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I was just wondering about those of you who have a parent who does not seem accepting of your adopted child. One of my son's grandparents lives far away from us and doesn't see us very often due to the distance. We just returned from a trip to see her, and we were amazed at her lack of interest in our son. She has photos in her home of the other grandchildren, but no photos of our son. She is very quick to point out faults (which are not even legitimate) in our son, but holds her other grandchildren (who are NOT angels and certainly not perfect) up on a pedestal. We have seen her several times since our son's birth, and she rarely gives him any type of gift or thoughtful momento. However, she showers her other grandchildren with gifts.
It is disturbing and sad for us to see how much differently she treats him than her other grandchildren, and insulting. However, we don't see her very often, so it doesn't impact our lives very much. I was just wondering how common this sort of thing is and how others handle this type of situation with the grandparents or other relatives of their adopted children.
I hope this is not very common, and I feel sad for anyone who has to experience this feeling of alienation. The way we handle it is to make sure that our son feels loved by his other family members (all of his other grandparents are wonderful to him), and try to limit the amount of time he spends at one time with this grandparent. He does seem to sense that she isn't comfortable around him, as he cries and is very irritable and nervous acting around her. This can't be healthy for him.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with this type of thing. Thank you! :-)
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I think what really bothers me as well is the fact that because they placed their son (my DH) for adoption, they'd understand a bit more, but I guess not.
I know we need to be thankful for the people who are in my children's lives, grandmas, aunts, uncles, friends and their own bio families.
As far as speaking with them about it, it wouldn't do any good in our case. She already knows. We don't even send pics of our children anymore...they don't put them out anyway. Yet, the other 3 grandchildren are plastered everywhere.
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It was my sil's kids who were treated this way by my in-laws. She had 2 littles, like 3 and 4, when she married my bil. Our in-laws never, ever accepted either one of them, going so far as to give the bio-grand huge gifts and them little tokens. The kids grew up with other grandparents who were more loving.
When my nephew was 22, he was in a tough place emotionally. He and the only dad he ever had argued, the boy left angry, crashed his vehicle into a tree and died. My fil was in the hospital at the time, but he was only a couple of days away from release. My mil, whom I loved dearly, was not "allowed" to go to the funeral. I don't even know if they sent flowers. My fil was the cause of much of the issue. The hospital was less than an hour away from the funeral. We drove 4 hours to get there.
At the end of her life, my mil stayed most of the time with my sil. She said she came to love her.
You don't know all of the circumstances of anything. I can't imagine the reason to snub a child, but I'd ask. My mil felt like she had to obey her husband. She missed a lot of years with grandkids because of it.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. What a terrible feeling that anyone could think your beautiful baby was anything less than 100% wonderful and amazing!I don't really have any words of advice, but I am concerned that we may have the same situation in the spring when both of DH's brothers are having babies. They will be the first bio grandkids for DH's parents and we've already overheard one person from their church telling them congratulations on finally having real grandchildren. My FIL was very, very quick to set them straight and said, "We already have 2 grandkids. These aren't the first." Then the person stuttered a bit and said, "Well, you know what I mean...." and FIL let it go and changed the subject at that point. I just hope they still feel that way and are willing to tell others how it is in the spring when the other babies arrive.
Waiting...the type of non-accepting feelings for adoptees by a few family members has been around a long time. Unfortunately acceptance into a family by some does not necessarily include all family members.There is a story written by an adoptee who was on an Orphan Train. He was sent to the west during the teens. His mother had abandoned him in NY and now his hope was to find a family. He was taken in by a farmer and his wife who already had several bio children. He was well treated and tried to believe that at last he too had family. All was well until an aunt came to visit at Christmas time. On Christmas day, she called each child over and gave them a new quarter. He waited till all the others had received her gift and then went to her holding out his hand as they had done. She drew back and slapped him...tellin him that she knew what he was and he could never be a part of HER family...she had nothing for HIM.From then on, he knew that he would always be an adoptee. It's a sad story, but relates to your post. There will be some family members who won't accept non bio children.Non acceptance may be one of the hardest parts of adoption because in my experience, it never gets better. The non acceptance is permanent.I wish you the best.
Man - that stinks. I'm sorry! :( :( :( :(
We are having a similar issue with my brother-in-law right now.
My DH is from another country and the only people in his very-LARGE family that live here in the states are his mother and brother. My mother-in-law is IN LOVE with K and vice-versa. Brother-in-law ... not so much. We have had K over 6 months now and b-i-l has not been over to the house once, sent a card a gift nothing. DH brought him over to mom-in-law's house once when his brother was there and not much interest or interaction.
Meanwhile, we hear how he is out buying gifts for and visiting the new children of his friends. DH is not thrilled about the behavior, to say the least (I'm livid, but I try to let him handle his family and I handle mine :rolleyes: )
The person I am most sad for, though, is DH - because of his crappy behavior he has cut off all contact to his only brother. :(
I can't really argue with his view though:
K has already been abandoned by his bd and maternal family and his bmom can't seem to get her act together for him ... DH doesn't want any family in our lives that don't love and appreciate K as much as we do.
Hang in there - I think you are making the right decision about limiting contact. And I think you might be right about him picking up on the weird signals - 21 months is old enough to start reacting to others emotions. K is 22 months and he has been having awful post-visit reactions for about 2-3 months now.
