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Are you ever angry at your child's biological "mother"? For families of children hanicapped from pre-natal

trauma or abuse. How do you deal with those feelings of anger?

I thought I had overcome all of mine, and for the most part I have. However, sitting around at Christmas watching my mother open Christmas cards, things bubbled back to the surface. She had received a card from my brothers' biological brother's adoptive family. It told all about how well the almost 21-year-old boy was doing, how excited he was about his new career. He was the 7th born child of 7 biological children, and the only one born (mostly) clean. Hearing about him, while looking at my brothers - my stomach starting boiling with bile again. I love my brothers, and they are both special in their own ways, but... it's not FAIR! Everything they could have been, SHOULD have been was stolen from them by a woman who couldn't even be bothered to stop getting drugged up and drunk long enough to have a baby - and never did manage to figure out how to use birth control. How do others deal with this anger?

Update:

Just for reference - as a child/teen I often wanted to find my brothers' genetic donor and... beat her into oblivion. It would be espescially bad when the younger of the two (who's alcohol sydrome often led him to extreme tempers and uncontrollable anger) would ridiculously talk about going to find his "real" mom - as if a woman who birthed him in a toilet and left him at a hospital would treat him better. I am no longer as foolish or hot headed. However, I do sometimes just get so sad and mad at the injustice of it all. The worst is, there is almost nothing you can do with the anger. You can't punnish someone like that/ if she could abuse and walk away from seven babies what in the world could actually hurt her? You can't even change the legal system because there really isn't anythign to do about it. So my question is, what IS a healthy thing to do with it?

Update 2:

Florida Gal - I'm glad you can see it that way. I'm also glad that your son's mother learned from her mistake. I too have tried the "it's an illness" logic in my own mind, but I have a harder time really accepting it. Perhaps the difference is this. Your son's mother had ONE unhealthy baby. My brothers' mother had SIX before cleaning up in her seventh and being "coerced" into finally getting her tubes tied. My brothers are only 17 months apart in age, AND there is another brother in between them that was adopted in a different part of the state. It's just so HARD to keep seeing her as someone to pity and not someone to detest.

In addition: The purpose of this question is to find out WHAT positive things I can do with this anger (really more frustration now I suppose). Is there any good (related) cause it can be turned to that won't just further the hateful feelings?

11 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    The birth mom of 2 of my children passed away about 4 years ago from alcohol related disease. The kids were quite angry with her because her death was totally preventable, and they were just starting (as young teens) to build a relationship with her. Seeing them deal with their grief and anger helped put my own anger into perspective. The birth mom of 4 of my other kids (not biologically related to the previous 2) is still living the street life, regularly doing drugs and prostituting herself. It's tough to not be constantly angry with her, especially when she refuses to even acknowledge the girls, but tries to contact their brother and cousins. I don't want them to come into adolescence with the feeling that we have tried to color their judgement against their birth mother, because kids go through a "fairy tale" stage at that age. No matter how abusive/neglectful/ignorant a birth parent has been, kids still have a need to know where they came from. I have found that the best way to deal witht he anger is to bring it out into the open and acknowledge it. Keeping it suppressed to 'spare the children's feelings' or excuses like that won't do any good. It might seem harsh to say to a kid, "yes, your birth mom is a drug addict (alcoholic/prostitute/child abuser/etc)", but the kids will deal with that better than having to carry around conflicted loyalties. Once they realize that they can have feelings (good and bad) about their birth parents, they are free to process their thoughts. Biological kids don't have to carry conflicted loyalties - adopted kids do, even if they don't know their birth parents. Part of letting them know it's safe to feel this way is sharing your own feelings with them. It didn't hurt my kids to hear from me, "I'm really p*ssed of at your birth mom for her behaviour". At the end of the day, the only way to get rid of your anger is to process it, keeping it inside won't help you or the kids.

    Source(s): Adoptive parent of 7 special needs kids (FASD, NAS)
  • Mary
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    No. There are inherent dangers of setting up private funds when children go missing and we are beginning to see what those are in reality. They are a danger to children and I am surprised that the Authorities have not looked into these. There are already established charities that can be donated to and nominated by the parents concerned. It astounds me that when taxes have to be raised so we can support the Police in their work (the people that actually have to find these kids) the public moan like crazy, however, as we have seen when funds like these are set up they seem to attract quite a lot of money from the public.

  • ?
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    I am raising and considering adopting my fiance's 16 mo/old daughter (step parent adoption after we get married)

    Her biological mother didn't abuse her during pregnancy, but in early infancy. We don't know exactly what all was done.

    My step daughter has developmental delays in all areas. At 16 months she cannot walk. She is functioning at a 7 mo/old level altho her communtcation skils are at a 4 to 5 mo/old level.

    We have her in special preschool and she is in physical, speech and occupatoinal therapies.

    We do not know if her delays are permanent or if she will someday over come them. We do not know what the future holds for her. Will she always be dependent? Will she be able to live on her own? Will she be complely normal by adulthood??

    Yes I do feel anger at her birth mother. She could have called the baby's father to come and get her any time she was frustrated and couldn't handle the baby...

