My dad was adopted, and never even considered it. Of course in those days the thinking was that adoption was permanent, like becoming a citizen, a very positive step, something you would never regret or want undone.
If I found out tomorrow I was adopted, I would find it confusing, certainly, but I’m real sure I wouldn’t try to look anybody up. I’m not convinced blood is all that much thicker than water. Most people I know with step parents and distant parents just ignore the ones that aren’t around.
Health reasons would be the only reason I would look. My sister who is also adopted is going through that at this time.(Different birth parents).
I have a friend who is adopted who has a chip on his shoulder about it. Kind of an inferiority complex… it is like he has something to prove to his birth parents. He is looking for a very in your face confrontation with them.
I have one Mother. The one that raised me from the time I was a month old. I think she did a good job…God knows I tested her. The only thing I can say for sure about my birth parents is that they provided a child to a woman who could not have children of her own but who knew how to raise 2 kids in a nurturing environment. For that I thank them.
A friend of my mom’s registered with the organization here who tries to match up birth parents and adopted children, at their request.
She did it, not because she wanted to intrude in his life, but because there are a number of medical issues that were important. She hoped that the baby she gave birth to 37 years ago would register as well so that the information could be passed on.
He did indeed register. He wanted to meet, she was unsure. They met, and he also introduced her to “his parents”, who are wonderful people. Mom’s friend did not register to try to become “mom” and she did tell him this when they met. She had no intentions of trying to hone in on his life.
He lived in a small farming community and decided to move into the city to further his career. He stayed with mom’s friend for the agreed time, one month until he could get his own place. During this time, he borrowed money, drove her car, and didn’t bother looking for work or a place to live. At the end of the month, she asked him to leave. He ended up finding an apartment and a job but still returned asking for money, which she didnt have to give.
They have agreed to have a friendship and she has maintained a healthy friendship with his parents. My feeling on it was that altho everyone felt he tried to take advantage, I think he was very confused having been thrust into another “new” family which included a brother who he is now good friends with and a sister, who doesn’t have the time of day for him.
Although I’ve never been in this position, I think it would be so confusing to everyone involved and inevitably someone along the line could get hurt. It can be a healthy meeting or not, but it should be one that is agreed upon.
Bless your parents Sledman for being the great parents they are and bless you for having the opportunity to have such wonderful parents and to be someone they can be proud of.
Have to? Perhaps not. On the other hand, I’m fairly sure that my son is going to need to meet his birth mom some day. Even though he was removed from the home at nine months (nad she wasn’t much of a mom for that period), there is an enormous hole in his life that I doubt he will be able to heal without some sort of contact. I’m going to try to hold him off until he is in his 20s so that he has had a chance to become an adult before it happens, but when he goes to look her up I will support him.
My daughter, on the other hand (who has a lot of the same problems their mom had), will probably never care about meeting her, again.
Regardless of the adopted child’s preferences, it is that person’s choice and need. I doubt that there is some single all-governing rule for this.
I don’t think one has the obligation to seek out their biological parents. I don’t even believe one has the right to know their biological parents.
Marc
Just out of curiosity (for my own benefit), MGibson, do you feel that you have the right to know whether or not you have fathered a child?
As an adoptive adult, I find that statement cruel. In 1997-1998 I had the chance by which to connect with my birthmother… I didn’t give her up, she gave me up. She choose not to get to know me, despite the pain and from what I know I was not a product of something like a rape. However, she chose to carry me to term and give me up, this was not my decision. I was a helpless baby with which no ability to choose my family at that point.
Many, not all, adoptees like me grow up wondering who we are and were we come from. We didn’t make the choice of leaving our “parents”, they made the decision. Many of us grow up wondering what makes us who we are, especially if you can see a sibling who is a biological being of your adoptive parents. I see things within my big brother that I would see in my mom and see in my dad. I worry about his health, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. He has so many things against him that he knows he can work to avoid but many of us adoptees don’t have that luxury.
