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| Lorraine |
Through major sleuthing, and sending flowers to the people whom she knew had the information, my friend was able to learn the mother's name. Now she applied to every single state for the
woman's death record. None was found. My new friend was pregnant at the time, and, out of nowhere, the man wanted to name the girl (female on the way) Naomi. The wife through it was strange, but went along with it. Eventually, my friend and her husband were able to pry the woman's last address out of the records (more flowers and fruit baskets). Now my friend used the old-fashioned gumshoe strategy. She went door-to-door in the last known neighborhood of the woman in Harlem, where she eventually found the widow of her husband's grandfather. That led in swift time to his mother, who was in the hospital. Drugs had been a lifelong issue.
THE THINGS YOU LEARN WHEN YOU LISTEN
Name: Naomi, of course. They found my friend's mother in October, helped her in and out of the hospital. She died in March...the day the little Naomi was born. The mother said she never forgot her son, she was fourteen at the time he was born, she thought of him often. The husband is at greater peace than his wife has known. Though he did not talk about it much, she knew how much he wanted to know his story, and meet his mother. It's not a fairy tale ending, his relationships with his siblings are somewhat fractured, but he knows now who he is.
Since first nurse tells second nurse my story (which I had shared with her tout de suite)...another nurse makes her way to me. She has two adopted children, ages six and eight.
Uh huh, I say, revealing nothing.
Adopted from Guatemala.
Oh, huh, I think. Not good.
She had spent several years trying every possible means to get pregnant, she says, starting in her mid-thirties. None worked. One day she received a phone call from someone she did not know, asking if she would be interested in adopting from Guatemala. The woman gave her the name of an adoption lawyer who helped couples adopted from Guatemala. The lawyer and his wife and their "adopted" son (yeah, right, I was thinking) had started an adoption agency to help everyone--both infertile people who could afford their fees, and the suffering, over-burdened mothers, unable to care for their children in a poor country. The nurse said without much fuss, they were able to adopt their first child. It all worked out so well, they went back for another child two years later. All is well.
I did not tell her that the unknown person who got her name and phoned her out of the blue almost certainly got her contact information from someone at the infertility clinic, who was paid to supply a list of possible clients. Nor did I tell her that the happy adopted family she met was almost certainly not a "family" in the way that we think of them, and that the son was most likely an employee, paid to pose as a "son."Nor did I tell her Guatemala has one of the worst records of corruption in adoption and that it has been documented by the Guatemalan government itself. Although her children were not adopted during the worst years of the civil war in Guatemala, or the years that the government investigated for corruption, her children very likely were kidnapped, or the first/birth mother tricked, and the paperwork forged.
I did not point out that the story of the corruption of Guatemala adoptions received scant media attention in this country, or ask if she had ever heard of the scandals in inter-country adoptions. She was the nursing supervisor. I was a patient.
I was glad when another matter called her away.
THE HOMING INSTINCT IS INNATE
And while in the hospital: I read this in the New York Times Book Review: "For blackcap warblers, the direction of migration is clearly innate, so crossbreeding a group of blackcaps who flew south for all migration with a group that orients westward results in offspring who flew in a southwesterly direction." What is innate, what is learned? To learn what does not come naturally one must first wipe away what is innate, and try to conform to one's surroundings. I remembered my daughter being told that her step when she went up the stairs was too loud. Jane, she said she repeatedly was asked: can't you just walk quieter?
Not really, she should have said. Instead, she tried to comply. Years later she said she knew she was home when Tony, my husband, said to her after she climbed the stairs at my house: "You have a step just like Lorraine."
Of course, life is complicated, we humans have the gift and the burden of consciousness, our first home is not always a welcoming place, but the desire to find peace there when possible springs from deep within us. I am thinking of Robert Frost's poem, "The Death of the Hired Man" and this line: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. --lorraine
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*Apparently, such longterm payments for foster care, when the mother has released the child for adoption, are no longer possible in the state of New York. After a year, if the child is available to be adopted, the family or caretaker must adopt the child or he will be removed from that home, and placed in another. On the positive side, states now pay subsidies and continue medical coverage for children to parents who adopt children form foster care and need some financial help. These subsidies typically go to foster parents who adopt children in their care or to biological relatives.
