Why am I so angry about this?

We adopted 2 kids thru foster care 18 months apart and they are siblings. In our sons case we just had a verbal agreement not to post photos anywhere. Bmom complies with that request Bdad does not. I had facebook remove the photos and then when we did the second adoption we put into the agreement that any and all photos are for personal use and can not be published without written consent. We now will only send photos that have both kids in it so we are covered. I am from MA and it is now a standard part of the open adoption agreement. More states need to add this kind of rule. Talking works well in some cases but not others. We have the incentive now that if they post they risk losing visitation and photos. Yes this may be rough but I do provide around 250 pictures via DVD to them quarterly so I feel if I am going to do that the photos must be secure.

I thought a lot about what you said because I have never been birth family and I like to hear how the "other side" feels sometimes. I do understand that you will always be family. What we as adoptive parents get all worked up about is that, often, our role is not acknowledged or respected. Yes you are family, but your are NOT the parent and NO you do not have the right to post pictures online of other peoples' children no matter who you are, blood family, birth parents, grandparent, or next door neighbor...it does not matter. Imagine that my mom wants to show off her grandkids and posts pictures of them on myspace. If I do not want my kids pictures posted there it is my right as their legal parent to tell her to take them down. I am not telling her that they are not her grandkids, I am just telling her I don't want my kids pics online. As far as claiming the kids goes, well, I don't think adoptive parents can control how we feel about that. There is a difference between showing people pics of your birth children and being proud of them and posting pics of your birth children in a way that appears as though they live with you and denying the fact that they have another set of parents. In the same way, I think it is wrong for adoptive parents to pretend that their children don't have birth family. ALL family is important but the parents are the parents and they have a right to protect their kids and set boundaries with extended family (bio or not).

Ok the reason we have trouble ( or I have trouble) is because we still WANT to be their family. The ONLY reason I couldn't adopt these children myself was medical reasons... which at the time was the right decision and I acknowledge that. In saying that, you are ABSOLUTELY right. While it may be difficult for us to accept, you ARE the parents and have the right to make decisions on what pictures you give out or allow are allowed on the internet. I still feel that it IS my right to post pictures of them from before. But I am NOT allowed contact (because adoption would be more difficult this way yo understand) so I want them to know that everything they hear about us, or should I say MAY hear about us, isn't true. They WERE happy with us, but mommy couldn't get it together to be what she NEEDED to be for them. I am not only coming from bio side buit from someone who has experienced foster care first hand... and I know these kids are going through crap and hearing crap they should not be hearing. I want them to know the truth about their life before foster care, but I don't want them to be forced to have us as part of lives either. I also never had any younger pictures of myself... and I don't want them with the same fate. But anything after the time they were in care ( including pics from when they lived with me) are NOT posted... period. ETA: they should NEVER undermine you either, which is what they are doing by making it look like your children are still theirs.... they made decisions that led to what happened with their children and need to acknowledge you as much as they need to be acknowledged.

Sounds very familiar. This is what we are going through with our older two kids' gparents. The kids were very happy and well cared for but they could not adopt them because of their age and health. Gma still wants them but knows this is best long term. This makes it hard for us when we get together with them because it is obvious that gma does not want to accept that they are not "hers" anymore. I am happy that my kids will have their baby pictures because we have chose to be in contact with the birth grandparents and brother. We go through all of the headache because we know it will mean a lot to our kids when they are older that they got to have a relationship with these people. My kids lives did not start at 5 and 6, I know that. I just wish sometimes that the birth family could think about our feelings a little bit too. It is not easy to adopt older kids, it's work. Why put more stress on us when you are the one that made this choice? So, back to your situation. Would you be allowed to send some of the kids baby pictures to them? Would they let you send a letter that the adoptive parents could give to them when they feel the kids are ready. Even if they give it to them when they are grown, the kids would have some answers. Personally, I was in tears when gma handed me my kids baby pictures. I didn't care that the birth family was in the pictures, I was just elated to see what they looked like as babies and so thankful that they will have their baby pictures up on our wall the way our baby girl does. Having a healthy, loving family and a connection to their past makes them whole. Thanks for your thoughtful response.

