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Hi everyone,
I haven't posted in a while because I've been so busy with the kids. I have a little situation that I wanted some advice on from people who have more experience at this than me. We have a daughter, 13 months, who we adopted at birth. Her birth mother, M, had another baby in August of this year who she placed with some friends of ours. We have an open adoption with the birthmom and with each other, as in the adoptive moms. I also have an open adoption with my daughter's birthfamily including three birth aunts and two birth grandmothers (one step and one bio). The step grandmother and I talk on the phone frequently. Another part of this equation is that M has an older daughter, now 9, who lives with her godparents and is in the process of being adopted by them as M has signed over her rights just this last week. She is also not allowed any contact with her oldest daughter per the pre-adoptive parents.
The oldest daughter's adoptive parents have told the stepmother in no uncertain terms that "T" will NEVER be told that she has two little sisters and implied to her that both my friend and I should "keep it to ourselves" about the oldest daughter and not mention it to our respective daughters. I disagree with this completely and told the stepmother that while the oldest daughter's parents can do what they choose, my daughter will always be told the truth, in an age appropriate way, about her birthfamily and that I would never "keep" the knowledge of a sibling from her. I also told her that when my daughter is older, if she chooses to search for her older sister I would support that. She disagreed with me on that point and told me that the relationship had to be two-way. How can it be two-way if the other party has no knowledge of the fact that they even have a sister? We ended the conversation agreeing to disagree, with my statement that I would support whatever my daughter chose to do in relation to her birthfamily and that I would NEVER lie to my children.
I guess my question for everyone is am I doing the right thing and is it unfair of the parents of the oldest daughter to ask us to keep information from our own children? I think I know the answer, but was hoping for some anecdotal evidence of why this is detrimental for everyone to keep secrets like this that I could forward on to the stepmother. I think if she can see some "true life" scenarios it might open her mind a little bit as to why open adoption is a good thing and secrets are a bad thing.
Thanks in advance for your replies. I truly enjoy reading the posts of everyone, even though I don't post very often myself.
Take care,
Ilene
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I'm an adoptive mom, and I agree with you 100%
I think you SHOULD tell your daughter the whole truth.
The one thing I think that you could keep private, is her identity until she is 18 years old. You could say, you have a biological sister who was adopted by another couple, she is x years old. But stop there until that child is 18.
Just as you have no right to say what she does with her family, she has no right to tell YOU what to do with yours.
Leigh
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I agree with Leigh. I would do the same thing. :flower:
We are in a situation in which our daughter's middle brother doesn't know about her. His grandparents, who are raising him, don't know about our daughter either. I think our dd bmom is too ashamed to admit that she had another baby. The boys, the one she is raising and the one they have are full brothers. Our daughter would be half sibling, but still a sibling. Maybe her brother, the oldest will tell his little brother someday. I don't know. I know right now, he is not allowed to do so. I do not blame our dd bmom for this. I understand that some things are hard. She is doing what she can.
I do plan on sharing with her what I know when she get's older. It's not my job to keep secrets. I didn't enter into open adoption to keep secrets. She has a right to know and I do plan on telling her.
I would just like to add that you need to try to protect the privacy of her brothers. My oldest brother had a different b/f then my little bro and myself. We never knew until early adulthood. My brother was confronted by his half sister who knew about him. This really angered my brother as he says he would have rather never knew and to him we are his family and wants nothing to do with them. To him, she wrongfully interfered in HIS life and caused in alot of unneccesary pain.
Just our experience.
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