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Wow that is harsh! Just because adoptive parents acknowledge the very existence of birth parents does not mean they "dwell" on or talk all the time about the birth parents. The young women who gave my children life and made sure they were discovered and placed for adoption deserve some sort of acknowledgement if only to "honor" the children they beget. To refuse to do so somehow makes my children "less than". They could have left them in a toilet to drown or killed them at birth which happens so much more than we know.
I don't agree. Our daughter has one mother and one father. The woman who gave birth to her is not her mother.
Not everyone "honors" their parents. Some parents are less than honorable. The young woman who gave birth to our daughter had no intention of starting a family. She wanted to further her education.
So did the father. They did not want to get married. And they quarreled a lot. They broke up and each were seeing other people before our daughter was born. How was this ever a family? How were these two teenagers ever parents?
I don't think that making an adoption plan was a "loss" for them. I think it was a relief!
Why sentimentalize what is not inherently sentimental?
Inserting emotion, where there never was any, does nothing but cause angst and guilt in children who enter their families through adoption. My daughter has met a few very confused girls at college. She avoids them as one would the plague.
Our daughter was and is a wanted child - just not by the two 18 year olds who conceived her.
So...we do not celebrate "birth mother day" or light a candle for a woman we have never and will never meet. We are very pragmatic people. So is our daughter. We think the woman who conceived her was also more pragmatic than sentimental. She did the right thing after making a mistake that could have ruined her life.
The mistake was casual sex with out a contraceptive.
Again, I think that some things happen for a reason. We have the daughter we were meant to have.
My brother adopted from China and like you and Sheena12, they did not dwell on the adoption issue or talk a lot about the birth parents. My niece knew why she was put up for adoption. Her biological parents wanted a boy. Her parents wanted a girl. My brother and wife already had three sons. I have three sons. My sissters have a preponderance of sons - so back then, 18 years ago, China was an easy place to adopt a baby girl.
My niece is not confused. My kids are her cousins. She is a member of our family. She is a lot like her brothers - academically inclined, athletic, enjoys swimming, hiking, fishing and the out doors.
She is studying to be a physician's assistant. She's also an excellent ballet dancer.
I don't know what a triad is, in relation to adoption. In the case of my niece, she is very close to her family, and has many friends.
She's a normal American girl with one family.
While I am an ordained minister of the gospel, in college, I was a Dead Head. For the uninitiated, that's a person who loves the Grateful Dead and attends as many of their concerts as he or she possibly can.
There is a Grateful Dead song with the lyric
"One man gathers what another man spills".
Adoption seems a little like that. Someone can't parent. Someone else desperately wants to parent. Someone made a mistake and had sex outside of marriage without using a contraceptive. Another couple has planned all of their life for a house full of kids and can't have one.
There are consequences for actions. If you are doing things that will lead to a baby that you can't raise, it is good to give that baby up to people who can raise him or her. Learn from the experience and move on. Why pay tribute to a person who had sex in the back seat of a car? They were not a parent. They were a vessel through which a child was born.
I'm not sure why an accidental pregnancy deserves a life time of honor.
My father died when my youngest sister was barely more than a baby. She has no memories of him, and he never got to raise her. Based on your definition of "parent" I suppose we shouldn't have told her stories about him, since he was just someone who had a child who was raised by people other than her birth parents.
I don't agree. Our daughter has one mother and one father. The woman who gave birth to her is not her mother.
Not everyone "honors" their parents. Some parents are less than honorable. The young woman who gave birth to our daughter had no intention of starting a family. She wanted to further her education.
So did the father. They did not want to get married. And they quarreled a lot. They broke up and each were seeing other people before our daughter was born. How was this ever a family? How were these two teenagers ever parents?
I don't think that making an adoption plan was a "loss" for them. I think it was a relief!
Why sentimentalize what is not inherently sentimental?
Inserting emotion, where there never was any, does nothing but cause angst and guilt in children who enter their families through adoption. My daughter has met a few very confused girls at college. She avoids them as one would the plague.
Our daughter was and is a wanted child - just not by the two 18 year olds who conceived her.
So...we do not celebrate "birth mother day" or light a candle for a woman we have never and will never meet. We are very pragmatic people. So is our daughter. We think the woman who conceived her was also more pragmatic than sentimental. She did the right thing after making a mistake that could have ruined her life.
The mistake was casual sex with out a contraceptive.
Again, I think that some things happen for a reason. We have the daughter we were meant to have.
Almost nothing about this post is about your daughter. Everything is about what you wanted, how you feel, how you imagine the birth mother to feel, which just so happens to support your viewpoint and so on.
Given the very clear message you send about the birth parents no wonder your daughter would feel she needs to avoid other adoptees, or at least tell you she does. Children, even adult children, will tell their parents what their parents have made abundantly clear that they desperately need to hear.
Almost nothing about this post is about your daughter. Everything is about what you wanted, how you feel, how you imagine the birth mother to feel, which just so happens to support your viewpoint and so on.
Given the very clear message you send about the birth parents no wonder your daughter would feel she needs to avoid other adoptees, or at least tell you she does. Children, even adult children, will tell their parents what their parents have made abundantly clear that they desperately need to hear.
She avoids unhappy people - not "adoptees". She doesn't call herself an "adoptee". She calls herself a person.
Says things to please US? HA! You have no idea... She has no time to argue with middle aged people on city data, but if she did, boy would you get an earful.
She is so happy that we raised her as we did. Not like these three, mixed up malcontents who are pining away for women who have most likely gone on with life.
I don't agree. Our daughter has one mother and one father. The woman who gave birth to her is not her mother.
Not everyone "honors" their parents. Some parents are less than honorable. The young woman who gave birth to our daughter had no intention of starting a family. She wanted to further her education.
