw her a few times growing up. He also had a very unsuccessful reunion.

Meeting my biological mom was actually what ripped me out of the adoptee fog. I was expecting to have this “knowing” of her. I wasn’t prepared for how much of a stranger she felt like. I didn’t recognize myself in her at all. It shut me down in our reunion for several years, while I went through deep identity work and trauma healing. The second meeting we had was two years ago when I flew to her and was able to meet my extended family. I started to recognize myself in them. Then we were leaving the family farm, when I noticed our shadows side by side as we walked. We have an identical walk. It finally clicked in and my body and spirit remembered her .I really feel that I had to bury my unconscious memories of her in order to survive as a child. I had to give into the fantasy that is adoption. It was so buried inside of me, but it was there waiting for me to do the healing work needed to remember.

Stranger and “legal stranger” are much different…or should be.

My birth mother is definitely a stranger, and probably will stay that way cause she doesn’t really seem interested in building a relationship. I’m just a dirty little secret from her past that she hoped to leave in the past.

I am no longer a secret! Biological half-siblings and I are connected via Ancestry and my biological mother knows it. And still she refuses a relationship. To which another adoptee noted – Mine doesn’t want my half-sisters to know about me, yet but I’m hoping if I keep in touch, she’ll change her mind. I really want a relationship with them at least.

It is definitely a paradox – Our original mothers will always be our first profound human connection. Very familiar, yet as an adoptee she is a stranger. It’s hard to explain to someone not touched by adoption.