How often do you think about your adopted child's birthparents and do you think of yourself as part of an "Adoption Tria (orphanage, children)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We have no idea. We don't care to find out either. If they are any they live in Korea. They have their families. Our daughter isn't interested and knowing my daughter the way she is, she will never seek anything like that.She has asked if we would protect her when she was younger, and we promised that if that ever happened, we would. She does not have to meet anyone that she does not want.
When people go on these reunion searches, they have to be aware that the other people may not be looking for you. In fact, they might be dreading you.
And that is something that most adoptees I know keep in mind when they are thinking of making contact. One should be respectful when attempting to make contact. In countries with open records such as the ones I was born and now live in, those parents and children can put vetos on so that the relatives can't make direct contact.
Quote:
All people must try to make peace with the circumstances of their birth if they are to be happy adults.
That is why I am a happy adult as I have made peace with my situation - making contact with the extended family has also helped to put things into context. I am a basically happy person so probably would have been OK without contact but, again, am happy that I did so. I like to think my bfamily are happy to know me too. If they had said "Get Lost", I would have "got lost" and not given it another thought (except to ask them about medical history for obvious reasons).
I do wonder whether those people who actually DREAD contact have truly made peace with the circumstances of their birth - one would think that a more natural reaction would be INDIFFERENCE, eg "relatives want contact?" "Meh, not interested" rather than "OMG THEY WANT CONTACT - RUN FOR THE HILLS". "Birth People" aren't boogeymen, you know - or perhaps they are in your household? I am just imagining the bedtime stories: "And the Birth People came and took her away and she was never seen again, cackle, cackle cackle".
Quote:
Two of my siblings are unhappy because they keep trying to make my father and his wife into loving, doting parents of adult children and good grandparents. ( my mother died when we were in our teens early 20s)
They are not. That is it. I don't go looking to them if I need help of any sort. They are not there and they never will be. It's the fact. So I have made peace with it. My children will not ever have grandparents at that is the way it is.
Not sure what that has to do with adoptees reuniting with biological family members?
Quote:
We have know idea about 1/2 sibs of my daughter. We like it this way.
Other people have met and love their biological siblings and they love it that way. So EACH TO THEIR OWN.
We are not part of an Adoption Constellation either. We just have a regular family and we prefer it that way.
Why would she dread it? Because she intensely private and as my wife said, it would pretty much be contrary to her personality to want any sort of a reunion or strangers barging into her life. It is consistent with her personality. We are not very interested in our extended families either and we are pretty formal with neighbors.
What my wife wrote has a lot to do with being content with the idea of being OK with the cards you are dealt in life. I don't like my brother or his children and I'm not too interested in my extended family. Do I wish it was one big happy family? Not really. I've gotten over it.
Finding my daughter would be almost impossible anyway given the adoption because it is closed. That's why we did not cheese a domestic adoption and never would.
We didn't want to be a part of a reunion or a constellation.
No one in our family worries about the woman who gave our daughter up for adoption or thinks about it or possible siblings or any of that. We are not a social service organiztion. It isn't our business or responsibility.
Last edited by warren zee; 01-21-2013 at 09:45 PM..
We are not part of an Adoption Constellation either. We just have a regular family and we prefer it that way.
Why would she dread it? Because she intensely private and as my wife said, it would pretty much be contrary to her personality to want any sort of a reunion or strangers barging into her life. It is consistent with her personality. We are not very interested in our extended families either and we are pretty formal with neighbors.
It would be almost impossible anyway given the adoption because it is closed. That's why we did not cheese a domestic adoption and never would.
Dread - To anticipate with great apprehension or fear
Warren, me mate - haven't seen you around for a while - welcome back.
But why "Dread"? Why not just feel a lack of interest?
Btw I am intensely private too - and believe me that is the truth - however, I would not consider it healthy to "Dread" anything. I am sure that if my bmom had wanted to contact me out of the blue, I may have felt trepidation about what such a relationship might involve - I also felt trepidation about making contact but "DREAD"? That, to me, is a more pathological emotion.
You know, years ago, I did feel "Dread" about being contacted by an ex-friend - however, I realised that I needed to overcome that "dread" and now it wouldn't bother me if that friend contacted me or not as I have overcome those fears.
It is sad to me that a 16 year would feel dread about anything. I really hope that no-one has been feeding those fears.
I have worked with a lot of young women who gave up children for adoption, and while I don't have statistics on this, it seems to me the happiest ones, gave the baby up, and moved forward with their lives. The most unhappy ones, were the women who were involved with "open" adoptions, with pictures of "their baby", always showing it to others, and just not moving forward in their lives. An ongoing cycle of drama. Those girls usually got pregnant again. Same problems.