So did the father. They did not want to get married. And they quarreled a lot. They broke up and each were seeing other people before our daughter was born. How was this ever a family? How were these two teenagers ever parents?
I don't think that making an adoption plan was a "loss" for them. I think it was a relief!
Why sentimentalize what is not inherently sentimental?
Inserting emotion, where there never was any, does nothing but cause angst and guilt in children who enter their families through adoption. My daughter has met a few very confused girls at college. She avoids them as one would the plague.
Our daughter was and is a wanted child - just not by the two 18 year olds who conceived her.
So...we do not celebrate "birth mother day" or light a candle for a woman we have never and will never meet. We are very pragmatic people. So is our daughter. We think the woman who conceived her was also more pragmatic than sentimental. She did the right thing after making a mistake that could have ruined her life.
The mistake was casual sex with out a contraceptive.
Again, I think that some things happen for a reason. We have the daughter we were meant to have.
Wow, there is so much wrong with this attitude. Firstly, I am most assuredly my son's mother. You can deny it all you want but the emotional and genetic bond is unmistakable and you are in complete denial about your daughters emotional well being. Your daughter's "conception mistake vessel" could have easily vacuumed her out but you can't even give an inch of compassion. Strangers deserve more.
And I refuse to believe a God would put anyone through the conception, pregnancy and relinquishment experience just so you could have a child. Why didn't he just put her in your uterus to begin with? This was not "meant to be".
If everything is so perfect and no one has any issues whatsoever, why are you here, participating in an adoption forum?
Just wow.
Last edited by boystuition; 02-16-2016 at 11:48 PM..
There are consequences for actions. If you are doing things that will lead to a baby that you can't raise, it is good to give that baby up to people who can raise him or her. Learn from the experience and move on. Why pay tribute to a person who had sex in the back seat of a car? They were not a parent. They were a vessel through which a child was born.
I'm not sure why an accidental pregnancy deserves a life time of honor.
What a disgusting way to characterize birth parents. Many, many birth moms desperately wanted to keep their children, but could not for a variety of reasons (including the One Child rule in China that gave you your niece!!!). If you are so ignorant to think that every child given up for adoption was conceived by ignorant kids or two 16 year olds in the back of a car, you don't know a damn thing about adoption.
She avoids unhappy people - not "adoptees". She doesn't call herself an "adoptee". She calls herself a person.
Says things to please US? HA! You have no idea... She has no time to argue with middle aged people on city data, but if she did, boy would you get an earful.
She is so happy that we raised her as we did. Not like these three, mixed up malcontents who are pining away for women who have most likely gone on with life.
SAD.
It is sad. You not only feel entitled to speak for people you don't know (the birth parents), you are clearly feeling entitled to speak for everyone you have met. From other adoptees, who you deem "unhappy people" to your own children. No wonder they parrot what you want them to. Any parent who thinks they know every thought and feeling of their children, their adult children at that, AND that think their children's feeling or opinions perfectly align with theirs is deluded. And that is sad, for everyone involved.
Almost nothing about this post is about your daughter. Everything is about what you wanted, how you feel, how you imagine the birth mother to feel, which just so happens to support your viewpoint and so on.
Given the very clear message you send about the birth parents no wonder your daughter would feel she needs to avoid other adoptees, or at least tell you she does. Children, even adult children, will tell their parents what their parents have made abundantly clear that they desperately need to hear.
You do not know sheena12's kids' birth parents. Neither do I. And neither does she. They could be anywhere on the range of human experience, from selfless saints to depraved sinners, or anywhere in-between. But whether they are worthy of praise or fit only for condemnation is beside the point. The adoptive parent is the "real" parent, and it's up to each of us to decide how we want to commemorate the birth parents in the lives of our kids -- or even whether or not we want to do so at all.
Yes, we may choose wrong. We may downplay the birth parents, and our kids may grow up with an aching hole in their hearts. Conversely, we may play them up so much that our kids may feel like we didn't truly accept them as entirely "ours." As with so much in parenting, we may end up doing it wrong. But that is for each one of us to decide for ourselves -- hopefully without having to have our motives questioned by others who have chosen to handle it in a different way.
You do not know sheena12's kids' birth parents. Neither do I. And neither does she. They could be anywhere on the range of human experience, from selfless saints to depraved sinners, or anywhere in-between. But whether they are worthy of praise or fit only for condemnation is beside the point. The adoptive parent is the "real" parent, and it's up to each of us to decide how we want to commemorate the birth parents in the lives of our kids -- or even whether or not we want to do so at all.
All true. Sheena does not know whether or not her daughter's birth parents feel any loss. And of all her suppositions to the contrary are just that, suppositions.
And I have never said otherwise. Parenting is a verb, those who parent are "real" parents by any measure. I have never said otherwise.
Quote:
Yes, we may choose wrong. We may downplay the birth parents, and our kids may grow up with an aching hole in their hearts. Conversely, we may play them up so much that our kids may feel like we didn't truly accept them as entirely "ours." As with so much in parenting, we may end up doing it wrong. But that is for each one of us to decide for ourselves -- hopefully without having to have our motives questioned by others who have chosen to handle it in a different way.
Agreed again. All parents, no matter how families come about, face making mistakes, and deal with kids who are both more sensitive and more resilient than we think. My only concern comes when parents have made up their minds, so concretely about things because of their internal needs and not those of their children. When there is no room for kids to just feel what they feel (a reality for most kids to some degree or another in this particular situation), and instead are constantly subjected to what the parent needs in terms of validation of the parental role, that is distinctly unhealthy. Then the roles of parent and child becomes conflicted. That is something that even through as limited a window as an internet forum comes through from some posters loud and clear.
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