So just to keep ya’ll on the edges of your seats…I have heard NOTHING re the letter yet. Wel at least form the parental units of my son.
Max does not hink that they have recieved it yet which makes me think what is wrong with the postal system in this country? It really did not need to go that far..and I sent it Monday. Geez …
Anyway, I did send the whole thing to Max when I let him know that the bird has flown. It just felt like the right thing to do. I didn’t lie the idea of discussing him beind his back..and I fiqured if they freaked out and started saying stuff…then he should know what I said too.
So he tells me that it is all fine and a good letter, but…I called him an “incredible creature” and why couldn’t I call him a “rad dude” or a “prirate”..and I couldn;t tell if he was really insulted or just mifft, so I, of course, apoloized.
So he sends me a note today saying that he was just giving me a hard time..and “I am not al all easily offended” Which just tickled my funny bone to no end..becasue really..I have said that so many times in my life time it is not even funny. Oh my little apple..not far from this momma tree at all. I am constantly amazed by what is an inherited trait.
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So I am really excited about Soul of Adoption. I cannot beleive how so many long time members have just jumped ship . I pulled my whole journal from there today and went to look for old favorite posts, but it ony went back 100. Ug. So lost over 600..oh well.
I cannot wait until the Reform Forums are up!!! Oh, I have ideas!!! But I will try and be patiant so poor Heartened can get some sleep. But as soon as she gets to it..hint hint!!
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Which brings me to my real thoughts this evening….
Adoptees who become mothers who relinquish..I find the concept very interesting and I have some thoughts. ( surprised??) I hope that some who fit into this catagory might lend some real insight.
You hear it more often than I think the odds would allow. An adoptee gets pregnant and does relinquish. Now granted I have know very many adoptees who would do anything NOT to and know that no matter what they will keep their child..unplanned, ill-timed, broke, poor, young..what have you. But, from what I have seen, those are the adoptees who really are very much in touch with their adoption issues. So the concept of releaseing the first person they have ever known who looks like them and shares their gene is not going to happen. Having their child face the world of adoptee hurt will just not do and they do what they must to live happily ever after.
But the ones who say that they have NO issues from being adopted..that adoption is just wonderful…when they find they are in that rock and a hard place..it seems like they have less qualms about presuing adoption…then even the adverage “created “B” mom”.
Here’s why I think we see this:
A) Justification: If adoption was good enough for them, then it is good enough for their child under similar circumstances. Becasue if they find fault with the idea of relinquishing, then they are bringing their own adoption under question. It casues them to rethink their whole lives and the “stuff” is too buried and they cannot “go there”.
B) Identification: In order to understand more of what their own ( absent ) natural mother went though, they subconsiously recreate the experince. They really cannot understand since they have not the ability to ask her and know their own story, but they have a great need to understand..so what better way then to live it themselves. Again, not logical, but the inner workings of the mind and denial.
C)Bringing in the adoptive parents here…i) Thinking that maybe they see a need to “give back” to the system. IE they got a baby and now they can “give” someone else more deserving a baby. ii) Lack of blood bond..they really don’t have the ties of heritage, of genetics. They do not see that they are giving away their own family, their linage, because they really aren’t. They are giving back to the system, the tool, that made them a family, but it is not one of their own.
D)Original rejection/esteem issues. The adoptee, whether or not they have faced the deep primal issues that the separtion and precieved abandonment of their natural mother has incurred, feels the deep inabilty of not being “good enough”. They were not good enough to be kept by their natural mothers, not really good enough to fir into the adoptive family, and hence not really good enough to parent their own child.
Anyway these are my ideas..what do you think? Anymore theories?
Apple’s birth mom is an adoptee. I really can’t speak for her since I have never discussed this specific issue with her. But I did read studies years ago-over a decade- that speculated adoptees who became birth mothers were doing it to identify with their own birth parent.
I do know she feels completely comfortable with her adoptive family as her family. I think she was probably more comfortable with adoption because of her own, she is very close to her parents and siblings.
She is in reunion (has been for over a decade) but doesn’t have really strong ties to her birth family.They are much more conservative than she is.
She grew up in a closed adoption- the birth family and her family both wanted it that way- and they really knew nothing of each other. She has told me she is happy with the open adoption because she and Apple won’t be trying to build this relationship as adults.
I can see it. My brother chooses not to meet me, nor does he choose to even acknowledge my existance. He was adopted by his step father and has yet to show any interest in finding or even talking about his natural father. I suspect that to acknowledge me is to acknowledge his own adoption as valid and important.
