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I am an adoptive mom with 3 young kids in very open adoption relationships with all 6 birthfamilies. I am looking for some adoptee perspective regarding my son and youngest since I am making decisions on what I think would be best for him. The delima is this, his birthmom has alot of anger and resentment towards me for maintaining a relationship with the birthfather and his family even though this was discussed briefly before placement and I said I would never deny my kids either of their birthparents. Because of this relationship she has little to do with us and no longer chooses to see her birthson when we are in town (its a 5 hour drive and we do it 3-4 times a year to see 4 of the birthfamilies). She and her family have also decided to continue to call him by the name on his original birth certificate and they see that there is no harm in this. He is only 17 months old now but as he gets older I think it will become more of an issue. A little background. She parented for 11 days because the birthfather opposed the adoption at first, until he saw there was no way to make their relationship work. They both came and spent the weekend here togeather a few weeks after placement and everything seemed to go great - but she left not wanting us to talk to him or his family and calling our son by the name she gave him. Prior to placement, they all agreed to the first name we gave him and we let the birthmom choose his middle name - a family name. What I would like to know is how important do you feel a relationship is with both birthparents and how would you have felt growing up if your birthmother and her family called you by the name you had with them for 11 days (and what will my other kids think of this). I'm asking because the communication is starting up again with her family and I want to make sure I am picking the right battles for my sons sake (not for mine or the birthmoms sake) Thank you for your feedback.
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My situation is different for a lot of reasons (adoption from foster care, relative placement, older child).
I'm bumping, hoping some domestic adoptive parents will weigh in.
I CAN speak to managing bitter BPs, however. My cousin is forever insisting I need to keep J away form her BM. BM will complain that my cousin came over and beat her up. etc, etc
I've let both know that they are not to talk trash about the other in front of J. They are not to pull us into their drama.
If this caused one of them to go away, thats on them.
I manage my relationship decisions with a simple question. Can I, in good conscious, explain the reasoning behind me decisions to my DD when she is an adult?
When you DS is 21 and he asks where his BM went, it seems you have a reasonable response
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I would hold my ground on the name issue - but I think your son is young enough that they will come to terms with that quickly. If they call a 3 year old the wrong name - that 3 year old is going to tell them off. We call our daughter a derivative of her full name, they used to not call her that derivative, but she doesn't respond to it, and we only call her the nick name ... and now at 3.5 they only call her the nickname. I don't care what they refer to her as when we aren't around but it is pretty disrespectful to call a child a name they do not have nor use. Hopefully they will come to that awareness themselves. If they call "Timmy" "Johnny" he simply will not respond.
Thanks for the feedback. I know I need to hold my ground on this, but when I discuss with the birthmoms family, they just won't budge and say that they feel what they are doing is in the best interests for the baby as well. I have some feedback from adoptees in one of my yahoo groups that I have forwarded to them, and was hoping for a few more perspectives because they are going on their assumptions and view of the world and no one elses. I appreciate the support - none of my other birthfamilies have been so difficult, sure its been hard at times and I've had to set up boundaries but they totally respect that. So its really against my nature to really have to stand up and in essence create conflict with them (even though I'm not the one really doing it, I'm just standing up for me and my son)...
we adopted twins from husbands side of family and I hated our daughers name from the start but kept it bc I didnt want to hurt bio mom and then they decided they wanted nothing to do with them and while my daughter was small enough I changed it she found out and is Mad but I had to do what was best for her!~ I am setting rules for bio parents so kids dont get confused! im trying to be strong
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