I did find out a few things about my birth mother and her family health history but not about my birth father’s side. He (birth father) wanted to “get rid of it”, this was in 1968 so it was before Roe v. Wade, which personally I am not opposed to at all.
Anyhow, to deny an adoptee of knowing his or her birth family is cruel and unusual punishment for people that were born without any knowledge of the world and the life they will lead. Foster children know their birth right and can interact with any family member because the original birth certificate stays with them for their lives.
If you want to explore more about the plight of the adoptee, the read Nancy Verrier’s Primal Wound, a book I read in 24 hours, which is highly unusual, usually three pages of a book and I am out. I cried, I screamed and hurt for me and my fellow adoptees that have a need to know their birth families. In addition to that check out http://www.bastards.org/ for more understanding.
Until a person is an adoptee and one is not feeling lost, one can’t sit back and try to understand what it’s like to be adopted and wonder where, who and how you came about. I suspect I have Irish in me but I can’t be sure. I suspect that my birth family is very well adapted to fine motor skills, I suspect so many things but nothing in the family will tell me as I was adopted. I wonder about my nose, my toes, my hands, my hair, my heritage. I wonder about my mannerisms, my facial expressions, my ADD. I wonder about a lot about me and if my birth parents have the same things I do.
Even though my birth mother has decided to not meet me, I still yearn in my heart that she will get over her selfishness and want to know me. I actually cry over this because I am her daughter, no matter the fact I was raised by someone else. I cry over this quite often because I know in my heart we have a connection, I sense, through my intermediary, that she felt the same thing but something in her heart held her back. I assume the fact that I know we would fall in love, like mother and daughter, and she wouldn’t be able to let me go, ever again. I can’t explain it but I know she feels the same way but she also feels afraid, very afraid, that I will hurt her. However, I wouldn’t hurt her and that’s what breaks me up more than you can know. I truly feel I am my birth mother’s daughter, we are afraid of those closest to us. Me for my adoption, her through the pain she (I know) has gone through in the time since I was conceived.
So for anyone to deny me the fact that I might want to know who or where I come from, please, realize, it’s not that we wish to jump in other’s lives and become the “child” our parent’s never had but to be a part of a friendship with those that brought us in the world. It’s so damn hard to explain, so damn hard. Many of us want a sense of self and realization that most kids (adults) have when they grow up with a biological family.
Again, I don’t speak for all adoptees as there are many out there that care not to know their bio-parents for whatever reason but there are many out there like me who wish to know our bio-parents. I know enough about my bio-mom to know that she is not exactly an upstanding woman in society but I know enough that I also feel a bond for her that transfers through time and space. I could give a shit if she is who and what I have heard about her, but I want to know her and I yearn for the day she gives up her self-esteem issues (yes I truly believe this) and allows me to be a part of her life. Her life is where mine started, something that has been denied me, something I hate but I still feel in my heart for her.
This whole thing has made me want to contact my intermediary again and see if she can talk my bio-mom into contacting me, meeting me, knowing that I don’t want anything from her but acknowledgement and to touch her face. To feel her hand in mine, a hug…I want to sit with her in a coffee shop or in a bar and find out what she’s been up to. I want to know why she doesn’t have other kids. I have things I want to tell her, like why I don’t want children. I want to tell her and look at her and say “I don’t blame you, but you are a part of me.” I want her to know that regardless I feel a love for her that possibly all of us understand, she’s my mommy. She’s the one that gave me life. She gave me what no other being on this Earth could give me. And yet in 32 years I am denied to know know who that woman is. I want more than anything in life to know her, it’s more important than having a man in my life. I JUST want to know her. Yes, it would complete my life and I would be happy if I died the day after I met her. I would be so freaking happy that I would probably die from the excitement of actually knowing her.
< I am reduced to crying now, God damnit, sorry God >
Some people don’t and wont understand, some can’t base anything they know because they are members of good biological families some bad. Their adoptive families are in tact, their world pretty much runs like it should.
