Birth mom sending cards and money

Our daughters birthmom sends letters to DSS to her saying she misses her and to please write her. She also sent DSS a card on her last bday to forward. We're holding them in a safe place until she's older.The way its phrased sounds like they still talked in her last placement, I don't know though.Daughter has no interest in contact and like us, does NOT want her knowing where she is. She did want her to have photo, see we sent a couple in non identifying areas to DSS to sent birthmom.Last adoptive mom sends letters too. They come across as manipulative, also saving those for later.Tpr was for a reason, until she's older or therapist indicates a need, they're put away while she heals,

I would just put her cards in a folder and save for later when the kids are older. At this stage, it seems like her drug addicted behavior (regardless if she's on drugs or not, it's the addiction behavior) isn't allowing her to see how she is crossing boundaries and actually not writing her cards in a healthy manner. "I miss you and can't wait to see you again, love Mommy" types of messages are not appropriate at their ages or for an adoption out of foster care where addiction was involved. It's manipulative behavior and very self serving. I'm not saying she doesn't love or miss them. I'm also not saying it's a horrible thing that she is doing - some day your kids will/might really want to see the cards. Many kids adopted from foster care never get this after all. If though you really don't want to receive these, you can ask DSS to stop forwarding to you and for them to tell her to stop. She no longer has the legal right after all, so it's truly your decision. Just think about the long run and if one day you might need or want to contact her. That's why I suggested above to just put everything in a folder and wait a few years. You don't even need to read them now if you don't want to.

My girls' mother explained her thoughts like this: she loves the very much. She wants them to be cared for & knew mine was a good home. She knew she couldn't care properly for them so, when DHs tried to r/u, she made sure it didn't happen because she didn't want it to just keep going back & forth. However, she did not want to be cut off from them & not be their mother.In my case, she contested the adoption, because she didn't want to be declared no longer the legal mother (of the one that has actually been adopted). She said she was ok with living apart from them & having them parented by someone else...but she wanted them to know she loved them still. (It's not fully rational, so don't try to make sense of the logic or you'll give yourself a headache.)So...maybe it's a similar thing with your situation. Maybe she loves & misses them or even wants them to know that she does love them, even though she couldn't (or believed she wouldn't be able to) care for them properly.

A recovering addict friend of mine once told me that to stay clean she had to avoid stress. She said staying clean was hard and a lot of work, worth it, but hard. She avoids stress in her life because she fears stress wold send her back to using. She has done things like move to a smaller home, take on a boring job, and she avoids stressful relationships in her life. She has chosen to have her tubes tied even though she is single and not dating anyone. She does not want any chance of kids. She says she knows kids are stressful and she feels like the stress of day to day caring for a child would send her back to using and she wants to avoid that. She loves kids and is thrilled when she gets to spend time with her nieces and nephews, but always keeps the time short enough to not become too stressful. I wonder if your kids first mom realized the same thing - that to stay clean she could not add the stress of daily caring for kids into her life, even if she loved them very much. I would do as others have said and put the cards in a file for when the kids are older and if the money is more than a dollar or two put it in a bank account for when they are older. I know many adoptees who would give anything to have a note that told them that their first moms loved them and thought about them. My son gets letters and notes from a nun who was close to him. Most of them are not appropriate. I usually just casually mention to him that she wrote (I get e-mails a lot) and said she was thinking of him and hoped he was happy. I don't tell him she said she wants him back and she is his "real" mom (she is not, she treated him like a favorite toy, she would go get him and dress him up and give him candy and then send him back to the caregivers about once a month). The cards are put away with some of his other stuff from his birth country. (he has occasional rages where he rips up everything in his room so I took all that stuff for safe keeping and its in a box for when he is older)

Eagleswings, I completely agree - well said.

Our AD is now 10 years old, she came to us as a foster placement directly from the hospital, parental rights were terminated at 18 months. We agreed to twice yearly letters or cards as we knew her bioparents loved her, but there addictions were stronger. There were some rules put in place about the content of the letters, and no gifts were to be sent. They could never follow those rules, ever. Boundaries were continually crossed, gifts were sent, letters contained sentiments such as, "Cps stole you from us", I am going to see you again, no matter what", "it is so great that (insert our names) are taking care of you for us", etc. I sent a couple of letters to them explaining that this could not continue of we would close the adoption, they seemed unable to understand, so we closed it. They still send pictures and letters, we have put them in our fire safe and will probably give them to her when she is old enough to understand, not sure when that will be. Sometime I do feel bad, but we tried to do the right thing for our daughter.