    We got her when a neighbor notified my fiance that the mother had left the baby (8 mos old at the time) home alone for 3 hours...Her excuse was that she was tired of always being "stuck home w/a baby"

    It is hard to deal with the anger sometimes. It frustrates me to no end when I am the one working with this baby, trying to get her to do simple things she should already be doing and her BM calls to tell us all about the great party she went to last night.

    I just tell myself that my fiance and I are the lucky ones. We get to be a part of this lil girl's life and what she accomplishes will be because we have helped her get there. If she dosen't get as far as other kids, then we will applaud everything she CAN do and not worry abt the things she can't....

    Her BM will never have the satisfaction of watching the miracle of her finally achieving something after working on it for days.....Her loss, my gain.

    Hang in there and love your brothers for who they are.

  • 1 decade ago

    This is something my hubby struggles with. HE knows our son has to suffer because of a few poor decisions. But for me I am so incredible greatful that the chose us to parent him. She was considering an abortion because of the drugs, but all in all, I'm not mad, just a little sad that I know it is something he'll have to face. She learned from this and had a subsequent healthy pregnancy. I can't blame someone who had an illness. It something she deals with to this day and nothing anyone can do will take it back,

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    My son is now 5 yrs old. He was drug addicted at birth and we almost lost him. He went through 4 months of withdrawls and it was hell. He has some problems, especially anger.

    But I thank God for him every day, i cant imagine him not in my life. He had every drug in his system that you can imagine, and he is growing up Strong and beautiful.

    When I get angry with the bio mom i just have to remind myself, that if it weren't for her i wouldn't have him in my life.

    I use my anger to try to educate people about what drugs do to children.

    Source(s): mother of adopted special needs child
  • 1 decade ago

    use the energy from the anger. put it in a positive place. use it in a positive way. other than that avoidance and denial work....you cant control someone else and you cant change the past. so your childs birth mom is who you are mad at? we have something in common...although im not angry im mad and dissapointed at her behaviour. the kids get all the effects of the parents behaviour.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    I am not related to any children like that, but I get mad too. I can only imagine how growing up with brothers who had difficulties like that, through the absolute fault of someone else, would make it exponentially worse. It makes me mad that I have friends who can't conceive, yet would be wonderful parents, but then abusive people get to breed like wildfire. It's so unfair. Your family deserves so many applause and hugs for having opened their hearts and family to two lucky boys.

  • 1 decade ago

    Yes, there are days that I am angry and I just sit and cry. And yet my heart feels an overwhelming gratitude to this woman for carrying the child and choosing us as the adoptive family. She could have just as easily aborted our son, but she didn't.

    The neglect from the bio parents makes me sick to my stomach but fortunately we know our son did not suffer long. As soon as the birth was reported to the hospital (although no one knows how long he laid on the floor of the apartment before 9-1-1 was called), the state intervened and removed him temporarily from their care in what they "say" was an attempt to help the parents learn how to parent the child (especially because of his life-threatening disorder). We know that he was in a non-abusive and wonderful environment with his grandparents until we brought him home, but the stories of the bio parents' visits with the child still amaze me. It saddens me greatly to know that some day I have to "dump" all of this on my son. Fortunately, we have a wonderful set of bio-grandparents in our corner who will help us to tell the story when he is ready. We hope that will help to eliminate some of the "sting" for him, to know that even if the bio parents chose not to care, there were many people here who DID care.

    I guess that is why I tend to "rant" a lot about the positive aspects of adoption. I know that not all situations were like our son's, but in our case, adoption saved our son's life. The bio-grandparents feel the same way about it. They tell us all the time that our son would be dead if the adoption had not occurred.

    So yes, to answer your question, I do get angry but in some respects, I also say a prayer of thanks for his bio parents' state of mind to realize that they did not want to be parents and created an adoption plan for their son.

    Source(s): Blessed to be a Mother thru what WE consider to be our miracle of adoption.
  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    people only do the best they can do.My mother was beaten by her older brother,enslaved &sexually abused by her father and forced to by her mother, starting at an early age which as they say can work one way or the other-Make one hate sex or like it too much,she had a lot of kids and i remember when i was little that she was begging her doctor to fix her and he told her he wouldn't because she hadn't helped to replenish the earth yet.i guess the adopted out ones did okay but the rest of us spent a lot of time wearing rags going through mens' abuses and starving.

    She may have been put through hell as a child.But i do wish that people would try to stay away from drugs,tobacco ,and booze no matter what be the case.

  • 1 decade ago

    Yes, I do and no, "it's not fair". I don't understand why she didn't leave any information about her partner, her health, and supposedly a living sibling. As upset as I get, I think my daughter will be doubly so. As for dealing with it, I don't let my daughter know how angry [more frustrated, though] I am and I talk to a shrink about it. I pretend her birth mother was a saint like all adoptive parents are told that we have to do.

    The trolls will pounce all over this without entirely reading what I said. My daughter was born in a hospital, or so I was told, but her birth mother died giving birth to her. I don't understand why she didn't give any more info than she supposedly did when she was admitted.

    Source(s): single adoptive mother by choice
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