I think I should take some time now to talk about
my parents. When I say my parents I am
of course talking about my adoptive parents.
They are aware I am in contact with my mom and family and are
supportive. I was confidant all along
that my father would be supportive and not at all threatened by this turn of
events. I was not so sure about my
mother, but I was happy to be surprised by her also positive reaction.
I grew up always knowing I was adopted. I have no memory of being “told”, so clearly
it was something that they explained to me as soon as I was old enough to
understand. It was not something that
came up in conversation often, but it was also not a subject that was “off
limits” or treated as a secret. All of my close friends knew when I was growing
up because I told them. Once I reached
adulthood it was something I told all my close friends also, or nearly
all. It was such an accepted part of my
life by the time I was an adult that I’ve found I didn’t tell everyone I was
close to. That wasn’t by design; it was
simply because it never came up. Once
this all started and I began telling this story to friends I discovered some of
them didn’t know I was adopted at all.
They were the sorts of friends I would have told; that is they were
close enough that I would be comfortable revealing personal information about
my life to them, I had simply neglected to do so because it was such a minor
detail to me.
At this point readers who don’t know me might be
saying to themselves “hold on, the last several entries have detailed a lot of
impact being adopted had on you, and in the above paragraph you are saying it
was such a minor detail you never mentioned it to some close friends. That doesn’t hold water”. I would certainly understand why someone
might think that based on previous entries and the paragraph above. It doesn’t really seem to pass the smell
test. However, one has to understand
that at the time I was failing to mention being adopted to some of my close
friends (not all or even most, just some) and having the various feelings (many
negative) related to being adopted I had not identified those feelings as being
in any way related to being adopted. One
generally needs a frame of reference in order to make an accurate
comparison. I had no “natural” family to
interact with, nor had I ever had one and I didn’t know anyone else who was
adopted to “compare notes” with on feelings about it.
I am very grateful to my adoptive parents for everything they did for me. They love their
grandchildren and they are as involved as they can be from 1000 miles
away. They did the best they could with
me, and I was a difficult teenager and young adult. Not because I got in trouble or acted out,
but because I was distant, often physically absent, and very emotionally closed
off. They were never abusive or
neglectful, my mother was somewhat emotionally absent, but so was I. We never had anything more
than the usual problems parents and teenagers have, and there is no reason to
go into them here. I place the bulk of
the blame for the lack of interaction over most of my teenage years and well
into my 20’s squarely on myself. I had
no idea at the time, but my closed off nature did go back, at least in part to
my as of yet unidentified feelings about being adopted. That isn’t to say we had no contact at all,
but it was limited and probably much less satisfying to them than it could have
been. I would have needed to identify I
had issues that needed to be addressed before I could address them though, and
I was closed off enough even I didn’t know it.
I didn’t figure out the issues I’ve been having
all my life we related to being adopted until I had contact with my mom and
family. That is part of the reason it
has had such an impact on me. Only part
of course. I think even a perfectly
adjusted adoptee would be seriously impacted by discovering an entire family and
then being readily accepted by that family as if he had been a member since day
one. I was far from perfectly adjusted,
but just being able to identify the issue and recognize it as what has been
missing from my life has gone a long way to “fixing” my issues in a very short
time. I’m hopeful the realizations will
help my relationship with my adoptive parents improve. The “missing piece” will still be missing,
but perhaps finally knowing what it is will help.
I suspect there may one day be people who read
this (if anyone ever does) and feel that I am being “disloyal” to my adoptive
parents. I love my adoptive parents.
I can never repay them for everything they have done, and continue to
do, for me and my family. I think we as
a society are conditioned to be on the side of adoptive parents whenever there
is a side to take. I don’t believe in
this situation taking a side is necessary, I’m an adult, and no one “gets
me”. However, some people are always going
to see situations like this as creating conflict. My mom did what she thought was best for me
in 1973. She didn’t want to give me up,
but in a society that was less forgiving, a family situation that was (to put
it mildly) unhelpful, and with my “father” not wanting to be involved she did
what she felt was best for me. In her I
have found something that my adoptive parents, for all they could provide,
could not. I won’t apologize for that,
nor will I deny myself or her or our family its benefits. If some people disapprove, well, I’ve lived
with disapproval before. Their
disapproval and $5 will get them a small coffee at Starbucks. I hope they enjoy their coffee.
I was, for many years, very much in favor of
adoption. I had, or so I thought, a great
experience as an adopted person with basically no downside. I didn’t see any reason why others couldn’t
have the same experience. Now, despite
the parents I grew up with and the overall positive life I have had, my
opinion on adoption has changed pretty significantly. I won't get into a long discussion of it
here; that is for another day. I will
say as long as the adoption industry is about finding babies for couples that
want them rather than finding homes for children that need them we are doing
everyone involved a disservice. One only
needs to look at all the children stuck in the foster care system to see that
adoption is not focused on finding homes for unwanted children. On the other hand, when one looks at the
costs involved in adopting an infant, it is pretty obvious that it is not the
interest of the child but the desire of the adults to have a baby that is the
driving factor.
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