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I always knew I was adopted and of course I was interested in my biological family.
I was nothing like my adopted family and as soon as I developed my own personality that my adopted mother could not control, then I was fully aware that I was tolorated and not wanted by her.
Does anyone else have that experience? That their adopted family felt they made a mistake and spent the rest of their lives just putting up with an unwanted kid?
Anyway, I met my biological family when I was 16. My parents were still together and had alot more children that they kept and loved.
I did not want to get close to them, but at the same time, I desperatly wanted to know them and even more than that, I thought they could love me. At that age, I guess you just assume the best.
The 'closer' I got to them, the more upset I got. They genuinly love their 'kept' children. Their kept kids grew up with love and confidence and that allowance to be themselves. They acted like they had always loved me and thought about me and I completely believed them, had no reason not to.
Then I would hear them talking behind my back, saying my boyfriend was only with me for this reason and that, and pretty much crushing my entire character and personality.
What I wanted to say to them was Screw you! You were meant to have an input on my life, so dont go *****ing about me when you were the ones who just handed me over to random strangers and hoped for the best.
One question that was never answered and that is very un PC to ask is: How can a mother give up her child?
Yes I get the basics.
But doesnt the thought of "Who will look after my baby? Who will love my baby and treat her right?" come into the bio mothers head?
And in my bio mother's case is was not like some others. She had a strong and loving family, both parents still together and able to look after me, had she chosen it that way.
She comes across as a loving, kind, caring person but because of this situation, I am really doubting that she actually is.
She's says people convinced her to give me up but I know that is not true because she ran away from everyone she knew and loved and had me where nobody knew her. So if people had tried to convince her, they obviously werent close to her, so why should she care?
It went alot deeper than this and the issues from the adoption have affected my life. I feel like an expert in the nature vs nuture field. I analyse this situation to death but it still never really goes away. And the fact that she was just able to hand me over to people she had never met who would not love me makes me wonder what kind of person she really is.
My biological siblings grew up with love, adoration and all the things that parents give natrually to a child. I have this horrible jealousy of them that isnt nice or normal.
They can go out into the world and just expect people to accept them, and people do.
In my opinion, adopted kids dont have that feeling of being loved or wanted and always have an emptiness they cant explain or fix.
Please correct me if Im wrong, I would LOVE to hear a story about a successful adoption where the adoptee has never felt like this...
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Strike2, I agree with you. Those of us that are adopted have different feelings regarding our a-family relationships.There seems to be the ever present feelings of grief, loss, and being an outsider.Its hard to pinpoint whether those feelings are handed down at the time of the adoption, as a part of the adoption package, or if they are developed depending on how the a-family views the adoption. At any rate, they are very real.Many of us have the feelings of being kept under a microscope. Every movement or feeling, or integration with someone we become linked with, requires an evaluation by the a-family.In some cases we are left in a bubble cage without any means to change or improve what is happening. But, each event is evaluated by the a-family.It was the intent of my a-father, never to tell the 2 children he had bought thru the black market of their adoption.Or that the 2nd child was a replacement after the death of the first child.The era may have been different, and adoption supposedly has progressed but, from the posts written here, the end result in adoptees has changed little.I wish you the best.
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I can only share my own reasons for choosing adoption for my firstborn, even though my parents would have helped me raise him had I chosen to do so. (That in itself was a problem because my mother's "help" meant I would never really have been the mother.) I believed (and still do, really) that every child deserves to grow up in a family where he/she is wanted. My mother used to tell me she loved me but hadn't wanted me (she was married when I was conceived and I am the oldest of four.) I did not want to do that to my son and I knew how much I was like my my mom. To the two I raised, I might want to say I can't figure out WHY I wanted you, but I can never say they weren't planned or wanted. I also placed in an era when illegitimacy was a big deal and it was considered shameful for children to be born "out of wedlock." I'm not sure my mom ever quite forgave me (She saw it as a reflection on her parenting.) Fifteen years after I married, my sister got married in my mother's wedding dress. Mom made the comment at that point that she hadn't wanted me to wear it. I also wanted my son to have two parents, (Again, I know there are no guarantees... but at least he would start with two.) Are any of these things "good enough" reasons to choose adoption for one's child? I can't answer that for you, only for me.Remember that every child is born into a different family. Even if your parents later married and had more children, you can't really know what pressures were put on them at the time and what had changed by the time they had more. Strike2, I'm sorry you didn't have the family you have needed and deserved. I can only tell you that I love my birth son every bit as much as the two I raised and welcome him to the extent that he is willing to be part of our family. I wish you could experience that as well.
"In my opinion, adopted kids don't have that feeling of being loved or wanted and always have an emptiness they cant explain or fix."I would be interested in how many adoptees felt less love from the AFather than the Amother especially if it was the AFather that had the "issue that required the adopting of another man's child".I was out of the house by 16 (sent to private school because of choice of friends) and my AParents never looked back.They were free of the children that never fit in to their ideal family unit.
I agree. My a-family kept me as an "outsider."At age 7, my adoption secret was shared, somewhat. At least long enough for the labels of "suspect" and "tainted" to be attached. From that point, I believed I was an "outsider."That label remained attached for the 30 years I served my a-family.The 2 bio children that were a part of my a-family had it all. Each day on looking at them, it was a reminder they had something I wanted, but could never have.In the 18 years i knew my a-father, he never chatted with me. I was too stupid and could never have his fund of knowledge. Yet, he accepted the major contributions i gave to the a-family.Now that significant time has passed, often I wonder if it matters that I was left "outside" of my a-family. The answer is yes -- it matters to me.I wish you the best.