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Thank you all for your responses - it was helpful to read about some of your experiences with this, as well. Some of you asked about my speaking to my mom about why she treats our son as she does. I did ask her why she has no photos of our son, but dozens of her other 2 grandchildren, and her response was that my brother gave her the frames with the photos and that is why they are displayed in her home. She says that she doesn't have time to put photos in frames. This is bull, I know, but guess what I am going to do? I am going to give her a beautiful frame with a few photos of our son and of our family for Christmas. We'll see if it shows up in her home. I've never heard of anyone saying that they don't have time to put a photo in a frame, but oh well. I'm hoping my giving her the frame will at least make her display the photos.
Again, thank you all so much for your responses. I'm so sad for those of you who have to go through this, but it is nice to be able to communicate with those of you who have, and to receive nice words and support from others. I think in this world, we just need to learn to accept that we can't always make things happen the way we want them to, and we need to make an attempt to come to terms with difficult circumstances in the best way that we can. :-( It's hard though. Especially when a child is involved.
Waiting, don't take this the wrong way, but I had to giggle at your mom's "frame disability." It would be like saying she couldn't send a letter because it's too hard to lick a stamp! WTH? And Momofone, that stinks as well. I wonder if there's some kind of "trigger?" My hubby told his birth mom about our adopting DD and it was like she completely ignored it (of course, she just pretty much ignored everything)....maybe it's hard? I don't know, but no excuse anyway.
I don't know, Love. They were so excited when we did adopt and were wonderful for the first several years. Their bio granddaughters (twins) were around 10 at the time, and our son was a newborn, so they did dote on him.
They started to get "weird" for lack of a better word about 7 years ago, and then once another bio granddaughter was born 3 1/2 years ago, my children took the backseat. They don't attend any of my children's parties, christenings...nothing.
We live 1 1/2 hours away from them, and my children haven't seen grandma in 1 1/2 years. DH's dad stopped in last year for about 10 minutes. They even have to travel here, and they still don't stop in.
Like I said, I don't care about us...we are adults. It's the kiddos I worry about. They know about the favoritism and ask questions. I don't even bother to call them now.
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loveajax
Waiting, don't take this the wrong way, but I had to giggle at your mom's "frame disability." It would be like saying she couldn't send a letter because it's too hard to lick a stamp! WTH?
We don't have experience with this with our adopted daughter but with our bio son's! DH's parents have never shown any interest in our two boys from the time they were born until now, they are 16 and 20 years now. They dote on and spoil, to the extent of being sick, DH's sister's daughters who are 8 and 13. When we adopted our daughter at birth we thought oh boy here we go but were shocked to see how they spoil her! We of course don't allow them to go to the "sick" point like they do with the other two girl grandchildren mainly because we don't want to make a big scene with our boys, even though they are old enough to notice and do. I think you are very lucky to live a distance from this grandparent and it seems you are handeling it very well. It's sad that all children can't experience grandparents who "spoil them and send them home"
ourdreamcametru
We don't have experience with this with our adopted daughter but with our bio son's! DH's parents have never shown any interest in our two boys from the time they were born until now, they are 16 and 20 years now. They dote on and spoil, to the extent of being sick, DH's sister's daughters who are 8 and 13. When we adopted our daughter at birth we thought oh boy here we go but were shocked to see how they spoil her! We of course don't allow them to go to the "sick" point like they do with the other two girl grandchildren mainly because we don't want to make a big scene with our boys, even though they are old enough to notice and do. I think you are very lucky to live a distance from this grandparent and it seems you are handeling it very well. It's sad that all children can't experience grandparents who "spoil them and send them home"
I am so sorry that many of you have parents or in-law's who ignore your children or treat them differently than other grandkids. That is so very hurtful...and I know it would cut me to my very soul. I don't think it's unique to adoption, though. My mother has always ignored her own biological grandchildren, the one's who were raised within the family. She hasn't even seen them in 18 years...
I often find myself offering a prayer of gratitude for my son's late grandparents...the one's in his adoptive family. They all showered him with love and affection, often taking care of him for months at a time and "spoiling him rotten". I've seen photos taken with them when DS was a youngster, and there is no mistaking the love they had for him. DS was especially close to his maternal grandmother, a wonderful woman who taught him how to bake...she was a professional baker who had her grandson decorating wedding cakes by the time he was 10. Unfortunately, she passed away when he was 13 years old, so I never had the chance to meet her. I did get to meet her husband, though, and he was a delightful man with a twinkle in his eye and an infectious smile.
Grandparents can be so important in a child's life...a true blessing. I will never be able to figure out why some people just don't get it, why they pass up the gift that God is offering them. I think one of the purest things on earth is the love a child offers. What a loss not to accept that love and reciprocate it...
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I do think it has to do with her being a girl. DH says that he never had a very good relationship with his parents growing up because they always focused on younger sister. They always do for his sister's two girls and now ours so they only seem to bond with females?...I don't know the excuse but I do know it's their loss because our boys are AWESOME and so much fun, they have so much love to give and the grandparents are missing out. My parents on the other hand say it just gives them more time with our kids and they love it!
I will say that DH and I have never talked about the grandparents nor have we ever discouraged our sons from visits or a relationship with DH's parents. We figured that when the boys were old enough they could decide for themselves what kind of relationship they would have.
Sadly It’s very common. I am 32 and my son is 10 months old. We have had him since he was 10 days old. I’ve tried talking him around the family at least once a month. Sometimes more sometimes less. My parents don’t love my adopted son. I have to stand up for him several times. My parents stop talking to me. It makes me sad because he is only 10 months and he might have to grow up without grandparents because of the rejection. I don’t want him feeling left out. I love him. If my parents love me they should love him too. Well that’s how I feel. Wishful thinking.
Last update on November 27, 8:03 am by Erika Yoshi.