What Really Matters

Family Matters

A question today for adoptive parents – do you set aside your own desires to meet the needs of your adopted child ? After adoption is finalized, too often promises made are not kept. Examples – [1] a first mother with an open adoption promise. The adoptive parents moved to another continent (Europe, mom is in U.S.) when child was about four. They promised at least annual visits but regularly find excuses to cancel. [2] an adoptive dad, even though he sees how desperate his son is for his siblings, he simply never prioritizes visits to maternal grandma and sisters. He chooses to believe it isn’t *that* important to him (son) – simply because it isn’t that important to him (dad).

An adoptive parent answers – I can’t speak to this because my daughter has zero birth family connections but in general I’ve done what is necessary to put my daughter’s need for connection outside of me ahead of my own needs. The closest adult to her moved very suddenly across the state and we followed without hesitation because the loss would have ruined her. I fly her to see the people who mean the most to her all the time. These days that often means she’s in my home state but I don’t get to see her and I’m careful to never say anything that could be construed as guilting or pressuring. And I’m sending her for a month this summer to the other side of the country to study under a mentor who is definitely the most influential female to ever be in her life because she’s seeking out that connection. We’ve put all of our financial resources into supporting these needs because I feel like she is owed ways to continue connecting with mirrors and people who aren’t just us. If she had genetic connections, I would break the bank to make that happen. I do not understand how AT VERY LEAST adoptive parents can’t stop and wonder how their selfish need for approval will play out in the long term. There are tons of days I miss my kid so much I can barely function but it isn’t her job to make me feel better or fill my voids. It’s my one and only job to make sure she has the opportunities and resources to become her best and most whole self.

From a foster parent – I never travel to see my own biological family because I am not in contact with them at all. With that being said, if a child in my care (adopted, permanent guardianship etc) wanted to travel to see their biological family… how could I deny that ? True, I’ve never traveled to see my own biological family. It’s not something we think about at all, so I appreciate this post for bringing it up in this context. I now will make a point to consider this perspective and allow any non-biological kids to travel to see their biological family… just because I don’t do it with my own biological family doesn’t mean a non-biological child in my care can’t see their own biological family.

A mother who lost her child to adoption notes – I feel this so much. I felt like I was never part of the adoptive parent’s family, even with an “open” adoption and the adoptive parent’s extended family is almost always seen as more important and has more frequent contact with the adoptee than birth parents/family. This shouldn’t be the case.

Another adoptive parent writes – I always wondered how openness works for out-of-state adoptions, particularly when the child is young and needs to be accompanied on flights (a lot of domestic infant adoptions seem to be out-of-state, which seems odd to me). While my husband and I see our families way less than the kids’ (2x in the last 3 years vs 2-4x a month) that’s not a sacrifice, that’s geography. Except for special occasions a few times a year, I reserve friend time / date ‘night’ for when the kids are in school, so that I am always available when they are not (this is a huge privilege I am afforded by not working outside the home and because my husband has a flexible schedule.)

Yet – how I fall short?

Youngest (age 11, adopted at 8) doesn’t like sleepovers. Sleepovers are a big part of her family culture. I also don’t like sleepovers (for myself.) I could probably get her to sleep over with relatives, if I came too, but in my opinion, that’s weird for a grown-ass adult to invite themselves to a sleepover at someone else’s house. I’ve “compromised” by driving her to visit early in the morning and picking her up right before bed, but the right thing to do would likely be to invite myself along to her sleepover invitations, so that she goes.

Eldest (age16, adopted at 14) spends way less time with family than she did prior to my home. She’s straight up told me it’s because she’s now allowed to have friends and because I taught her about boundaries and that if she were in her prior placement, she would spend way more time with family. While to me boundaries and friends are important for teen development, I still did, indirectly, cause her to withdraw from family and I do feel guilty about that.

An interesting point of view emerges – I have seen my mom go out of her way to keep the family connected but the biological family could care less. I believe the costs to see the kid should be on the biological parents, not the adopted parents and the adopted parents (and family) shouldn’t be inconvenienced for the visit… so I do feel like the biological mom should be able to get to Europe on her own to see the child.

