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We've been very open about our daughter's adoption. Our relationship with birthmom is fine; although now that she is married to a nice guy and has two other children of her own, and lives cross country, we don't hear from her much anymore. However, birth grandparents live in the same town with us, and it's with them that I am upset.
During frequent outings with the grandparents, they've sown seeds of dissatisfaction in my little girl (5 years old), talking about her "real" siblings (she has three siblings with us) and her "real" mother. They've got her believing that first mom's present husband is her father, and that we took her from her birth mom. We've gently corrected her, but she keeps returning to that story line. I'm stunned that they would do this, but I should have seen it coming; they are very self-centered people.
Circumstances (start of school, conflicting schedules) keep our daughter away from these people now, at least until summer. However, the damage has been done. How do I deal with my daughter's new perspectives? I feel so betrayed, because we have always honored her first mom, she has been good to us, but these meddling grandparents have done damage. Just looking for some feedback from anyone who's dealt with this. Thank you so much.
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That is horrid!!! No experience other than to know it is a sure fired way to completely confuse your daughter and result in detrimental long term effects. Do you have to keep up the contact? I am a birthmum who would like to believe contact would be a positive in her life... but this? It is wrong, it is not positive and it sucks!! Can you talk to the birthmum about this?
Howcome they werent there to support their daughter when she had her baby???? Grrrrrrrrrrr. They need to go away!!!
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That is horrid!!! No experience other than to know it is a sure fired way to completely confuse your daughter and result in detrimental long term effects. Do you have to keep up the contact? I am a birthmum who would like to believe contact would be a positive in her life... but this? It is wrong, it is not positive and it sucks!! Can you talk to the birthmum about this?
Howcome they werent there to support their daughter when she had her baby???? Grrrrrrrrrrr. They need to go away!!!
I'm also wondering if you might be able to get some help on this from birthmom. Maybe if your daughter heard the truth from her, it would help to counteract the lies the grandparents have told.
I would also not allow further unsupervised contact with the bgrandparents. Before I allowed any contact at all I would have a very clear conversation with them letting them know why I am supervising visits and setting very clear boundaries about what is and is not okay.
I take it these visits are unsupervised outings with the grandparents? It's a very difficult situation to be in. Perhaps having a conversation with them about how confusing that is, etc. In all liklihood, it won't make them suddenly have an epiphany that they have behaved wrongly...but it may give you an idea of where they are on the issue, so that you can decide which way to go from here.Is it possible, the next time they want to see her, to make it a large family function? That way you are there while they are & she sees everyone together. It may help her to see both of her families interacting together...but it will also allow you the chance to run interference a bit so that she can have the positive with them, without them interjecting the negative.
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