Advertisements
We have a very open adoption with my oldest sons bfamily, especially grandma. When she visits our city she takes him overnight to visit with bfamily. Bmom doesn't really have any relationship by her choice. We have an open adoption agreement with grandma and bmom, and in both it states that contact is to go through us if bmom wants to contact us, well she does not and she has our phone number, address etc....
Now here is the problem, everytime he goes to stay with grandma he talks to bmom. The real issue to us is that she does not contact us at home, only there, and we are concerned that our 8year old will think that this happens because it is something that should be kept secret from us because he may think we don't approve, which is not true at all, and that is why we want contact to go through us, so that he sees he can love everyone without guilt. I don't know how to bring this up once again with grandma (she even has signed an agreement not to do that, but agreements are not legally binding here). I don't want to take away overnights, she keeps doing it anyways, saying oh, she just phoned while he was here, which is extremely unlikely without her telling bmom when he would be there. Any advise from bmoms, amoms or adoptees? Thanks
Like
Share
A big question for me would be, is bmom saying something to your son that bothers you? If not, what's the harm? Maybe bmom feels funny contacting you. Grandma is in an awkward position as this is her child vs. her grandchild. Obviously, your child is telling you about his talks with his bmom.(And hopefully your responding with things like how is she? Oh that's nice that you had a chance to talk with her.) As he gets older, if he asks, let him know bmom has always been welcome to call you. I've learned to compromise a lot with birth family agreements as long as the arrangements aren't harming my children.
Advertisements
The Grandmother is not living up to the agreement, and if you keep letting her get away with it, it will never end. I would end the visits for now,unless she wants to sign an agreement stating that she will not further confuse the child by letting the bm only call when she's present. You have to be strong or else people will walk all over you. Sincerely, Brenda....
What's he going to think if you stop the visits with the grandma?
I think this would re-enforce exactly what your afraid of.
If you bring up his birth family in a positive light, he will be willing to talk to you about it. If it were my child, I would tell him that his bmom is allowed to talk to him at your house, but you think she's more comfortable calling him at grandmas. Giving him permission to love everybody will make him talk to you more, not less. That's my opinion.
We think It is grandma doing this, not bmom. Bmom and us have a good relationship, respectful of eachothers boundaries. It is grandma not holding up her end of the agreement. She pushes our son on her, bmom told us so, even though bmom feels uncomfortable with it. We have had bmom at our home, we have gone out with her and our son, we have a fairly good relationship so I don't really think that it is as much bmom doing this than grandma.
Advertisements
Your first posts says bmom doesn't contact you and later on it says you have this great relationship with mom. In your early post your issue was that bmom went through gmom and not you, now its gmom forcing this.
I'm not trying to be unsupportive, but it seems to me that you've made up your mind that you don't want grandma in your sons life.
I think that would be pretty sad. Who cares where who talks to who if it's an open relationship? You can control how your son deals with this by your discussion and communication with him.
Sorry if this seems unclear. An agreement was made between all of us. We are not breaking any of ours, they are. It does seem to us that gmom is forcing this, from what bmom has told us. We are not looking to break any agreements at all, we just want the agreement to be followed for our son's best interests, and we do not feel that keeping secrets is in his best interests. Gmother has does some very questionable things, out of grief and we understand that and have tried to be supportive of her, but we are concerned that her breaking this agreement is not in our son's best interests. We would welcome contact from bmom, and have stated this to her many times, she chooses not to contact for her own reasons I'd imagine, I can't speculate. I just want her to contact him here (when she does contact )so that he feels ok about her and having some relationship with her because for whatever reason he at this point wants nothing to do with her. I encourage him to communicate with us, and to send a picture he has drawn or a short note to bmom and he refuses. This is my concern that maybe it is because he does not think that it is 'really ok' with us because of that certain division of when he only talks to her with grandma.