Are adoptees emotionally connected to or detached from their biological/birth parents?

Lorraine

The question of connection between natural parents and their offspring emerges increasingly as DNA provides the links to family members who were not raised in that family. Some adopted individuals--and especially those who have been searching for their kin--are likely to feel a strong pull to their blood relatives, mother and father included. But not all adoptees feel this way. For some the disconnection may last, especially if social standing and education and religious beliefs are strongly divergent from one another. For some, the feelings of connection are likely to change over time, from cool to engaged to warm.
 

Reunion is so damn tricky. But not all searches end with accepting, relieved, tearful mothers and happy, embracing fathers. A famous film and stage personality older than me has refused several entreaties (without direct contact) from a daughter--who looks a lot like her. So I wonder, did the letters and flowers sent by her daughter actually get to her mother? You can see why I believe that a phone call is always the best. That way you know that person you are seeking is on the line. 

But I digress. The other day we got a lengthy comment--two actually--from an man who posted at a blog from 2010--that asked if all adoptees felt a connection to their biological parents. He said he was an only child, had a good life with his parents who made a lot of sacrifices for him; his adoptive mother is deceased, but his father is not, and he calls him every night. He is undecided over whether to contact the woman that he is almost sure is his biological mother. If he does, it will be only because, he wrote, "my wife and her friend thought that my birth mother might want to know that everything turned out OK.... The main thing for me, I never want to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want my parents to feel like they weren't enough, and I'm searching for a replacement for them; and I don't want to pour salt on a wound for my birth mother or surprise my birth father, who in all likelihood may not even know I exist." --Hank

This last comment caught my attention because one of the last people to leave a comment at the previous post was a man who had been contacted (because of DNA testing) by a daughter he never knew he had. 

Reunion is such a long strange journey for many. Some adoptees go into it excited and ready to establish a connection, others are more wary, and stay distant; others find that their feelings evolve and change over time, or change immediately, especially if they are girding themselves for feeling little or nothing, but find emotions tumbling out they did not know existed.

My daughter at 15 was primed to meet me, and had already told her adoptive parents of her desire to search for me one day. In our first phone conversation--before she knew I was a writer and journalist, she said she wanted to be a journalist when she grew up. Since both her natural father and I were newspaper reporters, it was both thrilling and affirmative to hear her say that. 

While our initial relationship was warm, over the quarter of a century we were reunited, we certainly had our ups and downs. Knowing what I understand now, many of my daughter's rejections were based on the fact that her adoptive mother's growing hatred of me, as well as the woman's Alzheimer's which brought that to the unfiltered forefront, and my daughter's need to prove to her that she, our shared daughter, was worthy of her adoptive mother's love. 

After one lengthy period when my daughter was not open to contact, did not return phone calls, refused a letter, I let it be. I let her birthday pass for the first time since we had been reunited twenty years earlier with sending her a greeting or calling. When called out of the blue a few months later, she began the conversation with How are you?, as if there had been no break at all. In fact, we both said it those words in unison. First and foremost, she was my daughter. 

I am remembering now as I write one of our last conversations. "You are my true family, I see that now," she said. I don't miss her rejections, her lengthy silences, but I think about the good times and miss her still, ten years after her death. 

My point today is that reunion with one's mother and kin is always emotionally charged. A welcoming mother or father can bring incredible highs--and lows. Adoptees have every right to be wary going in, not knowing who or what they will find, and the same is true for mothers. Anger or disinterest might be behind the door; so might relief and acceptance and love. One adoptee wrote that as she walked up to her biological father's house she felt, "Well, here goes nothing..." only to walk away shaken by powerful emotions of the blood connection she did not expect. First mothers who have been hoping and waiting for the reunion for decades are more likely to be ready for intense feelings. They expect to be overwhelmed; but most will not expect how vulnerable they may feel, how transported back to the time of relinquishment they might be, how undone the face-to-face-meeting will make them, how truly powerful the emotions will be.


As for myself, reliving the moment I got my daughter's name and address and phone number, the greatest emotion was relief: She was alive; she had a stable family; I would never again not know who or where she was. Relief. No matter what would happen after our first phone call, she was no longer lost to me. Relief.  I would never not know what happened to my baby. Relief. Deep, profound, life-changing relief.

Dear Hank, I cannot predict what happens at the end of every such phone call. But that is what getting my daughter's name and phone number meant to me, and how I felt after our first phone call four days later. If you proceed, I suggest you do some reading about first mothers, and the adoptee experience. You may be surprised. You said you were 48; my daughter would be 51 now, so your mother and I relinquished only a few years apart. 
I wish you and your mother well on this journey.--lorraine
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Where the comments referred to above can be found

Do Adopted People feel an emotional connection to their birth mothers? One woman says NO.  

Contacting siblings when a first mother is silent

And to read: 

The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child
By Nancy Verrier
Comforting to some, controversial to others, but always a consistent to-read book by many adoptees. In this classic work, Nancy Verrier examines the life-long consequences of the 'primal wound' - the wound that results when a child is separated from his or her mother - for adopted people, as they grow up & into adulthood. It provides information about pre- & perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding & the effects of loss.

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA
By Richard Hill 

5.0 out of 5 starsThe importance of the right test

ByLucieon July 21, 2017

Format: Kindle Edition

The search for an unknown family member resonates with every genealogist. We dig, ask questions, haunt cemeteries and archives, walk away in frustration until something catches our attention and we are back in the hunt. DNA has had a major impact on genealogists. For me its confirmed and disproved relationships,
answered questions I've spent a lifetime trying to answer and raised new ones. I really enjoyed following Richard's journey.