APs/PAPs:why is an adoptee's curiosity considered 'disloyal'?

It's not disloyal for my daughter to want to know about her roots. On the contrary, I'm often stumped by the fact she doesn't seem to care much at the moment. But then again, she's only ten.

I think the key is the PAP's or AP's sense of inner security. If they have been rejected, abandoned, or wounded by relationships they may attempt to control situations so they aren't hurt again. Their child's search and reunion makes them afraid of another rejection.

If on the other hand the PAPs or APs have inner peace, they know the love their child feels for them and vice versa cannot be lessened by search and reunion.

I'm not sure about what an adult adoptee can do to reassure her/his parents. Openly expressing love is always a good idea, but if Mom and Dad are insecure, they need a good dose of counseling and personal growth. Adult children should not be responsible for the emotional maturity of their parents.

I think an AP who actively brought a child.baby into their home has an obligation to support their child's search. I've heard stories where when the child turns 18 and the natural parent finds them, they are hung up on by the parents etc and that is just plain really wrong. As an AP if there was information I had that would make me think there was a reason to question their influence, I would ask questions so I could pass the information on to my child, but YES children have a right to search.

I keep putting myself in their shoes and yes...no matter how much I loved my AP's--I would still be chomping at the bit to figure out where did I get my eyes from, my odd sense of humor, my gift of running etc.

Dear Robin ,

I think some people are more insecure than others. I have seen jealous husbands and wives who get worked up when their spouse talks to the other sex. Some people have total faith in their relationship and some don't !! Some mom's are jealous and even paranoid when their son's marry.

Now lets apply the same insecurity to a parent- child relationship when a parent starts feeling threatened with the other parent in their child's life.

So some are insecure and some don't feel threatened.

I would like to know and help my daughter search when the time comes. I am intending to teach her Spanish so that she never feels she is unable to communicate with her birth mom. I intend to always send updates to her birth mother so that she knows her child is safe and happy. That is my thanks to her.

Now let me share with you i often try and visualise the time when my daughter starts searching and is about to go into a reunion i can imagine that little bit of insecurity and probably jealousy creeping up.

You ask 'Is there something your adult adoptee can do to reassure you?"

I would say yes. Show your insecure parent that you will continue to love and hold them in equally high esteem as usual. Maybe pay a little extra attention to them at the start till the parent/s can resolve their insecurity and feel secure. I see it the same way as when a child is the only child at home and mom comes home from the hospital with another baby in tow. Initially the child tends to feel insecure and needs attention and love just like the new born. Now people will argue this is not a "kid" but an adult. Honestly we ALL are not above those "childish" emotions. We all feel them even as adults and senior citizens. I know my mom acts highly childish at times. So then someone needs to be the mature one.

Sorry if this was too long. I recall a question long ago "Why should an adoptee deal with their AP's insecurities?". I would say "families" do it for each other. They are "FAMILY" and its worth it to do it for them.

specific i've got faith we do. possibly not interior the comparable order. a great style of adoptees like me have continuously elementary they're accompanied so it extremely is not a unexpected loss as such yet extra of a starting to be realisation of what has been taken faraway from you as a result i experienced denial, anger and bargaining in various quantities as a teenager. melancholy has not come to me i'm happy to declare yet anger is my maximum suitable pal on the 2d! i don't be conscious of approximately attractiveness.....i don't think of i'm going to ever settle for that issues would desire to not have been diverse.

APs are not the only "threatened" people in a reunion. Husbands and wives, brothers, sisters, anyone close to the adopted person can become jealous and insecure.

In fact, the same issues happen on the "other side', the bio-side, as well.

Thank you for asking this question. I would like to understand this myself. As a grandmother who really wants a relationship with my granddaughter who was lost to us in an open adoption that ended up being insecure adoptive parents who changed the agreement after it was legalized. After lives changed and became better I am now an AP of a child that knows where the file is in my filing cabinet with all her first parents information recorded. I have a copy of her original birth certificate in the files. I am also the grandmother of a beautiful adopted grandson and told yesterday I have a new granddaughter who hopefully will be adopted soon. The grandson is six and knows who his first parents are and my new granddaughter will grow up with her birth information. They are all ours in our hearts which lets us know they deserve to know their beginnings in life.

