Can we say “placed for adoption” instead of “gave up”? I feel like there’s an inherent judgment in that, and it’s not the language currently used.
(Source: Nearly adopted a child in 2019. Like, very nearly.)
If this happened in the early 2000s I think the spouse would know, as well as some key people in the expectant parent’s life at the time (a friend, a sibling, etc.) But not many other people would know because there is still a stigma.
I think “placed for adoption” is a bit of a cop out, actually. You are quite literally giving up parental rights. Sometimes reality has a judgy bias.
It’s not a cop out because in many cases it’s the absolute best thing to do for the child, and is probably the most soul - crushingly selfless decision anyone can make. That phrasing makes it sound like the birth parents just shrug their shoulders and move on. There’s a reason the language has changed.
I don’t think the phrasing does that. Give up means give up. They are not willing/able to be a parent but they unfortunately have a baby.
Your problem might be that you think giving up on something is inherently wrong. It isn’t. Some things are not good for you to continue.
If it’s a crappy book, son comes home from college and says, “Mom! Dad! I met the most wonderful girl! And guess what? We went to Vegas and got married!”
New wife of course turns out to be the daughter the mom never told anyone about.
And if it’s a really crappy book, new wife knew she was marrying her half-brother and did it to pay her biological mom back for having left her out.
My wife and I were watching a Inspector Gently show last night that had a secretly pregnant 17 year old dating a 26 year old coal miner. Both sets of parents were against them dating. I told my wife “brother and sister” and sure enough…
I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve seen that happen on tv shows.
Every one all ready knows why you went to spend the summer with your aunt in Kansas, or Minnesota.
Actually, the correct terminology is ‘surrendered’ a child to adoption. Any mother, in such a difficult bind, as to offer her child up to be adopted, is in fact ‘surrendering’. To a heartbreaking, life changing reality, she cannot change.
I don’t tell the biological parents, but I DO tell Hillary Clinton.
Well, I gave up on adoption, so…When I had to make the decision that placing that particular child with us was not in the child’s best interest, it was the hardest decision I have ever made. We wanted a child so so so badly. And our adoption agent kind of used it as a window of insight into the reality that expectant parents have to face. It’s not the same, and I’m not calling it the same, but I learned from that experience that you can make a decision that is the best decision and still regret it for the rest of your life.
My reply to the OP: Tell the people who need to know, and that you can trust with the information.
Nothing destroys relationships faster than secrets and/or lies.
I know that’s true. But I still think “giving up for adoption” is a true description, not a judgemental phrasing. Clinical language isn’t always better.
Wow. When I was 14, I left New York to go live with my aunt and uncle (and cousins) in Indiana. I wonder if people thought I was pregnant? I wasn’t-- heck, I was a virgin, and at any rate, I stayed there through high school and college (got fee remission at the university where my uncle taught, as a faculty “child,” since he was my guardian).
To answer the OP, whether I’d ever had a child of whom I did not retain custody would be strictly a need-to-know, whether it was Oops-to-adoption, or a surrogacy, but I think a spouse is someone who needs to know. Aside from a marriage needing honesty, there’s the totally practical side that a spouse is your next of kin, and needs to be able to give your complete medical history to someone if you are ever sick or injured, and unconscious; number of pregnancies and live births is part of that medical history.
There’s also a need-to-know where any subsequent children are involved, because they need to know that they have potential DNA relatives out there-- or even in surrogacy, if there is no DNA relationship, the result of the surrogacy might still seek you out when you are not home, but you 14-yr-old daughter is. And again, your children need to know your medical history.
Everyone needs to know where potential bone marrow and kidney donors are, as well.
If those things sound cold, well, the point is, that we can debate the emotional aspects of needing to know forever, and they boil down to opinion (no matter what one might think of someone who dismisses them), but there’s really no debating the need to know that there’s a potential kidney donor out there.
Uh, I don’t think I agree that all my compatible bone marrow comrades should be aware that I’m a donor.
I would have expected her to tell her husband unless he was, for some reason, very anti-adoption or judged people for underage sex. If it’s a healthy relationship - or was earlier on in their marriage - then it would be very strange for her not to have told him.
Or if the pregnancy was the result of rape, and she didn’t want to talk about that, either.
The kids, no. They’re still pretty young. She might have told them - when they started having sex lives, perhaps - but it wouldn’t be guaranteed.
FWIW in England giving a newborn baby up for adoption in the 90s didn’t involve the mother having any say over where the baby went. I considered it briefly, as a young unmarried mother, and the process was one of the things that made me not want to ever do it.
However, for a healthy baby in the 90s, it would be really unusual for them to end up in the care system - foster care briefly, yeah, but after that, adoptive parents who would have been heavily vetted and most likely really good parents. They’d want the adopters to have back-ups in case they also both died. Basically, the odds of a child in that situation - in the 90s, not the 70s or earlier - ending up in and out of care are really low.
Anecdotal:
I have a friend (seriously!) who was adopted as an infant in 1959, and some years back she was able to identify her birth mother, and initiated a correspondence. Her birth mother informed her that she was very happy that she was adopted into a loving home, but that she had absolutely no interest in pursuing a relationship, as she had later married and had a family with her husband, who knew nothing about her child given up for adoption.
Have to admit it, this went right over my head. Am I going to be embarrassed when someone explains it to me?
In the book, their first child is born 6 months after marriage so pre-marital sex was at least okay with the husband.
I don’t have kids, but I think telling the older one would have been okay. He’s around 18 and portrayed as very smart. The younger daughter is basically a stereotypical minorly rebellious teen, so I could see not telling her yet.
The daughter in the book seems to be mentally disabled somehow, tho it has not been elaborated on. She is about to age out of what seems like a halfway house where she has a room with a bed and a small bathroom. She has also been homeless. She’s unable to hold a job because she doesn’t understand the concept of being on time, sees nothing wrong with showing up an hour late for work and doesn’t understand why her boss gets upset about it. Her only friend is a girl even younger than her who convinced her to steal vintage clothing from the used clothing store she volunteers at. The friend sells the clothes on line and they split the cash.
Given the above, I assume she did go to a good family but they, and any subsequent families, found her too much to deal with.
I wonder how often this kind of thing happens when people try to contact their biological parents. Not specifically the not tell their spouse part, but just not wanting a relationship at all. I suspect many have simply moved on in their lives and, good or bad, simply want to leave it in the past.
The joke is that I kidnap kids and sell them into the Hillary-led cannible pedo sex porn ring thing that all Democrats are supposedly a part of.
Ah, I knew it would be something I should have got. I think it’s because there are so many cannibal/pedos running around I’ve just become used to them. Thanks Hillary!
Funny, I took the Hillary joke in a completely different light.
Back in the early days of the ACA, and even before when Bill Clinton was Pres there was a previous effort dubbed “HillaryCare” because she was one of the lead administrators on the nascent project despite, as First Lady, having no formal role in government.
The fact-free RW media frenzy at the time was that Hillary would be managing your health care and your every darkest medical secret would be shared with her. And since she was/is Teh Evil Personified, that would be bad. So of course Hillary would be told you’re an unwed Mom. And where your infant was going.
The RW nutbag machine may have very shallow goals, but it has very deep roots.