Well, as one that has lost two mothers (biological mother and her adoptive mother) I am a lost soul and find it cruel that anyone would deny me my right to connect with someone who could help make me feel complete and make me understand more about me.
I really do, I believe that just meeting her once would answer the questions that have been haunting me for years. It took me ten years to muster up the guts to attempt to contact her. I 'spose I need to contact my intermediary again and see if she might give it another try…
Thank God I don’t have to be seen in public tomorrow, my eyes are red as beets from crying!
{b]Surprise, Suprise, I can’t let this go.** (no smart ass remarks please as this is one thing that touches my heart more than life itself, it’s the single most personal thing to me, I cry while typing this sort of thing when my birth mother comes up.)
I admit, I am one of those tormented by the fact I don’t know who gave me birth. God Damn (sorry God) just one touch of the hand, a couple of hours of hearing her voice. I understand our voices are almost exact. She’s a half inch taller than me according to my intermediary.
She’s got a temper that I inherited. She apparently looks like me so I am constantly on the look out when I am in stores, seeing if I find the woman I will look like 19 years from now. There is a woman that goes to the same liquor store as me, according to a clerk there, and we could be related according to the clerk.
I am wanting to know this woman, I want to hug her like I have never hugged a human before in my life. I want to say thank you. I want to give her a ring that she can wear and say “That’s from a special friend” because her parents don’t know about me. I would NEVER tell her parents, ever. God, all I want to know is her. I know one of the reasons she wont see me is because of her parents, she’s afraid I will seek them out, but I wont, I promise, I swear, I just want to know you and know more about myself, MOM.
Mom, yes you are my mom, I have another mom but she’s gone now, I have a step-mom but I don’t particularly like her, but you gave me life therefore you are my mom. Mom, I want you to know, I don’t fault you for what you did. I wont tell your parents, I promise, I only want to know you and my bio-father if at all possible. I want to stand back to back and compare hair, look into your eyes and see if I have the same eyes. I want to touch your skin and see if you need a lot of moisturizer like me. I want to hear your laugh, see if you and I laugh the same. I want to know more about you and what you do. I want to see if you are a lot like me or vice versa. I want to tell you about my upbringing, even if it is slightly painful to you as my childhood was kinda shitty. I want to touch you, hold you like a daughter can hold her mother…I want to be a part of your life, at least temporarily. I know where you don’t live so for all I know you live a few miles from me. For all I know in the 2-3 years since I tried to contact you, you might be more open to a meeting.
Mom, let’s go for a beer, I know you like beer, but lets go to a small and quiet bar and meet one another. Let’s talk about things that mothers and daughters should talk about. I am, after all, your daughter, if not by raising but by biology…
{{{techchick68}}}
Don’t have any personal stake in the question, but it’s my utterly irrelevant opinion that while adopted children should not be obliged to search out their birth parents (except for medical/health reasons), they are certainly entitled to, if only to find out something about who they are. It may or may not be personally important to them, but they certainly ought to have the right to discover who brought them into the world, should they choose.
{{{{DIJON}}}}}
Thanks hun. That’s what I want to hear…I am sitting here and thinking about the amount of money I would give to my intermediary, even though illegal, just to access the information she has about my adoption. I would seriously be willing to sell my car, ask my dad for a large loan, FUCK I would even consider selling drugs so I could afford to get the information she has about my adoption.
No I don’t think that adopted kids should be obligated to set out to find their bio-parents but I do strongly believe they should have an option of meeting them, both.
I swear, I will sell my car just to meet the woman that gave me life. Just to know her for an hour or two, I would do so many things just to touch her once.
The intermediary is also a private investigator, along with her husband, so I am going to ask her if there is a way to skirt the law and it’s still legal…I know that sounds bad but I would be willing to pay a shit load of money to learn more about her and contact her myself so she can hear the honesty in my voice that I would never tell her parents about me, I never would…I promise…but I if I can buy them off (the private investigators) I am more than willing to do it to ease my mind. My mind is not ever stable, as many know and in part it’s because of my adoptive situation. I lost two mothers…I don’t know if I will ever be calm until I can at least reclaim one of them, I already know my adoptive mom is not in the cards, she’s dead, but I do know that I could finally find about me and her with ONE simple meeting.
