What advice would you give to a woman who has no desire to meet the biological child she gave up for adoption.
This is the question asked of Reddit users recently when ‘adoptivethrowhelp’ posted her dilemma.
She explained that as a teenager she fell pregnant, despite using protection with her boyfriend at the time. She says that she knew immediately that she did not want to keep the baby and wished to have an abortion. The situation became tricky as she was already 21 weeks along when she found out she was pregnant. Her boyfriend and her family were both against an abortion and urged her to proceed with the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption.
The woman explains that this was never what she wanted but being a struggling student reliant on her family’s financial assistance, felt co-erced after her father threatened to cut her off if she proceeded down the path of termination.
With pressure from both her family and the baby’s father, adoptivethrowhelp went through the rest of the pregnancy and put the child up for adoption.
She says that she wanted nothing to do with the baby and while she realises the child is not to blame, says she feels nothing but resentment towards her. The poster describes how she has never really forgiven her family for pushing her into having the baby.
Recently she says that her daughter looked her up on Facebook and made contact. She has expressed a desire to meet not only her birth mother but also her extended family.
Adoptivethrowhelp says that for her, this is not a possibility and explains that she still does not want any kind of contact with her biological daughter as she finds her to be a reminder of traumatic events, too painful to relive.
So she asks for help from the Reddit community on how she should tell her 21 year old daughter that she wants nothing to do with her.
The responses varied. Many commended her for having the clarity and selflessness to decide on adoption, knowing that she could not give the child a proper life. People acknowledged what a difficult position she was in.
I'm adopted. I've never had any burning desire to find my biological mother, but if I did and she did not want to meet me, this above comment would be perfect.
I think people who have nothing to do with adoption have no idea how complicated it can be. And so many people want to blame the birth mother, and think that the birth child is entitled to whatever they want from their birth parents, it sounds, because they were given up. That's just not true. You have every right to not want to see her, and if you were my bio mom I would respect that.
Other people brought their own personal experiences to the situation and assisted the poster in drafting a letter to her daughter.
I am glad to hear that you are doing well. Of course I will provide you with all relevant information you need about your medical history. I am no longer in contact with your biological father or your biological grandparents, but I can give your their names if you want. However, while I am honored that you would want to have me in your life, I just can't do it. I was very young and very alone when I became pregnant. It was an extremely traumatic experience for me that I was never able to overcome. That you grew up in a wonderful family that was able to provide you with more love, support, and a better life than I ever could, is the only silver lining. I don't want to hurt your feelings. I know you will likely resent me for my weakness but, for my own sanity, I just can't have this relationship. Please know this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with demons I never could face from my past. I wasn't ready to be a mother then and, honestly, I never will be. I am so happy to hear how well you turned out but please, for my own peace of mind, we can't keep continuous contact. I hope you know that I wish only the very best for you.
As the thread progressed it became clear that the ‘right’ thing to do was not always a clear cut situation. People argued over the rights of the child to information and the rights to privacy of other people involved.
I would not provide the names of your parents or even the bio father. Just as you seek privacy, they may too. in any event, it is not your job to provide this information.
What advice would you give?
Top Comments
I don't know specifically how an adopted person feels first-hand but second hand, I do. I also have a (late) bitch of a grandmother who had affairs. That's not why she was a bitch, BTW. I had nothing to do with her in the last 5 years of her life and she was biological. In a twist of irony, I liked my stepgrandfather more than her and he raped my mother for almost 10 years. That says something when you like a rapist.
That said, her two sisters and her never spoke to one another in adulthood. Hence my mother and half-uncle never knew their aunts and uncles, cousins.
However, like adopted children, they eventually wanted to meet the family they never knew. And they tried. They had a right to speak with whom they pleased and those that disagreed had the right to terminate contact with the person for disrespecting their wishes. It's perfectly fine to say, "It's me or them.", but you may end up the one chopped. You can also say, "I can't stop you, but I don't want to hear about them. Ever."
Again, you can draw this line and not respond to questions, though they may find out something painful and unable to speak to you, feel like they have no one in the world, and give up both parties. Likewise, you as the one with a foot on both sides of the fence and not wanting to give up either person, may struggle to remember not to mention anything about one to other and vice versa. You will likely grow tired of. having to remember that you can't talk to your half-sibling about your mother or father, theirs too, about stuff you're dealing with.
These two options are neither good nor bad. Those are subjectively what we make of things in life. I come from a family riddled with abuse of all kinds, neglect, abandonment, rape and molestation, alcoholism and drug use. It is only ending because neither my brother or myself are going to have children. It's for the best if the family line dies out. It's heartbreaking in its own right. I would love to have one or two sons but I know I'd be cold and distant to a daughter. I don't need to fuck up someone else's life, too, and I'm too proud to go to counselling and be emotionally vulnerable. I don't want to talk about these things with anyone but my two best friends and they can't do much more than listen.
I don't give a rats ass to know these bastards and when I was forced to write a letter to my great-aunt, as a teen, I told her as much. I don't harbour anger against them, They're strangers I am not related to, in my mind.
Ultimately any form of rejection by someone you desperately want to meet and who you desperately want to return your affection back to you, is hard. The advice is always the same:
Don't let dead limbs keep your tree from growing.
If they're not interested, if they don't love you and if you are left feeling hopeless, bitter, resentful or just stressed, trying to keep up with them and forge a relationship, who's benefitting? They're not suffering, mostly likely. They just ignore your letters and phone calls.
You are torturing yourself. You wouldn't stay in a one-sided or abusive relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend, so why do so with a biological parent who gave you up?
Your medical. history isn't that important unless it has some rare disease or defect. In which case, just ask them for that type of information.
If you are the biological parent who gave up a child, you have a right to not have contact just as much as they have a right to find you. You can make it clear using many different tones that you are not interested. You could go in the way I would, much like The Butterfly Effect, where at the end he tells that girl that, "I hate you! Never talk to me again or I'll kill you." (sans the threat to kill, replaced with, "Go away, bitch!") or you can write a letter in a much nicer way. I'm a Scorpio and we aren't known (along with Virgos) for beating around the bush or hiding our feelings in cases like this.
p.s. great movie!
IF you had great adoptive parents, then you don't need them in your life to ruin that. If you had terrible adoptive parents, you don't need them in your life to make it worse. Life isn't fair. Life is hard. Sometimes families are shitty and other times they're great. Some people lose their entire family early in life. Some have to make their own families out of close friends and chosen people who you view as parental figures and grandparents.
I had no grandparents after 1999. (the three remaining were not quite "grandparents" in my mind). I was better off without them than with them. I didn't know any better so I didn't miss them. My uncle, adopted, refused to find or talk to his birth mother, based on this logic. Another lady (old) was adopted and her adopted mother ended up hating her. She cut off ties to her at 18. My cousin's mother checked herself into a psych hospital for depression immediately after his birth, for 8 weeks, to avoid being home for 8 weeks. She never bonded with him and when she died, she died. He has never been able to let go of this, always has denied her lack of love.
My half-uncle was born out of an affair. His biological father bragged about making another boy but never came forward as a parent. My dad's cousin found out about her late father's "other family" when she was doing research a decade ago.
Human relationships are complex and fragile. An umbiliical cord doesn't equate to love. Don't let a dead limb obscure the view of the healthy ones behind it.