The reply from the one who initially asked the questions was – In most domestic infant adoptions, moms are relinquishing because of lack of resources and support. Most adoptive parents have financial resources (or they fundraised to buy the baby). So, you’re saying that the mom (who already felt so choiceless that she relinquished her son) should find a way to travel to Europe with her daughter as often as she wants to see her son – because….. it’s her own fault she relinquished??? They didn’t live in Europe before adopting. She didn’t know they were going to move there. I don’t think they knew but if they did, they didn’t tell her and moved four years later. They are the ones who committed to openness and visits.

As a mother who relinquished because of threats, coercion and lack of support (and ultimately, a belief that I was not good enough), I’m having a hard time with your perspective. Maybe you can explain to me why you feel the adoptive family “shouldn’t be inconvenienced” for the sake of a child they chose to parent who needs to see their family? Do you think you’re drawing directly from the situation closest to you and this is based on feelings you have about your adopted sibling’s biological family ?

The explanation – the biological family has done no shows or come when they feel like it… especially concerning the kids we have fostered. (I note that we have successfully reunited about 30 kids with their families). I’m no longer stopping my day or the other children’s day for a visit that may never actually take place….the social worker can come get them or the biological parents can meet and join us where we are…this is purely based on years of experience…. And I don’t inform small children about potential visits because often times they are let down and the biological parents are no shows…none of my adopted siblings biological parents willingly gave up rights. The rights were terminated after YEARS. We tried to assist them in every way including allowing the biological mom to live with us – she just didn’t care to get it together…. We fought and advocated hard for their parents to get it together because we did NOT want to adopt them. We believe kids belong with family first.

That satisfied her question – therefore, your perspective regarding my general post to adoptive parents about the kids in their care is based entirely on your very limited personal experience (and a kind of obvious bias against the biological family). Thank you for explaining. I’ll ignore your opinion that my friend ought to be able to find her own way to Europe, if she wants to see her son.

From another adoptive parent – This is a hard one right now because every post in here talks about prioritizing the adoptee’s wants, but it is the natural mother who is always asking for more. We can spend a week with her and then, the adoptees choose not to do a video chat the next week and she will say that they are pushing her away and hate her. I have often wondered, if we stopped constantly offering contact, how often the adoptees would ask for contact. Right now, if we go to the state she lives in for any reason – we see her, we have 3 of our own family members in the same state and we only see one or two of them each time but ALWAYS prioritize seeing the natural mother. But we don’t ASK the adoptees WHEN they want to see the natural mother, we say, “we are going on a trip to her state, you want to see her, right?” And they shrug and say sure. The one area that I have definitely not made any effort is the other natural family members. One time a natural uncle reached out and that time I asked the adoptees and both said, nah. Not a NO, but a nah. I told the natural uncle that the adoptees didn’t want to meet with him on that particular trip. He hasn’t asked since and the adoptees have not asked either.

Another person offers this perspective – it seems, at least to me, that it’s very much obviously the job of adoptive parent to positively facilitate and maintain those first family relationships without being asked, rather than passively wait for child(ren) to ask for it to be facilitated and maintained. In the same way that we don’t generally wait for children to ask to be enrolled in education, have medical checkups or do any of the other “boring” stuff that’s good for them in the long term but not necessarily stimulating or enjoyable every time they do it. In my experience of talking and listening to foster and adoptive parents I’ve noticed an unmissable pattern, wherein the weight put on the opinions and feelings of children varies wildly from situation to situation in a way that seems arbitrary – until you notice that it correlates with the typically desired outcomes of the average foster or adoptive parent. Children being ambivalent about their first families is usually accepted at face value – embraced and validated, even. There is something incredibly permissive about that. A permissiveness that, on closer inspection, almost never extends to other areas of their parenting. It gets framed as giving children agency and there’s very little introspection on whether or not it amounts to the foster or adoptive parent neglecting their responsibility to make reasonable decisions, on behalf of the children, to set up the opportunity for them to form and maintain a relationship, a parent-child or other familial bond.