How do you know this? Are you assuming? I do not want our bparents posting pics because their 'friends' are not people I would EVER want knowing our kids. Since they are ours and the security risks are ours I feel we absolutely have the right to protect our kids from having their images online if we choose to do so.

I get to see this from both perspectives because I am both birthfamily and adoptive family. I guess my problem would come in when an adoptive family posts pics of thier kids online but doesn't want a birth family to do so. It is like a double standard. I get adoptive parents who just don't wnat thier kids images out there on in the internet period, asking birth family to refrain from posting, it is the adoptive families that post pics and then use the "security" excuse to keep birthfamily from posting. It is totally different if they are posting pics of your bio kids that are not their's, that is just plain unacceptable. If you say it is okay to share thier hard copy pics with friends and family and facebook is how they communicate with friends and family then what is the problem? I can understand if they have unsafe people on thier facebook and such but they probably have the same unsafe people in thier lives daily and would have the opprutunity to share those hard copy pics with them too. JM 2 cents

I'm sorry, I disagree. I sometimes post pics of my kids on my Facebook page, being careful to never mention names or personal info about them. However, it is NOT okay with me for anyone else to post pictures of my kids. I don't post pics of other people's kids, and I don't want anyone else posting pics of my kids. That includes my BFF/neighbor who's kids play with my kids everyday. When my kids are older, they will have friends who will post stuff, and I will have no say, but for now, I do have a say, and I feel strongly about it. I send pics to the birth parents of most of my kids, but would not be impressed if they posted them, especially since we have semi-open, not open, adoptions.

nice quoting... again...I have been in foster care i DON"T know what kind of family you are, but can tell you foster care was not a great place for me or my family. ..and when my sister's children got taken from her my niece was left in an abusive home for three months because " they knew these people and they were good people" meanwhile my niece gets a black eye and welt marks and bruises ALL THE TIME because she is suddenly so "clumsy". Please do NOT be rude to me I am expressing my opinion as you are yours... read up more from your licensing SW ... this is not as uncommon as you think.... and I can not count how many times I was told my parents did not love me or I wouldn't be there or that I shouldn't cry over certain things or that certain things that happened were MY fault... so NO i don't want my nephew believein all the BS people are going to tell him... sorry but that is one area I am sensitive about.... if I cam off as hateful I am sorry... but yes, I know things about foster care, no you may not be one of those families, idk anyone on here well enough to say they are, I just know they are out there and I want my nephew to know not everything he hears is the truth.

back to OP's question.. Not only would I bristle at current pictures of DD on BMs FB page (she has ones from when she was little), she would be in violation of her OA and would risk future contact by doing so This was at DCYF's request - not ours. But I very much appreciate it There were men in DD's life who did inappropriate things. Those men are still in contact/involved with BM. I do not want these men in contact with J; I do not want them knowing what she looks like. I can't stop BM from sharing a printed photo, but I'm going to make it as hard as possible for them (the men) to have access My cousin loves to take pictures from my FB page and repost pictures of "his" kids. I roll my eyes, but i tolerate it. Not sure if thats because its family or because i know almost all the people on his friends list.

To the OP, you are right, your grief you share with your daughter is why you are so angry. I swing from being sad for my daughter's birthmom because she has missed out on so much to being furious for the things that happened. I do share pictures. I'm thankful that they have shared baby pictures as well or I would have none. It has meant a lot to my daughter. She decided to close the adoption and while I do share some pictures, it is far less than the past. We have no agreement as far as pictures online. I know the whole family still loves her, and love pictures of her. I guess that if I feel the pictures are a compromise of her safety, I will stop them until we have an agreement. I do know that when I give them I have no control over what they do with them at that point. Foster care adoptions are touchy and I think each case is so different.

