I've been reading the question and answers about adoptees not feeling supported or understood by their adoptive families when they are in reunion. I'm an adoptive parent, and our daughter's adoption is an international, semi-open adoption. It's very possible our daughter will be in reunion some day with her biological family. One answer to the question (Emma's) intrigued me. She received pressure from her adoptive family to maintain a relationship with a biological family member with whom she didn't want to. I guess my question is, as an adoptive parent, how do you strike a balance between offering support and not pressuring and giving space for it to be the adoptee's experience? I almost feel like I'd be more likely to be encouraging to the point of adding pressure than being unsupportive, but I don't want to do either. I honestly believe it's usually healthy for an adoptee to reunite, and I wouldn't want my daughter never to do it because she didn't know how to bring it up to us, but I don't want what I think is simply letting her know it's okay and I support it make her feel like she has to if she doesn't want to. If she were in reunion, I'd want her to be able to tell me anything she was feeling about it. But, I wouldn't want questions to make her feel like it wasn't her experience that I was trying to take it over. I also wouldn't want lack of questions or discussion to be taken as lack of support. Just thinking about navigating reunion as an adoptive parent. Any ideas of how to best support it without intruding or pressuring?
2010-01-13T14:40:49Z
ETA: gypsywinter - I didn't mean navigating a relationship with my daughter's biological family. I think it's clear from my question I know that will be between them. I meant navigating how to support and yet at the same time give space to my daughter.
?2010-01-13T19:50:24Z
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I think it is awesome you realize that this will happen, and Im happy you are asking questions.
I think it is really important for adoptive parents to just step back and not be involved, unless your child asks you to be involved. (I am assuming you live in an area where the child needs to be 18 or older.)
Sure, it's ok to ask questions, that's only natural. I would have loved for my parents to say, "Hey- just know we will be as involved as you want us to be. We know this is important to you, and if we can help, let us know." I think it's important to start discussing reunion when the child is very young, so it becomes a normal conversation, because it's part of their story and it is very likely to happen. I think things like, "Hey, I wonder if your first Mom plays the piano (or whatever hobby your child has) it will be cool to find that out some day." are really positive. But- if you're in a somewhat open adoption, she probably knows some things. I think you get my point though, lol.
Other than a few posters here, I have never met or talked to an adoptee who DIDN'T want to search. And, they dont usually bring it up with their adoptive parents until after the fact. I think it's mostly because they are afraid of hurting their parents, and afraid of possible rejection by their n p's.
Reunion is an extremely private and personal thing, between a first Mom and her child. As much as I love my A Mom, there are things she does not need to know about how I feel about my first family, or the feelings I had during my search. It was my search, and it was full of self discovery. "Self", being the key word, lol. Then it became MY relationship, just as my relationship with my husband is MY relationship.
So, while I think it's important that adoptees know their parents support them, there is a fine line. It sounds like you know it will happen, and your daughter may include you in the process. I think it's ok to ask questions. As long as you make it about her needs, and it sounds like that's what you are doing, it will make it easier on her.
Good job! :)
ETA for Emma: You wrote, "I wish my family had not made me feel like I had to justify my feelings or logically argue my point to them."
God, I could have written this myself, but couldn't find the right words. Thanks for that- so brilliantly and simply stated!!!
I'm coming at your question from a different experience as an adoptive parent, but some of your thoughts ring very familiar. We have an open adoption, so there's not a reunion per se, but an ongoing relationship.
My daughter will turn 11 in just a few weeks and I'm watching her understanding and emotions change on a daily basis. A few years ago I felt as though I was the one nudging both her and her natural mother to stay in contact. When her natural mother was on the phone, I'd say "Hey J, K is on the phone, want to talk?" Only to find out she really didn't want to. (God forbid we interrupt her on the Wii ;-)
Then I realized I was going about this all wrong. The right thing to do was keep the door open and let both of them know they could walk through it whenever they wanted. Enter Facebook. I bent the age rules and set up an account for my daughter and helped her make her natural mother, aunts, cousins and siblings her friends. Now she can communicate with them whenever she wants and vice versa. I keep a high-level view of what's going on, but I basically I butt out.