A Happy Reunion

Jimmy Lippert Thyden with his mother, María Angélica González

Though so much time may have been lost, I always love reunion stories. Both The Guardian LINK>Hi, Mom. I love you and USA Today LINK>Virginia man meets Chilean family.

From USA Today – It has been 42 years since María Angélica González saw her son. He was a newborn. A nurse told González he needed to be put in an incubator because he was premature. Not long after, she returned with devastating news: The baby was dead.

For 42 years, that’s what González believed. For 42 years, it has been a lie. Gonzalez’s son, Jimmy Lippert Thyden, was stolen from González, adopted out to unwitting parents in the United States and raised in Arlington, Virginia. For 42 years, Thyden believed he had no living relatives in Chile, where he was born.

Then one day in April, Thyden read a USA TODAY story about a California man who had learned he was stolen from his mother in Chile and illegally adopted out to an American couple. It got Thyden thinking: Could the same thing have happened to him? Within weeks, Thyden learned the truth. And last week, González finally got to hug her son.

From The Guardian – Under the brutal 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, tens of thousands of babies were taken from their parents and adopted by foreigners. Thyden was raised as one of three siblings in a loving, two-parent household. Thyden knew he was born in Chile. He grew up to serve with the US Marines for 19 years and established himself as a criminal defense attorney. But he and his adopted family believed he had no living relatives left in the South American nation.

Human rights groups believe more than 20,000 babies were snatched away from mostly low-income mothers in Chile and then put up to be adopted by people in foreign countries who paid what they believed were legitimate fees – yet who had been lied to about the babies’ circumstances. Midwives, doctors, social workers, nuns, priests and judges all had roles in the plot, which was financially lucrative for its participants as well as Pinochet’s government.

Thyden made contact with an organization named LINK>Nos Buscamos, which means “we look for each other” in Spanish. The group’s volunteers use DNA tests donated by the genealogy platform My Heritage to reunite families who were separated by Pinochet. In 2014, reporters for the Chilean investigative news agency Ciper exposed the human trafficking operation that existed under Pinochet. In addition to his biological mother, he also has four biological brothers and a sister.

Regarding his adoptive life, he says – He was grateful that his adopted family gave him “every opportunity” to thrive in the US. “They … spared me nothing,” said Thyden, who lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters. “I had a loving home, opportunities, strong values and a great education.” However, regarding his genetic mother, he says – “To know [her] is to know she is a loving and caring person,” Thyden remarked. “It becomes very real. We feel as though we have fit in all along – like a missing puzzle piece now found but meant to fit all along.”

ADHD And Struggling

Design and Illustrations by Maya Chastain

I found much of this discussion helpful and so I am sharing it for today’s blog.

The original comment –

My 17 year old son adopted from foster care at 15, after 8 years in care. 2 failed adoptive placements before and he was living in residential treatment for 15 months before he transitioned to my home. He’s been with me for 2 years in total. He has not had contact with any biological family in 5+ years and did not have consistent care givers for the first 7 years of his life. He expresses hate towards his biological family and will not discuss with me.

He’s dealing with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Although I believe the depression is very long term, today is the first day he has ever said it out loud. He had actively denied it previously. I also deal with depression and the sentiment he described of feeling like nothing even matters is something I’m very familiar with. He’s been let down so many times and I often tell him he’s had a very normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. He is so afraid to hope. He is in weekly therapy and working with psychiatrist. I feel like tonight him acknowledging his depression was a really big step forward. I am trying to help him navigate depression and be more hopeful. He is incredibly intelligent and capable and could really pursue so many opportunities and be well supported in whatever he chooses. He’s sabotaging himself instead. He is an older teenager navigating the transition to adulthood. Thank you for sharing any thoughts.

Response from an Adoptee with Depression and ADHD –

Just to translate some of what you’re saying here and how it may come across. You may not say these things out loud but “could really pursue so many opportunities and be well supported” tells me you probably imply these things:

“You could do so much more if you’d just apply yourself.”