Help me to understand why my first granddaughter's AM told her our family members were all drug addicts, whores and baby killers to scare the life out of her so she would not communicate with us.

Robin,

We're in a very open adoption. (I feel we get deal with any emotions that older adoptive parents deal with while our kids are young, they don't have see any doubts or insecurities because we have had time to get over any of that. It is fast becoming a norm to have them in our life.) So when it comes to reunion that began when our child was first placed with us. The concept of closed adoptions and adult reunions in our situation is a different dynamic. So i don't see it as disloyal if later on they want to know other blood related family. I'm just as curious about them as they might be. After all names come up in conversations with their bio mum and dad about who my kids most look like. (My eldest daughter doesn't really look like either of them, so I had to ask, found out she looks more like an Aunty. Than her bio mum.)

I can see why they'd wanna meet the rest of them one day. I just hope its made possible but I feel it will eighteen years is a long time. So by then hopefully they all know about the both of them.

I do have a friend who found out he was adopted six weeks before his wedding, (Long story,) He discovered later when the dust settled they were told not to tell him by social workers, they were fed the usual lines.I know they were scared of losing him after he found his birth family within that time and they all ended up coming to the wedding. (this is long before we became an adoptive family.) In a conversation he said it actually opened up his relationship with his Aparents and his Amother said to him it felt go to be so honest with him. Their relationship strengthened from then on into something far better than it has ever been. His Amum and dad couldn't believe they fell for the lies they were told about an adoptee searching back in the 1960's. All the holes he felt before he knew began to fill in. So many things felt out of place before he accidentally found out about his adoption.

He is still in reunion, and I've met his bio family (at the wedding and since then at various things.) He had so many questions when he first met my eldest daughter about what adoption is like today with social services.

His Nmother and Amother go out to lunch every few months these days. Go to show how groundless all things the agencies fed adoptive parents back in those days.

I have not tried to seperate my kids from the first parents that weren't dangerous. Criminal first dad of the older kids and the sex offender grandpa? Yes, I forbid contact. But if the first family poses no harm, we let them see them. In fact, my wife is with the first family now with the girls while my boys are playing in the snow!

Contact is hard sometimes, but after being here, I believe that it is what's best for all involved.

Hi Robin,

I hope that you consider me to be one of the APs who rock! LOL. But I haven't always been open to my son searching for his biological family.

When I first adopted my son, he was 2-1/2 years old. I knew next to nothing about adoption. We started out with a Catholic agency and left them because I felt that they were unethical and they gave me the heebie-jeebies. From there we went to DCFS. My son had weekly visits with his fmom that nearly drove me insane. I HATED driving him to Pasadena on Tuesdays to meet with her as I wasn't allowed in the room and had to leave my son with the social worker and then go up the street to have coffee for an hour while they visited. Those visits went on for three months until TPR. I was extremely jealous ("She lost him! Why should she get to spend time with him? I'M his mother now!") and started getting stressed out about Tuesday visits on Saturday. It ruined my whole weekend.

I always spoke openly about adoption with my son but it was begrudgingly. I knew it was best for HIM to know he was adopted and what that meant and that he had other parents who loved him, but I didn't enjoy talking about it. I always figured that someday he'd want to search but I thought it might very well kill me if he did (I never said this to my son, however)! This forum and its participants have opened my eyes. I now understand that many (if not all) adoptees feel incomplete until they meet their fparents. They have a RIGHT to their roots and history; to meet and get to know their original families; to see others in the world who look like them! (My son, btw, looks EXACTLY like his fmom. One thing I did do right in the beginning was to ask the social worker to take pictures of her with my camera. My son has seen the pictures and although he seems unimpressed now and hasn't asked to see them again, I know he will cherish them someday.)

I don't think search will be hard because I currently know where mom is and how to reach her.

I will feel apprehensive when they start reunion...NOT because I will feel insecure of anythign like that, but this was the mom that neglected them and had a very poor lifestyle, and I would fear she is still in her pattern of poverty and abuse etc. I would be concerned for their feelings going through that.

I would support it 100%, but I would be apprehensive to see my child go through the pain if they have any. I am hoping First Mom's life has changed drastically by then and she can develop a healthy relationship with all three children.