Source
'The Thing With Feathers' and 'The Homing Instinct'
From FMF
Guatemalan Army Stole Kids for Adoption
Kidnapped in Guatemala, 'adopted' in America
Abuse in International Adoption, Part 2 with new commentary
The Child Catchers exposes the stench of international adoption--and domestic adoption too
Recommended Reading
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self (Anchor Book)
By adoptive father David Brodzinsky, PhD.: Marshall Schecthter, M.D., who was married to an adoptee and the writer Robin Marantz, who crafted their thoughts in readable language.
Yes, I know it is from 1993, but it filled with truths and insights. It helped me understand my daughter better. I gave it to a teenage neighbor of ours who was adopted; she found it amazing and gave it to her best friend--also adopted. It's not long but rich with answers to persistent questions adoptees will have throughout their lives. All members of the adoption triangle will learn from this.
The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration
by Bernd Heinrich
"Naturalist Heinrich (Life Everlasting, 2012) returns with another richly crafted title that immerses readers in the wild world. In this outing he focuses on the mysteries of migration and the homing instinct while also delving into the personal story of his own Maine home. From such expected migrators as birds and butterflies to moths, eels, and grasshoppers, Heinrich’s elegant passages (with line drawings) wander in and out of discussions on long travels, dwelling construction (bees are primary players), and “home crashers,” which include bed bugs and other pests. His trademark wit and self-deprecating humor are evident throughout, especially in a delightful chapter highlighting the intricate web building and preservation of a spider he rightfully dubs Charlotte. The many small illustrations of easily overlooked creatures combine to bring a story of life into focus. Whether in Alaska for the annual return of a pair of sandhill cranes or researching the lives of his land’s previous owners, Heinrich doesn’t lose sight of his goal—to understand why creatures great and small all long for a return to home." --Colleen Mondor at Booklist
As a person whose child rejects them repeatedly, I don't know about "home" for her. I can't imagine you can come to some place, feel that innate resting that seems to be part and parcel of being home, then walk away from it for no reason. I think that it is a ghostly desire that will never be fulfilled because there is no real understanding of the concept "belonging to" or "part of" in the adopted persons life. Just a theory in the works.
ReplyDeleteFourteen... that hurts my heart. What a heavy load for such a young woman to carry. I do wonder if the foster parents knew either way? I'm glad for him that he found the truth, but sorry that it was kept from him for so long.
ReplyDeleteWe know someone from Guatemala, and I have her personal, first-hand accounts of much of the horrific history. She confirmed for me that indeed children were kidnapped from their mothers, and we talked some about it. This was after I had decided that we would never adopt internationally because of the rampant corruption and extreme difficulty in being 100% certain the child is truly an orphan. I know several people who have adopted internationally; like you, I keep my mouth shut. A person must have his or her head in the sand to not know of the problems in this day and age of the internet.
I hope you are recovering well. I did see your update posted. Many healing thoughts and prayers sent your way.
When others find out of my involvement in adoption they want to tell me their stories. They are almost all about how adoption is so wonderful. They assume my experience is positive, as well. I usually just say, "uh huh" and go about my day. I know I will not change their minds about anything. It's an exercise in futility.
ReplyDeleteI think it does change things, even if it's just one sentence that contradicts the generally accepted adoption goo.
DeleteI think, by suggesting that there is another possibility behind the adoption-is-so-wonderful storyline, that it opens the door a tiny crack and make the real experience visible. Many won't want to see it but some will. Some will walk right in.
I completely understand how painful it is to face the giddy ignorance of others repeatedly, especially when you feel so raw. But sometimes, a little phrase contradicting an accepted view of adoption can shift perception.
But the views of the people close to me have been entirely changed by what I've said about adoption - they've said so.
Kellie C: I must admit that if I am in a position to say something --I did not honestly know what to say to the nurse with the 2 kids from Guatemala--I indicate that it was a less than positive experience at least. And probably your lack of enthusiasm gives off the same vibe. I have said to people: It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. You don't get over it. .....
DeleteI wonder why in the world people would be so clueless as to think that giving up a child is part of their wonderful experience. Ask them if they would like their daughters to grow up to be someone who gave up a baby.
Not bloody likely.
Oh welcome back Lorraine!
ReplyDelete''... the happy adopted family she met was almost certainly not a "family" in the way that we think of them, and that the son was most likely an employee, paid to pose as a "son...."