*I’m never going to be good enough*

“Why are you struggling with something this basic”

*I’m stupid and can’t do basic things*

“You self-sabotage a lot”

*Push past burnout and ignore self-care*

My support network lets me move at my own pace. Also learning that I can’t brute force my way past ADHD by being “Intelligent” has helped.

No one really figures shit out until their 20s. Heck – I didn’t figure out anything until my 30s. Gen Z just has more pressure because you can’t live off the salary from an entry level job anymore.

The original commenter replied –

I definitely think this is something I’m struggling with and I appreciate your translation. I think what’s hard for me is that he is 17 but in many way operating as someone much younger. However he has the expectation the he be treated like every other 17 year old. We are fighting regularly because I won’t let him get a driver’s permit or I set structures around bedtime and Internet and he wants freedom. I’m very comfortable trying to meet him where he is and help him grow at whatever rate he grows. But he wants adult freedom and responsibility – he’s simply not ready for and it feels negligent on my part to just give him that because of his age. So I’m trying to help him set meaningful goals for himself, so that he can work towards the things he says he wants but it seems that his depression is a major barrier to working towards those goals.

I’m not rushing him to figure it out or trying to prescribe specific goals. I’m trying to support him in doing what he says he wants to do and having the freedom he wants to have. As a single parent, I’d love for him to have a driver’s license, just as much as he wants it. But how do I help him be ready for that, when the depression he’s experiencing seems to suck any motivation to do the work ?

Response from an Adoptee with Depression and ADHD –

Why can’t he have a learner’s, if you don’t mind me asking ?

People with ADHD (and often undiagnosed co-morbidities) struggle with being infantilized.

You’re talking about controlling bed time when ADHD can come with delayed circadian rhythm and insomnia.

Yes – ADHD often means you have issues keeping up with organizational skills, goal management, emotional regulation and peer relationships. That doesn’t mean you treat that person like a young child. In an environment where controlled exploration is allowed, you develop coping skills.

ADHD – ESPECIALLY as a teenager – means you’re fighting yourself for control of a brain that seems constantly against you. Emotions are hard to regulate. Your rewards system is fucked. Object permanence is a myth. Time is an abstract concept I’ve yet to grasp.

How can you expect a 17 year old to be motivated to control things that are hard and wield an intangible reward like “opportunities,” if he can’t have any control over what’s in front of him that matters.

“Opportunities” offers no tangible reward. My ADHD/PTSD/Depression brain looks at basic chores and goes, “I don’t get why that matters.”

I’m an adult. With therapy and support, I’ve found ways around that. But I also found it after I started having my own boundaries and stopped infantilizing myself.

Meaningful goals don’t work with ADHD. They just put things behind a glass wall you’ll never break. You get frustrated and give up easier.

You need to give him simple goals he can succeed at to build self confidence.

Don’t make freedom a “reward”. It breeds resentment. Work with him to set personal boundaries and schedules. Those won’t look like what works for a neurotypical.

I like “How to ADHD” for life hacks. I also really recommend Domestic Blisters but she’s more aimed at 20 somethings. Catieosaurus is great. She does talk about sexual health on occasion but nothing a 17 year old with Google hasn’t seen.

Maybe It IS Better Sometimes

Generally speaking, I am NOT in favor of adoption. I know too much about the trauma that most adoptees suffer, if only unconsciously because of rejection and abandonment issues, not to believe that family preservation, support, therapy and encouragement to remain together is best. A lot of children were adopted out from about 1930 through and into the 1970s (when the number of available infants linked to single, unwed mother diminished due to the availability of abortion).

Still, reading this story today, I understand why this adoptee feels blessed to have been adopted.

My biological parents were married to each other, but both were meth addicts. A maternal great aunt helped care for me and wanted to adopt me, but my parents took me to a private attorney and handed over a 13-month old me in exchange for $45,000 cash in 1978. Talk about unethical!