I sound frantic and I hate that feeling, I hate this, but she seems to be the only one that can calm this beast in me.
Techchick, I have to say, your posts made me reconsider my feelings on this. I never really thought of it from a adopted child’s point of view before. I’m sorry it took reading about your troubles to make me realize that.
I personally don’t think that people have the right to know their birth-mothers. If someone wants to completely separate themselves from a pregnancy and it’s end result, they should have the right to do that without abortion. I’m pro-choice but I think we should do what we can to minimize the number of abortions, and I don’t want anyone to decide to abort when they considered adoption, because they are afraid the child might look them up someday and confront them.
I pose the same question to you–do you feel you have the right to know whether or not you have fathered a child?
A question, if it’s not too personal:
Does she know (through your intermediary) that you wish to contact her? I don’t know much about adoption (having never been involved with it directly), but “intermediary” sounds like someone that has contact with both parties–that is, you and your birth mother. People do have lots of unknown things in their lives, and it may be (not that I would wish this on any child) that for whatever reasons (and they may be good ones) she desires to remain anonymous. Respect for feelings has to go both ways, no matter how unfair it seems or how much it hurts. But if I were to try to imagine being in your position, it seems like not seeing her would be a bit easier to accept if I could only be assured that she knew I wanted to see her. What would really suck is never knowing if she realised how I felt because whatever legal restrictions existed were preventing any communication from occurring. At least if you can be certain she is aware that she is welcome to contact you (and how important it is to you), then you know the ball is in her court. But her court is her court. What she chooses to do with it has to be her decision. May not work out the way you hope, but I’m pulling for you out here, if that helps. 
Badtz,
What a horrible thing to say. I mean are you adopted, do you know your mommy? Do you have any idea why adoptees, for a few of us are lost souls, do the things we do?
They used to call us bastards, mother, child, father weren’t allowed to know to whom the adoptee was “given” to.
This is inhumane, you can not, as an adoptee, convince me that adoption should remain a secret. We are bastards, what used to be considered a HORRIBLE term, today used lightly. We adoptees are always the dirty ones to put aside and the people that adopt them are considered saviours. Yet other children given up in the system remain with birth certificates and know their roots, they can seek them out very easily.
BULLSHIT, we are humans and deserve the rights to know where we came from just like any other child on this this Earth. I cry for all the adoptive children that will never know who their bio-parents are. I know it, I live it. This kind of attitude saddens me, anyone that wants to deny the rights of a child to know where he or she came from.
I can’t tell you the pain I go through on a daily basis. I am not typical of my counterparts but I am a very feeling person and to hear that anyone wants to deny the rights of an adoptive child/adult makes me sick to my stomach. As an adult I would rather abort a child, yes I said that, than deny them their roots. To know who they are, to get a glimpse of who and why. I would rather them live a life with which to know mom and dad, biologically speaking. I would rather give a child a sense of self and life rather than living a life filled with uncertainty and in many instances, shame for even being alive.
For that Badtz, I will never look at a post you create in the same light. It’s horrible that anyone would say that, especially as an adoptive person. If you were adopted, or helped adopt a child, then that’s your business but honestly I would rather abort a child and live with that shame than put a child up for adoption with no abililty to contact me as a mother…even as a woman that does not want children, if I did, even if through adoption, GOD DAMNIT (sorry God) my child would know me. Fuck this attitude, a child NEEDS to know, a child needs to know, a child needs to know…Damnit.
Dijon hun,
I emailed her earlier (the intermediary), thankfully as I have her phone number and it was too late to call. She knows I know both the names she goes by, like I said she is also a private investigator.