I know it's not the same, but when I wavered about having my son adopted, my social worker's office, which I was invited to, miraculously contained a deliriously happy adoptive mother and a be-ribboned, beaming little girl. I was thanked a million times for what I was going to do, and told repeatedly how happy both she and the little girl were. It was advert land.
Cherry:
DeleteYikes. That sounds so fucking heartless and cruel. But to change that selfish, egocentric way of thinking, we mothers who have come out to the other side must speak up. The thank yous must have been awful. Thank you for cutting off your blood supply....
I didn't register it as anything other than coincidental at the time.
DeleteIt was only when I read my diary covering that period that I saw what happened every time I expressed a doubt about my son's adoption. Events such as these arose, miraculously.
It seems fairly clear to me now that it was probably staged, to keep the pressure up on me. I think the woman and child were real, but their presence in the room at the same time as me was planned, I'm fairly sure.
The thanks would not have persuaded me in themselves. It was the physical performance of the better life, right in front of my eyes, that was effective. It was autumn, I lived in a very rainy city, and I used public transport to get everywhere. So I would've probably been a bedraggled pregnant 16 year old, being dazzled by the advert happy family in front of me. On their own, these things were just manipulative. All together though, they were very powerful.
Hi Cherry: My adoptive parents and I could have been that delirious family you met in the social worker's office. If nothing else, I was always dressed to perfection, hair curled, wearing my little charm bracelet, carrying a doll or toy that would make other children jealous. This was my a-mother's way of trying to show love, I guess. It was really just a giant game of pretend.
ReplyDeleteLike I have said, the entire world thought we were the American Dream. And that I was the luckiest kid in the world.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And there are many people who still think so, my adoptive parents certainly among them. They are so out of touch with who I really am (and they always were) that I don't know whether to be really angry, or feel sorry for them. They're in dreamland. Adoption seems to do that to people.
Thank you, Julia Emily, for your post.
DeleteAnd Lorraine, so glad you are recovering well!
Julia Emily, you express yourself so well.
DeleteGlad your surgery went well and you're recovering. I'm intrigued by the story of the southwest flying birds. Is that true?
ReplyDeleteAnojnymous: That sentence came directly from the book review. I am certain it came from the book, most likely the one that I posted. The review was of two books about birds. I want to get the one above. I found that sentence so intriguing.
DeletePS: PLEASE CHOOSE A NAME. SEE COMMENT NOTES.
DeleteStories and the way narratives are formed interest me. Several things come to mind after reading your post.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading earlier posts of yours, I understand you share your own adoption story. So, it’s not surprising you would do so during a hospital stay.
What is surprising, at least to me, is that the night nurse you chose to share your story with relayed it to another nurse. That nurse, the one who adopted from Guatemala, was the supervisor.
At the least, that’s workplace gossip. But this workplace is a hospital, and you’re a patient. Aren’t you entitled to some confidentiality during your care? Privacy? Or, at the very least, an opportunity to tell your own story to whomever is treating you?
Something else: notice how you framed the narrative regarding the search for “Naomi” and the subsequent story of the nurse with the Guatemalan adoptions. The first nurse, the one with whom you “bonded,” searches for her husband’s birth/original mother. She’s “sleuthing” and sends flowers for information, she also “prys” the birth mother’s (Naomi’s) address from records with fruit baskets and more flowers. This is presented akin to a mystery (“sleuthing,” and the “gumshoe” method) while the Guatemalan/nurse story has someone at an infertility clinic who is probably “paid” for contact information for the infertile nurse who yearns for a child. Both stories have unethical elements, but flowers and fruit baskets are more palatable than cold, hard cash for intel on a potential baby sale.
The “Naomi” story has a bittersweet ending of death and rebirth on a shared day. It’s warm, and there’s resolution. The Guatemalan story, however, has an open ending. You don’t venture there, not telling the nurse that the children she adopted may have been stolen from some other mother. You, and she, are not ready for that story’s telling and its consequence.
Warmth and flowers versus cold as a metal filing cabinet filled with the names of potential clients.
Maybe it’s a case of justification: when we want to find a birth mother’s name or address, bribery is justified because the want is personal. An infertility clinic that wants a new customer and resorts to a cash payment is unethical and crass. It goes back to the framing of the narrative.
What if? What if the mother, Naomi, did not want to be found? What if all those flowers, fruit baskets, peeks into confidential records and treks through the neighborhood had resulted in an invasion of privacy? That would have made an entirely different story. What if the night nurse with the Guatemalan children realized they had been stolen from their parents and went along withe the subterfuge anyway?