I met that great aunt again at age 21, and she was very happy to be reunited with me. She cried and apologized for not getting me herself – but she was very poor, living in a tiny rural town in the middle of nowhere, supported by her long-haul truck driver husband. They had a mobile home, and three of my younger siblings were in their care.

All 5 of them are chain smokers, even my siblings were in middle and high school age ranges! My brothers and sister shared a single room. It was shocking to me.

I’d grown up an only child of middle class adoptive parents, both of whom have advanced degrees. They aren’t perfect, but they gave me opportunities I never would have had, if I’d been kept with my great aunt.

Ideally, I wish my mother had been given support to get clean, to escape her abusive family and community. The multi-generational trauma ran deep in my maternal family. But finally, at the age of 43, I’m able to say that I got the very best deal of all of my siblings – including my two youngest half-brothers who were raised by their father’s parents, and my older sister, who was put up for adoption at birth.

I always wondered who I’d be, and what I’d be doing if I’d not been adopted, and I’m grateful for who I am, even though I know it came with intense trauma.

Though my mom yearned to know her original mother, she was able to say to me near the end of her life (knowing that her original mother had already died), that she was glad she had been adopted. She really couldn’t know what her life would have been like. Her mother lacked familial support and though married was estranged from my mom’s father, who didn’t answer a request from the juvenile court about his obligation to support my grandmother and mom.

When I met a cousin related to my original maternal grandfather, she said they were very poor. He was a widow struggling to support 4 other children. They were so poor her own mother often went to bed hungry, living in a shelter so minimal, the chickens roosting under the house could be seen through the floor boards.

My mom was raised in a financially secure family with a mother who had an advanced education and was highly accomplished in her own life’s expressions. Her adoptive father was a banker and got a lucky ground-floor break on a friend’s stock offering (which became Circle K Stores). There was wealth and I grew up seeing that. My dad’s adoptive parents were poor entrepreneurs with a home-based drapery business that my dad helped out in, even though he had full employment and a family of his own to raise.

Life is and sometimes circumstances aren’t so great. If one is lucky, they are able to be thankful for the circumstances they grew up within. Though my family was struggling middle class, we were loved and cared about. It was good enough.

Just Don’t

But you will. You believe you won’t make all the mistakes the others have made. You believe you know a better way.

Don’t be one of THOSE adoptive parents or hopeful adoptive parents who think they know better and their kid won’t be like those angry adoptees, the thousands upon thousands that have struggled with adoption. You don’t even KNOW what to teach them as an adoptive parent.

You do not raise adopted children like you raise biological children and that has nothing to do with love.

An adoptee said to his adoptive mother, “It doesn’t matter how loving and good your parents are and it doesn’t matter that you have a wonderful home….at times it isn’t enough and I am still very unhappy!” When you hear this from your adopted child, it will break your heart. Adopted kids are going to have pain and there isn’t anything an adoptive parent can do to erase it. Understanding that this is the reality is very painful!

You can’t erase the sadness lurking where you can’t reach it.

It would be better if you didn’t adopt but if you already have, the path forward is complicated.

So, if you already did it, then create a home where your adopted children know they can feel however they need to feel and that they know you’ll be there to listen, love, and support them through it.

Whatever your adopted child feels is the reality, don’t dismiss it. Your feelings are yours to deal with.

The trauma of adoption doesn’t stop existing because you want it to. If you think you can love that trauma away, as an adoptive parent you still have a lot to learn.

Love is not enough, good intentions are not enough. No amount of love or honesty can resolve the deep challenges an adoptee faces from being isolated from their biological identity.

The Original Mother

There are a total of 4 women in my immediate family who have relinquished a child – both of my grandmothers and both of my sisters. I have a lot of compassion for every one of them.

The level of pain that such a mother may feel depends a lot on the time frame and reason for the relinquishment. I know for certain 2 of the mothers were coerced or forced. I know that 3 of the adoptions were “closed” and only one was “open”. That last one was my youngest sister who made the decision to relinquish from the moment she knew she was pregnant and vetted prospective adoptive parents and utilized private attorneys to facilitate the process.