And yes my birth mother knew back in 1998 that I wanted to meet her. I tried so damn hard to let her know that I have no desire to contact her parents, it’s her that I am interested in, that’s it…I tried to impart that it’s just her that I am interested in, I want to see her, hug her, touch her face!!!
That is where communication breaks down. What ticks me off is if I were born a year earlier I could research the stuff on my own (which I tried) and know her name…then hire the private investigator, legally, to get me information. ONE FREAKIN YEAR!!!ONE FREAKING YEAR, DAMNIT!!!Damnit Colorado!
If I were 33 I could have that shit legally in my hands and contact her myself…
No, I do not believe I have that right.
No, I am not adopted. My grandmother was adopted, as was one of my best friends in high school, and someone close to me has put a child up for adoption in the past, but I personally am not adopted.
Techchick, you have personal experience with someone not wanting contact with the children they put up for adoption. I can see where you are coming from, but can’t you also see you might be causing this woman grief from repeated attempts to get her to bring someone back into her life (albeit in a minor role) that she wants nothing to do with? You don’t know her, who knows what mental anguish having contact with you might cause? She obviously doesn’t want to deal with it. She made a decision to divorce herself from you, for her own reasons, and I think her wishes should be respected. She made the decision to put you up for adoption in a time where her anonymity was more assured, she may not have even known that you would ever find out you were adopted.
Do you think parents should have the right to find their children and have contact with them if their kids don’t want to have anything to do with them? If not, why should it be different the other way around?
Dijon hun,
The funny thing is that I missed the boat by one freakin year, one freakin year. They opened up the records for those in 1967 or earlier, I was born in 1968.
I am pissed as I would like her to hear my voice and know that I am not out to rat on her to her parents. Shit I understand that one of her best friends that knew about me WAY BACK WHEN said she should meet me, she’s still friends with him and he said to meet me. That he was all for it and would help her emotionally if she needed it. Damn that sounds so much like me, having a friend, a male friend that will go to bat to help her (or me) with very difficult things.
I have to say my bio-mom and I are a lot lot a like. We can be combative, but luckily with the law I have been able to avoid that sort, last I heard, in 1995 she had a domestic violence charge against her…with a knife and her husband. I may not be just like her but I can relate to her. I get pretty pissy myself and I know where I get my claws hanging on attitude.
But despite her weird past, I accept her for who she is as she is the one that gave me life. For that I think I am greatful. I may not always be happy with life but damn if I am not in constant wondering who she is and one I can at least thank for life, she did give me life you know.
I guess it’s harder for me than many of my adoptee counterparts since I lost my abusive (yes abusive) mother when I was 15. I still love her but I still lost a mother and the only one I knew. I am not usual, I realize that, but without a mother’s love a woman can become a very unhappy and sad person and I lost that at 15. I want to talk to a mother, an elder woman, to guide me though the trials I have I don’t have that, something I can’t do with my step-mom. I want to cuddle up with a mommy like I did as a child, but since 15 I haven’t been able to. I want to call MOM up and whine to her about this, that and the other. I don’t have that and I hate not having that. I guess for me it’s a double whammy, I lost an adoptive mother at 15 and since then I have been searching for what I am missing. I have a step-mom but she and I are on two different plains.
Like I said, just to meet my bio-mom just once would make my life complete. It really would. I could rest at night and know that I am someone. The woman that died, my real mom (adoptive mom), is dead but I could rest knowing the the woman who gave birth to me is still there and wants me…keep in mind my adoptive mom was abusive, so I need to grasp upon something I guess. I just want acceptance from the woman that gave me life…I know I could live more stable if she gave me the okay, as horrible as that sounds it’s true. I know if she told me that she loves me no matter what, I know I would lighten up on life, I know that it would give more peace than anyone else could. Since an apology from my mother (adoptive mom) is impossible since she gone, this would be the ultimate in settling a heart to go on and love.
I live my life full of solititude and pain. Thank God I have an investment that makes the bills but once those bills (20 years) are done what am I to do? I hate this, I really do.
< damnit, I am crying again >