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What level of openess do you see your child having with their birthfamilies? What about during the pre-teen and the teen years? Do you picture EVER allowing your child have contact without you present, as they get older?
Sometimes it's just hard to get through one visit at a time let alone thinking way into the future. But should we be considering where the current contact we have will lead in the future?
Do you feel it's best to increase/decrease/ or keep the same contact over the years as your child gets older?
I've always imagined (being in the military) we would be moving frequently from state to state or over seas. When I first pictured openess in our adoption it consisted of havign visits until we moved away and then our main contact would be throguh letters which ios what I felt more comfortable with over all.
Only we never moved after our adoption was complete (like we had hoped...that was 2 years ago)and now it looks like we may be here for another 4 years or possibly MOST of our time in the military.
Now I'm looking at the real possibility of us staying here for most of our kids growing up years and I'm having a hard time imagining what level of openess is best for our children in the years to come. How involved we want their birthfamilies in our kids lives. How close of a relationship we want them to have with them?
In thinking about it now I can not ever picture feeling comfortable with the thought of having unsupervised visits. Yet at the same time I can't picture being at EVERY single visit "monitoring" every bit of contact. Will it ever come to a point where I can trust them to take my daughter to get ice cream, or to the movies or soemthing? I don't know? Do I really want my chidl to have a close relationship with her bithmother without me keeping an eye on it making sure it is appropriate etc. DO I really want my daughter looking to her for advice, or to vent with her about how mean we are for not letting her do things. Will she turn from our religion and beliefs and values to what her birthmother feels is appropriate and believes (as they are two very different things)?
I'm just not sure where I want all of this to go in the long run.
Should I worry about all that now, or just wait and see what happens and how we all feel as time goes by?
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I have a wait and see attitude in general...but in my heart (the part I only talk to DH about late at night or to people here who understand) I hope the whole thing fades with time. It is not something that is easy to admit because it makes me feel like a terrible human being and that I have no intention of honoring the open agreement...but it is the truth. I don't want to keep these people who have such opposite morals and beliefs in our lives long enough for them to have any impact on my son when the real important issues come to light.
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I agree those are some of my concerns as well.
I guess that's why I had hoped we'd have more of a "written" openess verses a "direct" openess in the long term. That way I'd have more control over the influence and closeness they'd share in the relationship, until my child is older and has a good strong foundation in our beliefs, values and morals.
The thought of having direct long term contact is pretty scary. I mean it's nothing I have EVER considered. So now that I'm faced with it I'm really confused. Part of me is scared to continue in this "much" openess...now that things have changed(in our plans and we will likley be here for a long time). I don't want just keep going on ...with no OUT in sight. I really need to think about long term here and whats best for my children.
Surely you wouldn't just cut contact after many years of contact, would that not be bad for the kids? I can understand if birthparents were doing things that could harm your children, but if not then why would you even consider less contact? Mom, I thought things were going well?? Why are you LOOKING for an out?