Just my .02 cents. Worked in a residential treatment center for pregnant women, for years, part time.
I have worked with a lot of young women who gave up children for adoption, and while I don't have statistics on this, it seems to me the happiest ones, gave the baby up, and moved forward with their lives. The most unhappy ones, were the women who were involved with "open" adoptions, with pictures of "their baby", always showing it to others, and just not moving forward in their lives. An ongoing cycle of drama. Those girls usually got pregnant again. Same problems.
Just my .02 cents. Worked in a residential treatment center for pregnant women, for years, part time.
Your anecdotal evidence (always something to take with a huge grain of salt) goes contrary to every statistic and professional out there. The large movement towards openness has been in part to decrease problems for the adopted child, and we have seen that it only increases the mental health of the birth mom
Quote:
Birth mothers in open and ongoing mediated adoptions do NOT have more problems with grief resolution; indeed, they show better grief resolution than those in closed adoptions. Researchers did find that birth mothers in time-limited mediated adoptions (where contact stopped) had more difficulty resolving grief at the first interview of the study (when the children were between 4 and 12 years old).
I have seen zero research or documentation to support your statement, and everything I've personally read by birth mothers is also contrary.
Most women report being unable to just move on and forget about their child. This is what mothers were told during the Baby Scoop Era. It was cruel and unfeeling, and, for most women, completely impossible.
In the cases you cite (teens in residential treatment) I would highly suspect additional causes were at work in why they got pregnant again besides having an open or semi open adoption.
I have worked with a lot of young women who gave up children for adoption, and while I don't have statistics on this, it seems to me the happiest ones, gave the baby up, and moved forward with their lives. The most unhappy ones, were the women who were involved with "open" adoptions, with pictures of "their baby", always showing it to others, and just not moving forward in their lives. An ongoing cycle of drama. Those girls usually got pregnant again. Same problems.
Just my .02 cents. Worked in a residential treatment center for pregnant women, for years, part time.
I take it all the above women had a choice of closed or open.
I think this is because many women who opt for open adoption are often making a compromise - they probably wouldn't have placed if open adoption hadn't been offered as a compromise. They then realise reality is not what they hoped and that the compromise was not worth making. Some very open adoptions seem to work very well, i.e. the ones where the bmom is like an extended member of the family, but the less open ones, eg twice a year visits, not so much - it can be like a bandaid torn off them every time they visit.
Really, open adoption should not be used by counsellors as a hook to get women in.
"their baby",
It is still their baby just as it is the adoptive parents baby.
We have a very different situation. Our adopted son died in a car accident 11 years ago. We met his birthmother and half-sister and half-brother this past year. We have established a close relationship and consider each other "second family." That may seem odd to some but we both feel connected to each other because of our connection with "him." It 's a very unique situation but I think meeting and knowing each other has been healing for both of us.
We have a very different situation. Our adopted son died in a car accident 11 years ago. We met his birthmother and half-sister and half-brother this past year. We have established a close relationship and consider each other "second family." That may seem odd to some but we both feel connected to each other because of our connection with "him." It 's a very unique situation but I think meeting and knowing each other has been healing for both of us.
I'm sorry about your son, Kaykay, what a dreadful thing to happen. (((Kaykay)))
Though my situation is totally different, I am "getting to know" my bmother (who died aged 39) through my relatives - I feel connected to them not just because they are my relatives but because they are my bmom's relatives - if that makes sense. I sort of like it when they refer to my bmom as their sister or their aunt because it gives me context of her as a person in other people's lives.
My cousin has also said that she feels that she thinks my uncles feel like I am like a link to their sister they didn't know they had. I am the only living child she ever had. I apparently do also resemble her (and my grandmother) to some extent.
I have worked with a lot of young women who gave up children for adoption, and while I don't have statistics on this, it seems to me the happiest ones, gave the baby up, and moved forward with their lives. The most unhappy ones, were the women who were involved with "open" adoptions, with pictures of "their baby", always showing it to others, and just not moving forward in their lives. An ongoing cycle of drama. Those girls usually got pregnant again. Same problems.
Just my .02 cents. Worked in a residential treatment center for pregnant women, for years, part time.
Agreed. Calling it "their baby" seems almost delusional. And the ones that I have encountered do seem to seek to repeat the situation via another pregnancy. Very sad.
I know a lot of adoptive parents who do think of the birth parents. Why? Most of these birth parents loved their children but could not raise them due to the children having Down Syndrome or other special needs.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