Many such mothers have accepted some seriously false beliefs about themselves –
I would have been a terrible mother and my child is better off.
My child must hate me.
My child will never forgive me.
My child will never believe how much I wanted them.

These mothers also carry with them understandable fears –
Meeting their child and disappointing them.
Facing their child’s anger.
Never knowing what happened to the child.
If it was a secret, family members finding out.
Finding out the child was mistreated or needs help.
The child showing up one day at one’s workplace.
The child never trying to find them.

Within these mothers are many possible responses –
Feeling guilt and regret.
An inability to move on.
Breaking down and crying when thinking about one’s child.
Angry outbursts (caused by bottled up feelings).
Feeling guilty when others talk about their children.
Wondering what one’s child looks like.
Fantasizing about a reunion.
Anger at those who didn’t help them when they needed it most.
Jealous of the adoptive parents but wishing them well for the child’s sake.
Depression around the time of the child’s birthday, as well as the day they were given up.
A deep sense of loss that never abates.

Even so, such women have some admirable strengths – they are idealistic, private, protective, resourceful and unselfish

Sometimes, their deep pain is triggered, even after many years, if they happen to run into their child’s father. Certainly, birthdays and holidays will always be difficult reminders. TV commercials featuring babies may move them to tears and thoughts of their own child. And movies about adoption, depending on the emotional content, may be impossible to watch through to the end.

There is one important opportunity that such a mother should not neglect, regardless of the fears connected to it – that is, allowing contact by their relinquished child.

Adoptions I Have Known

I chose this image because I like trees and Adoption is NOT the main focus. From a perspective of balance and fairness, as it was recently pointed out to me that I might be too negative (though I don’t necessarily believe that), I thought I might comment on the adoptions that have occurred in my own family and their outcomes – briefly.

First, my mom. Her mom did not intend to lose her. I cannot view the exploitation, trap and pressure she faced as being in any way voluntary on my grandmother’s part. My mom was pure and simple – taken away – from her. Not because of any wrongdoing on my grandmother’s part. She was a good mother doing the best that she could under difficult circumstances. My mom was adopted by a banker and his socialite wife. She had many opportunities that she may not have had in her original circumstances. She was troubled at the thought she had been stolen, as she tried to understand the circumstances of her becoming adopted and was denied her own adoption file by the state of Tennessee, until they decided to open the files later on because of the scandal my mom’s adoption had been part of.

Next, my dad. His mom was unwed but she left the Salvation Army Door of Hope in Ocean Beach California with my dad. She went to some cousins who it appears were unwilling to help her. So she applied for employment with the Salvation Army and was transferred to El Paso Texas with my dad in tow. However it happened, she was convinced to give up my dad and he was adopted by the amazing woman I knew as my Granny. She survived an abusive, alcoholic husband, divorced him, found a better man and my dad therefore ended up adopted twice and got a new name when he was already 8 years old. He fully accepted his adoption and never showed any inclination to know more of the details. Sadly, he had a half-sister living 90 miles from him when he died who could have shared so much with him about what his original mother was like.

Then, a niece. My sister did not want to surrender her child to adoption but my adoptee mom convinced her that it was for the best. It was a very secretive thing within our family. I was told that my niece had died at birth and that never felt accurate in my own heart. Eventually, the truth came out, she was able to reunite with us and has been a wonderful addition to our family that we love very much. She seems to have had a good enough childhood and has become an amazing mom to her own two children.

Then, a nephew. This is not the same sister but my youngest sister. Understandably, adoption was the most normal thing in our family and I was close to my sister during her pregnancy. She vetted hopeful couples. Chose the best she was able to do with the information she received. Her life became complicated and unfortunate. He has been loved and his adoptive mother has always supported his desire to know his origins. He is an EMT and a firefighter and an amazing and sweet young man.

Adoption has worked out well enough in my own family. The results have produced good parents (at least for 3 out of the 4, the last one hasn’t married yet). It is what it is. We have a large extended family – extra grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – as a result. I love them all.