Have you considered not waiting until she's older, but starting a reunion with her natural family now? Perhaps something as simple as Facebook or e-mails may help pave the way for an ongoing relationship and set a supportive course for the future.
I can't answer for your situation of course, but I can speak to what I would have wanted.
From the day that I was placed in my grandparent's care, the idea was the someday I would re-connect with my natural parents. My connection with my bio mother has been somewhat strange because the family relationship was weirdly wired (if your grandparents are your parents, what exactly is that?) My grandfather (my pops) ended up serving as a bit of a referee between us, but it was all ok for the most part. I was nearly 18 and off to college soon thereafter. It was strange, but at least it was a relationship.
Things changed when my brother decided to reconnect with our father when he was 18. I am almost 3 years older and I was in college at the time. His reunion was not great, but it was stable and he was feeling a great amount of relief from the connection. The assumption was that if it was a good thing for him, it would be a good thing for me. That's what was particularly hard. It made me feel like I was a failure because my reunion wasn't a "good" one. It also set me up to be abandoned repeatedly by my bio father.
I wish that I would have had the freedom to choose without feeling that my fate was somehow lying in the balance. I would have liked the information to seek out in my own time. I think I would have eventually sought him out. I think the reunion would have still been ended, but I would not have felt powerless.
Please let her know that you are prepared to give her the financial and emotional help she needs to do this in her time and in her way. I would have liked to spend time with a therapist to get the the heart of several things before a reunion was attempted. Firstly, what exactly I wanted from a reunion. I know now that I never wanted or needed an ongoing relationship with him, but it would have been nice to ask him some questions even if he never answered. I would have liked to prepare myself for the stress that a change in life brings (either positive or negative). I would have liked to talk to someone about the separation between my relationship with my parents and my relationship with my bio parents. A therapist *before* the reunion would have been ideal--alas, mine came after.
I'm sure that it will be an entirely surreal experience for her that she will not necessarily be able to put into words. I wish my family had not made me feel like I had to justify my feelings or logically argue my point to them.
I guess my answer seems a bit preachy--I don't intend it that way. Ultimately, each person's reunion is so very personal that I'm not sure any specific advice would be appropriate, except telling her that you will give her the financial, emotional and other support she needs when (or if) she chooses a reunion and that the support will continue no matter the outcome of the reunion. Oh, and I would have liked to be told that I did not need to do anything to "earn" love. While I knew this in my head, the emotional toll of this took me out of that headspace and a reminder would have been great. :)
You could say due to modern local open adoption we have been in reunion since the first day we were placed with our child. There is no keeping us all seperate. In that our kids don't get a choice due to reforms WANTED by natural parents and some adult adoptee's. This is done regardless of how adoptive parents might feel about it. The openess is determined by the natural mother. (Well at least in my country it is...)So, if the next generation of adoptee's don't like us all mixing....we thay can always blame the new reforms.
I think about this a lot, too. My girls are 4 and 2 1/2 and know they are adopted, but don't quite understand what that means yet! Our situation is a little different... my 4 yr old is actually my niece. She was taken by the state from my half brother and his girlfriend. They had drug and drinking problems. We adopted her and then the mother got pregnant again and they ended up taking that baby as well. We have officially adopted them both. We have a closed adoption- that's usually what happens when you adopt a foster child. It is up to us whether or not the biological parents are involved. I have told them both that if they stay clean and out of trouble, I will let them be involved- but they are not nearly stable enough to introduce themselves as the parents. They will be introduced as a friend and an uncle- and that's ONLY if they can get on the right track. I won't have my children hanging out with people who are drug addicts and are wanted by the police. The same will apply as my girls get older. I will tell them what they ask about (based on their age and what they can handle), but I will not encourage a relationship with the birth parents if they are still drug addicts! I would love for them to meet their parents someday (although we don't know who the father of my youngest is)--- but not if it'll be a negative to their lives.