Also, the story of Naomi the birth mother dying on the day of her granddaughter Little Naomi’s birth is fantastic. So fantastic it almost strains credulity. But what it does as a story element is provide a payoff for the “coming home” theme. It almost sounds like one of those wonderful adoption stories of now “complete” families and children “rescued” from a life of poverty and/or neglect.
“The things you learn when you listen.” Or, when you read. There’s an innate desire to present our stories, our causes, and ourselves in the most flattering, or at least, most understanding light. Many times, we need our stories, just the way we’ve constructed them, with no challenges. The nurse who adopted from Guatemala needed her adoption story to be happy. The nurse who shared her husband’s story needed to tell it with a psychic twist. I suspect that particular story has been retold many times, with embellishment along the way. Such is the way of stories. And people.
The question is how can the adoption narrative be reframed, so that it is not one of angels and demons, with savior families cast as angels and the original parents who give their children away cast as demons? That’s a narrative waiting in the wings.
If only changing the world were as simple as reframing the narrative. It's a neatly executed rhetorical device, Muggery Pope, but it doesn't net the desired end goal.
DeleteAdoptive families aren't all saviors and original parents aren't all demons. Granted.
Adoption narratives are complicated and knotty and bloody.
No, they don't always dovetail as neatly as the one that Lorraine shared; sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.
The real issues are control of power and money, not narratives, when we look behind the curtain: rhetoric is how the inequalities are proposed for mass consumption, or to be reclaimed by those who tell their stories. Usually those whose stories don't match the dominant narrative are shamed when they question that power structure (that's the best case scenario).
Yes, there's a narrative "waiting in the wings." There always is. How about thinking in the plural? Even better: consider the considerable political legwork that has to happen so that those narratives are no longer belittled or toyed with, as happens here.
Let's stop with the shaming (of both mothers and adoptees) and get adoptees their OBCs. It's way beyond time to stop treating adoptees as second-class citizens.
As long as the law seals the records, it is as unjust as the laws that legalized slavery. Today we recognize that the people who helped slaves escape as heroes. Sag Harbor where I live was a stop on the underground railroad, and I'm proud that it is, even though I had nothing to do with that except choose this as a place to live. Yes, that is how the story is framed--perhaps bending the law because most of the conscious world knows sealing birth certificates is WRONG--as WRONG and unjust as slavery.
DeleteLook, once you write a memoir about giving up a child, once have been on Good Morning America and a dozen other national television and radio shows talking about giving up a child for adoption, as I have, I do not expect privacy on this issue. The nurse and I have become personal friends, and I had my husband bring a copy of Birthmark to the hospital so I could give it to her. Our meeting was one of those magical moments--I did not share even how we got to the subject of her husband which was a connection that had nothing to do with adoption, but other synchronicities in our lives. The other nurse probably saw the book at the nursing station. My name is on the cover. It is about adoption.
And yes, I frame the story on the side of how to achieve some justice for the individual who was lied to about his mother.
What if his mother didn't want to be found, you ask? The information regarding birth between mother and child is not private to each of them. No one should be denied an ancestry because someone might be embarrassed.
Sorry, you intellectual assumptions are covered with false ideas about right and wrong. Sometimes, there is no right, and that is the case with sealed records.
I gave the nurse--who has become a personal friend, BTW, outside of the hospital--a copy of Birthmark. She had it at the nursing station. I think the connection stemmed from that.
Hmm not so hard muggery pope...keep the narratuve where it should be, the narrative of the person adopted. Their story, their needs as spoken BY them. Not so hard to believe what the needs are and whose story or narrative is the most important.
ReplyDeleteWhat a story. I am always amazed by the stories others tell. I would have handled the nursing supervisor the same way, I think. My heart just explodes when someone says something like "Oh we send money to our child's birthmother in Guatemala every year." This is something that was actually said to me. I was so stunned I couldn't respond. I hope someday I will know exactly what to say.
ReplyDeleteI never know what to say to people anymore. I have discovered that if they are determined to be adopters, they will be. Even if they know the mother wanted the child, the child was stolen or any of the other horrific things that happened.
