"Fortune, think on this a while. How would you feel about me adopting you now as an adult. That would make you my living survivor. Janice* and I went to the attorney today to do our POA and Medical and wills and she told me that you are not legally any relation to me. What do you think and feel?.. "
*Janice is my mom’s partner. Depending on the various legal mumbo frumbo they may or may not be legally recognised as married, eventually.
Emotionally, spiritually, my birthmother has become my mom; a relationship I didn’t anticipate having as an adult. We have become extremely close. My adoptive mother passed when I was an adolescent, and my adoptive father, with whom I was never close, died many years ago as well. I’m not sure if I’d share this legal detail with my several adoptive siblings or not, if we decide to do this. It really isn’t a detail that has any bearing on their day-to-day and would get mixed reactions.
I can’t think of a reason to not allow her to adopt me, though I also can’t think of a really good reason why she should - except to fulfill her need to be legally recognized as my mom, which I’m happy to give back to her.
Is there something I’m missing? Any reason I shouldn’t go in for this?
I wasn’t aware that adult adoptions were even legally available.
Why doesn’t she just name you in her will as who she leaves her estate, etc. What’s the point of having a “living survivor”?
Is your “mom” the beneficiary to a trust or something, that is passable to her heirs? That would be the only reason I could see for such an arrangement.
I think it’s more about her emotional need to restore a relationship that she didn’t have a lot of power in deciding.
She was under age, gave birth at a home for unwed mothers, was never permitted to see me, etc… putting me up for adoption wasn’t her choice it was her parents choice** and it was extremely traumatic for her. This doesn’t mean it was a wrong choice, or that they shouldn’t have decided this for her - just sayin…
It’s not going to change our present relationship. I just want to make sure there aren’t any pitfalls later I was unaware of.
Manda JO made a really excellent post a couple of weeks ago. I think maybe you should read it.
Now, it’s about marriage, not adoption, but I suspect some of it will resonate with you, anyhow. Does she feel like your mother? Is this the woman, short of a wife or daughter, that you want people to acknowledge as the most important woman in your life? Do you want your friends to know that this woman is so important to you that you may break plans with them if she needs your help in an emergency? Is she, in your heart, your mom? If so, an adoption helps other people, including lawyers, to see and accept that. The real relationship is in your hearts, the adoption is a formalization of that.
Oh, just go read Manda JO’s post. She says it way better than I can.
I remember this came up a lot in the age of AIDS, where gays were dropping like flies and several people tried to get around laws by adopting each other. This way they could see their partners in hospital and had inheritance rights.
It didn’t get far though. Now all states have laws preventing adult adoption between people who have had a prior sexual relationship.
Some states then put limits on inheritance rights of adult adopted people over those of those adopted as children or other relations. The courts found an element of fraud involved in those adoptions. I recall reading a whole bunch of articles in the Advocate in the 80s about this matter as it related to gay people
Sounds like a good idea. It’s essentially a matter of whether you want your government to recognize your familial relationship; and why shouldn’t you want that? It’s the norm, isn’t it?
From a power-of-attorney and will standpoint, anyone can name anyone else as POA or beneficiary.
Even if she adopted you, this would not automatically give you any kind of power of attorney or any rights of inheritance (unless she’s in a state that mandates you can’t cut children out of the will entirely; I know some states have rules like that about spouses but I’ve never heard of such a thing regarding adult children).
So from an inheritance standpoint, adoption shouldn’t have any effect with your birth-mom - unless she were to die intestate, in which her estate would, I think, default to being divided among her kid(s). Of course, it sounds like she’s not intestate (or won’t be for long).
The one thing that nobody else has mentioned so far: If one of your adoptive siblings were to pass on without a will (or with an outdated one), where you’d inherit by default as a sibling, then being adopted by someone else might void that default inheritance.