Gosh, what a response! Still digesting it all...We have bigger fish to fry here, as A is having a bad reaction to her latest med...up 10 times last night!Anyway, I'm not going to call Myspace. I would rather speak/write to A's birthmom first. I think I owe her that. I really do respect her feelings...seems she is living in a fantasy, though, as the site includes comments about how they will be a family again, etc. .... Mostly, I don't want A's birthmom to completely disappear. A has been through so much, and I think I owe it to her to do what I can to maintain a connection to her history/past, even if it wasn't very good. I want her to know that I didn't dismiss her birth family, that I tried, you know?We have no agreement as to the openess of the adoption or sharing photos, online or not. Basically what we have said is we will keep writing and sending photos and that's all we can promise to do at the moment.

Thank you for taking her into consideration.. I agree your daughter's safety comes first, and I do believe that putting current pictures of your kids up are unsafe for your children. I worry about the comments she is making about being a family again, but I don't know how new this whole thing is either, I may have missed it. I was like that over my niece and nephew for quite sometime. I still hope they come and find us if they want to, but I also have to face the fact that they are probably better off in their new environment, though I wish someone would adopt my nephew... he deserves a "forever family". I will say though, if talking doesn't work, not to hesitate taking further and more restrictive action as suggested by pp :)

akg I am not trying to insult you. You state that you KNOW what the kids are being told and I couldn't tell from your post if you were indicating you have specific facts to this effect or if you are making an assumption based on YOUR experience of foster care. I am truly sorry you had a bad experience. There are bad people in every walk of life - not all foster families are bad and not all are good. We are fortunate to live in a county where the foster families are amazing and we get good support to engage in shared parenting with our birth families. Unfortunately, it has been the experience of many foster families I know that the birth families are NOT good for the kids. That is not specific to you or your family, I am talking about someone else's experience. When dealing with online photos it's very challenging because these may be someone else's birth kids but they are our forever kids (since we are fostering to adopt). I know when I post pics online that I can control who sees them. I know when the birth parents post pics that their friend group includes ex-convicts, drug dealers and gang members. Not the kind of people I want admiring pics of my kids online.

Only a few years ago the county I live in changed their relinquishment/TPR agreements to state that any photographs of children received by the birthparents would be for their own personal use and could not be posted electronically or emailed, etc. This was after a family I know found out that their FD at the time (who was approximately 4 months old) had her own myspace account with pictures posted on it that her mother had taken during visits with her. Myspace was contacted and immediately shut down the page because it was a clear violation of their terms of use. I haven't posted any pictures of my FKs on my FB page because I'm not allowed to while they are in foster care. However, if I adopt them, I will post pictures of them for family and friends to see. I think some of the concern with the birth parents is the fact that you don't know who their friends are and who is viewing the pictures. I know in my particular case, I'm not willing to provide my FK's parents with any pictures if they are adopted given their case history. I have provided them pictures here and there though. They spend enough time at visits taking pictures with their cell phones rather than parenting.

After we finalized our adoptions through foster care I thought it would be a great idea to create a MySpace page in order for the BP's to have easy access to pics and an updated blog. Well you know the saying "no good deed goes unpunished" it happened. Pretty soon under the BP's pages I saw pics that I had taken with captions like "my peanut out on the swing spending day with mom" Mom wasn't me. She was referring to herself. She was living in fantasy land and "pretending" it was her life. It was in our guildlines that they weren't to post pics or have any other communication. Emails and the like were prohibited. They had huge boundary issues. We ended up contacting Myspace and having them remove the pictures. For my daughter with RAD how would I explain that the portrayed didn't ever happen when she herself is having a hard time grasping reality? We are constantly talking about the good and the not so hot moments of her life prior to coming here. When she is 18 she will have the choice to find her BP's and then they will have the opportunity to share their perspective of life prior to adoption. I only have what information I have to share and it isn't the sunny side of things. I do listen to her though about the good times and feel that this is important because it wasn't all bad. I don't regret that some communication has been lost. Here is another example. Today we just found out that one BF was all over the papers for have sex with someone that was underage. If you look up the links through online papers the comments have links to his facebook/myspace page. How is that benefiting my children? If I had allowed their pictures to remain then they would be there today along side their bio fathers mug shot. Sometimes it is just best to realize something isn't in the true best interest of the children involved.