ReplyDeleteFor Muggery Pope, if you heard my story you would think it was made up. It isn't.... a lot of people do assume things about adoption, even from foster care, that is not even remotely true. Sometimes, as dpen says, you have to let the narrative be where it belongs. However, each person, whether mother, adoptee or adopters have their own narrative - no one owns the whole story. Only their own part in the story.
'...each person, whether mother, adoptee or adopters have their own narrative - no one owns the whole story. Only their own part in the story.'
DeleteI agree with this.
My biological mother wanted to have an abortion when it was illegal in the US. She went to Puerto Rico to a posh clinic catered to US women. The doctor in charge told her she was too far along and persuaded her to return at 7 months pregnant saying he would take care of the child. She returned to PR with her lawyer and had a c-section. After recovery she left me there, in PR and returned to NY, where she lived at the time. She was originally from Washington and my biological dad never knew she had been pregnant. He was from Arkansas. They had a 2 year love affair, she was still married and was in the process of getting divorced when she got pregnant. He had gone back to Arkansas for a job and when he returned to NY, she was gone.
ReplyDeleteI was given (no legal adoption papers) to the doctor's wife's brother. A couple in their early 30's that had lost 2 babies due to a bad kidney. They took me home after I had been in an incubator for a month. They raised me as their own. Never told me I was "adopted".
I looked different, I was tall and light skinned but they had several family members that were too, cousins of mine, so I blended as well as I could.
Growing up I always felt different. I was a quiet girl, I loved to read and I excelled in learning English at school. I became great at everything I wanted to do, it would please them and I was obedient and well mannered. My Mom worked as a teacher and my Dad was a lawyer. They had a good friend and neighbor watch me from infancy till I was 11 years old. Her name was Jenny. To them she was my nanny. Yet, she was like a mother to me. She loved me so much! She would rock me to sleep and take me with her places and treated me like her own child.
One day I got the worst news! Jenny, had been killed by a drunk driver, as she walked to her home with groceries. That was the worst day of my life! A part of me died that day with her. I lived my life from then on as a lost child. This loss had awakened a deeper primal wound, which had always been there.
I made it through the following years, went to college, pursued a career in modeling and acting and moved to California. In 1993 a 90 year old aunt in California, made a comment to me in regards to my adoption that and it blew my mind!
Here I was in my 20's and just then finding out. I told my parents and they finally told me the truth. I then started searching for my biological mother. I had no information, she had left the wrong name at the clinic, which by then had closed. It all seemed so futile. Everyone told me there was NO HOPE.
I searched for her for 21 years. In January 2013 after a DNA test at ancestry,com I found my biological dad. He told me about my mother and that I had an older half brother. I found him on Facebook. He then told me our mother has died of cancer in 1980 .
Since then, I have reunited with my father and my brother and many cousins! Everyone has been so wonderful to me. They say I remind them of my mother Caroline. She had been a model and beauty queen herself. We have the same features and they say she would have been so proud of me.
A cousin said that when she gave birth to her baby girl, my mother Caroline would hold her for the longest time and once told her the baby reminded her of her daughter, the one she had lost. My cousin thought she meant miscarried, and never thought about it for years, until she met me. Caroline took the Secret of my birth to her grave, she wad only 45 when she died.
I always felt protected, like someone was watching over me. I always thought it was my Jenny, but now I know it was also my Mom.
I send you all heartfelt good wishes and KNOW that LOVE goes beyond circumstances and thoughts or opinions, you can always send your love, no matter the circumstances.~
Carla: I got 2/3rds of the way through your story when I burst out in tears. I too tried to get an abortion in Puerto Rico in 1966 and I also was too far along. I returned to Rochester, NY when I had my baby in secret--no family member knew--and gave her up for adoption there. As you may know, we were reunited in 1981.
DeleteYour story will help others have the courage to look for the answers that are always there. It is wonderful that you were able to reunite with your father and siblings. Yes, you/we can always send love, no matter the circumstances. Thanks so much for writing your story here.
ABSOLUTELY BLESS YOUR HEART Carla.
DeleteThank you so much for your kindness and warmth. How lovely you are.
Carla:
DeleteAs an adoptee I will NEVER understand how an adoptee can "hate adoption and all they have lost but forgive the birthparents ( even when they didn't want the child, tried to have an abortion and were too far along, or had a c-section and left the baby in the hospital)? I am 46 years old and my bparents were young teens who were to young to take of themselves much-less a child. But in cases such as yours, your bmom was a "grown woman with a child already" what makes you think she wanted you in the first place? It always amazes me when a woman who is a mother already or a grown woman with a college degree ( regardless of societal times) will put her child up for adoption because she don't want the burden of raising the child as a single parent or doesn't want another mouth the feed, is held in high revere, but the aparents are vilified because they stepped to the plate and did what the birthparents didn't want to do or could not do.