Also, interestingly enough I made choices that landed me in the very position my natural mother was in when I was conceived. More than once. I often wonder if I subconciously created those experiences so I could understand more clearly what E went through.
I think it’s entirely possible that we repeat history in a subconscious attempt to understand our past.
I believe that when adoption/relinquishment issues are unaddressed, the mind does what it needs to to resolve them – often without our permission.
It is only by luck and grace I didn’t end up in the same situation my natural mother did. In hindsight, I certainly tried to re-enact (my perception of) her experience.
But, I think it was less about trying to understand what she went through and more about trying to gain control of what I went through. Adoptees have no control at all over what happened to them. Perhaps in recreating the events as closely as possible, we are trying to gain it.
Have no theories just a couple of adopted friends who did get pregnant,while single. They both got married, had the baby, then later divorced.
Okay, they said they could NOT understand how their mother didn’t keep them. (Neither are in reunion.) I’ve told them they were fortunate they had supportive families, boyfriends and had they not they might well have relinguished.
They think I am an unsual bio mom and if their mothers were like me, they’d want a relationship. I tell them I am not an unusual bio mom but they don’t buy it.
Neither have searched, nor do they have non identifying info either. All they know is what their apars knew/told them .They are both in their late 40’s now. I don’t think they will ever go looking.
“I tell them I’m not an unusual bio mom, but they don’t buy it.”
That’s so sad.
Most adoptive parents think of their adopted children as their own, just as much as if they were blood. This is where many people fail to understand adoptive parents. As an adoptive parent, my grandchildren will be my grandchildren in every sense of the word, and I’d do everything in my power to stop my child from placing a child for adoption. After infertilty and adoption losses, losing a grandchild to adoption would just be too much to take. I don’t think many infertile people who went on to adopt could easily let a baby leave their family. So in fact, I would venture to guess that fewer adoptive grandparents than biological grandparents would encourage adoption.
I guess I can’t relate to part of what you said. Mainly because my family is a hodge podge of non-biologically related folks. My “father” is not my biodad and he treats me no different than his bio child, nor his grandchildren through me. He raised me and therefor I am his.
I see my son, the one we adopted, as my own child. Birth, biology or lack there of doesn’t change that. Whether he grows up and denies me later as his mother, I am still his mother. Nothing will ever change that. His children will be my grandchildren. They are a part of my heritage.
Now, I have two friends, both adoptees who are also birthmothers. One was definitely coerced into placing her child for adoption — though she definitely believes that her daughter is better off having been adopted. (my friend has mental illness and has spent a lot of time before and after in institutions) She is in a semi-open adoption, which becomes open when the birth child is 18. Last year, with my help, we were able to locate her birthmother and birthfather. Her birthmother placed in a time when a lot of birthmothers were coerced, however she was not, she freely placed her fourth child for adoption. There were a lot of reasons for wanting to place and my friend has made peace with her birthmother, and has been working on a relationship with her. There adoption situations and why they placed are so very different.
Another friend who placed that is also an adoptee, pretty much placed for the same reasons her birthmother did. They both were single parents, struggling to make it with unsupportive partners and were against abortion yet didn’t want to parent anymore children.
Both of my friends that are adoptees/birthmothers both were parented in very good homes free of abuse and that provided love and materialistic wealth. They also were parented with other children that were adopted as well. Adoption was widely accepted as a way to build a familiy. Both of these friends chose adoptive parents from profiles much similar to their own family backgrounds which I found very interesting.
yup, yup and yup –
those are all things i felt/went through as an adoptee considering relinquishment.
I don’t really have anything to add to that.
Anonymous,
What do you think about adoptees as GRANDPARENTS and their feelings about losing potential grandchildren to adoption?
Adoption has hit almost every family I know. I say “hit” as in being a huge part of his/her family structure. Say you were a biological parent; what would you say to yourself when faced with what *these women* face? You say as an adoptive parent, you see these children as *your own* in every sense of the word.
Would you be able to look at a woman about to place and tell her that these children are hers “in every sense of the word.”
what if you were pregnant, single and unsure of your future? What if you were NOT an adoptive parent, but a woman pregnant and in crisis (or not)????
Where is the fine line???? I am sorry to say, but I see adoption as one woman’s hopes based on another woman’s weakness and lack of believing she can do it. If you believe that adopted children are “just like your blood,” then how would you counsel a woman who is giving her blood to strangers.
and would you do the same if you were pregnant, considering adoption, unsure of herself and her life.