Mya: It is hard for someone who was born back then to understand what it was like back then. It's malarkey that any woman who gives up a child for whatever reason is "held in high regard." That's AP and agency BS but the world knows it is not like that.
DeleteLorraine:
DeleteI am talking about here on this website and others. I've read too many stories of adoptees finding out their birth stories ( the examples I mentioned above) and not be critized for what they done. But when it comes to the APs, they are vilified because all they wanted to be were parents. Now, I'm not talking about adoptees who had bad parents but the very same ones that will say" " I lost my history, family and roots" even though the bmom had a child already and placed them, or the bparent were married to different people and placed the child for adoption or/and the bmom wanted to put her career /life first. I havae yet to see anyone call her
( bmom) out on her in HUGE part of placing her child. Instead it seems she's given a free pass in the adoption world.
I understand--somewhat--of what you say, but I think people personally feel differently, they just don't say it to the first mother's face, or they understand the terrible pressures that come to bear with the responsibilities of a child, and accept that.
DeleteHowever, today, there is a new strain of BS making the airwaves: What a beautiful thing you did by giving your child to a childless couple! What a brave person you are! What a wonderful gift you gave! What a "hero" you are to us. They try to make the mother feel "good" about her "selfless" act. In some respects, the attitude I had from my social worker--who I think would have cheered if Patrick had married me then, let me keep the baby--was that my relinquishing her was a deep personal tragedy. It was then, it was later, it is for every woman. And Child.
And this is the most invidious BS of all.
Also: At First Mother Forum we are critical of very very few women who relinquish their children. We understand that despite the circumstances, giving up a child is almost always an act of desperation. About women like Megan MacCathy and others of her ilk (we wrote about a lawyer a year or two ago but can't find the blog, don't remember her name, she wrote about her decision for a national magazine), we are not so sympathetic.
DeleteNor do we believe that any mother has the right to refuse to let her child know his original heritage. No one has the right to steal another ancestry--and least of all, the original mother!
I'm on a crusade to get people to read Kathryn Joyce's The Child Catchers, her investigation of the evangelical push for adoption--all adoption, but especially in Africa these days, much of Asia and Latin America having woken up to the rampant corruption in international adoption. I used to wonder why people didn't adopt from Africa. Now I realize adoptive parents were just waiting to get to the bottom of the barrel, as it were. That sounds horrible, I know, but when people want babies they will go to any lengths to get them--lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes. Now that African babies are about all that's left, it's suddenly become a virtue to have the darkest child you can get. The cynicism and selfishness make my head spin.
ReplyDeleteAs we have earlier written:
ReplyDeleteThe Child Catchers exposes the stench of international adoption--and domestic adoption too
Mya: I don't know how, as an adoptee, you can post what you have here. I am going to leave the commenting to Lorraine and others, because I am so dumbfounded, and angry, at your views I am afraid of what I might say.
ReplyDeleteMaya: We and most people assume that NEARLY ALL MOTHERS want to keep their children. And that giving up a child is not done with no feeling, the way you seem to think it is. As individuals, we rarely act totally of our own volition, without society's pressure influencing--or directing--our actions.
ReplyDeletePlease respond: what is your connection to adoption? Let us at least assume that you are not a first mother. You haven't stated why you are reading this blog. Are you an adoptee?
Your name brings up a young woman with a child on Facebook.
Lorraine:
DeleteAs I stated before I am an adoptee. I was born in 1967 to birthparents ( 17 & 19 years old)who were too young to take care of themselves let alone a child, and I understand that. To this day I have a wonderful relationship with them and they are part of my family which includes my aparents ( mom & dad) and my children. I think the main reason why I have a good relationship with them is because I understand that they were young and without support. However, if I found out that my bmom was a grown women, had a child already and placed me, or I was the result of an illicit affair between one or two married people I can honestly say I would not have a relationship with them. Because to me, and just me, it would seem they did not want the burden of raising a child.
Gosh, Mya, I am really glad my daughter did not feel that way.
ReplyDelete