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agonyaunt2021-05-04 08:55 pm
colorwheel) wrote in agonyaunt2021-05-04 08:55 pm
from care & feeding (nicole chung): adoptive mom upset about adult child's relationship with bio mom
Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I adopted our oldest daughter when she was 9 months old. We’ve had her since she was 3 days old. We adopted her through foster care. My daughter never had any grief or ever wondered about her biological family. She mentioned many times that my husband and I are her only and real parents. She had no desire to look for her biological family or have a relationship with them, and has said more than once that she doesn’t care about them. Her birth mother is an addict, and her birth father is a convicted felon.
My daughter is 22 years old now. She’s married and recently had her first child, my first grandchild. I can’t help but feel upset that my daughter established a relationship with her biological mother. My daughter chose her birth mother to be her support person in the delivery room, so I couldn’t watch my first grandchild be born. Our grandchild’s middle name is her birth mom’s first name. When our daughter referred to her birth mom as “Grandma” and me as “Nana,” I sobbed and felt a knife going through my chest. My heart is broken. If I ever hear my daughter call her birth mom “Mom,” I don’t think I could ever recover from the pain and trauma. I don’t understand how a woman who lost her kids to the foster care system and chose drugs over her children gets to be a mom and grandma. My daughter’s birth mom didn’t earn the title of mom or grandma. Giving birth doesn’t make a woman a mother. I don’t know what my daughter sees in her birth mom that she doesn’t see in me. Her birth mom has never been involved. Now she gets things she didn’t earn.
My daughter is my world. It hurts to know she doesn’t see us the same way. She made me a mom. My husband and I struggled to conceive. We gave her a good life and a good upbringing, and she herself said that she doesn’t care about her birth mom, and we are her real parents. I don’t know if that was a lie, or if she changed her mind, or if her birth mom is brainwashing her. Everything came crashing down on me. I never expected to feel betrayed by my own daughter. She chose her drug-addicted birth mom over me. I try to keep calm because of my grandchild but I’m hurting inside. I don’t know what to do. I hope my daughter can see how damaging this is to me and her grandchild. My grandchild might grow up confused and traumatized. How do I get my daughter to see her birth mom for who she is? How do I keep my daughter’s birth mom away from her and my grandchild? How do I get my daughter to cut off her birth mom so we can all be happy again?
—Hurting and Heartbroken
**
Dear HH,
If you don’t want to be called “Nana,” I think you could tell your daughter what you’d like her child to call you instead, and see if she agrees. I understand why you were hurt not to be in the delivery room when her birth mother was. But your daughter likely had all kinds of reasons for asking her birth mother to be her labor support person, and in any case, it was her decision to make, as was her child’s name.
It’s not uncommon for adopted people to keep quiet about our adoption loss/grief, or to say that we don’t have much interest in our birth families. Sometimes it’s true; sometimes we understand that it’s what many people (including, sometimes, our adoptive families) want to hear. According to Meshan Lehmann, a social worker at Adoptions Together, “kids learn pretty quickly, ‘if I express interest in my birth parents, my mom gets upset.’ They learn that the ‘right’ answer is to say they don’t care.” Your daughter might not have cared, of course, until she did—that’s what it means to change your mind, which we are all allowed to do.
Your identity as a parent is not and should never have felt dependent on your child having no relationship with her birth mom. That’s a really harmful, reductive way of thinking about this—as if there’s only so much love your daughter is capable of, and the more she cares for anyone else, the less she can care for you. She didn’t become any less your daughter when she got married or had a child, after all. Asking adopted people to choose between our biological and adoptive identities and families sets up a false dichotomy, and a cruel one. As Lehmann noted, “parents are never expected to choose which child to love.”
You’ve written a great deal about your feelings, but you have not acknowledged the trauma or pain that adoptees and birth parents can and do experience. You repeatedly refer to your daughter’s birth mother as an addict, as if that is all she is or can ever be. Addiction is a disease that can be treated, and even if she is struggling with addiction or recovering from it, that alone doesn’t make her undeserving of love or any sort of relationship with her child. It is definitively not your place to try to get your daughter to cut off her birth mother—her birth parents are the only people in the world who can answer certain questions for her, share certain parts of her history and heritage. As Martha Crawford, a psychotherapist and adoptive parent, put it: “There can be more than one ‘real’ mother. You are real, and so is your child’s biological mother. There is room for both of you to be essential in your child’s life—and the more people that love and support her, the better.” The connection your daughter is building with her birth mom may be helpful and healing to her, to both of them, and right now it is something they both seem to want and feel is important. You shouldn’t want to take that away.
You talk about love and family relationships being “earned” or not, as if your child owes you gratitude or fealty that can only be demonstrated by cutting off the person who bore her—someone who is a part of her. Your letter reads as though you expect her, an adult and a parent in her own right, to remain like a little child for your sake. Our children, adopted or not, are neither our possessions nor our puppets, forever wanting precisely what we want for them and nothing more. Nor do they exist to affirm us, to make us feel good as their parents. You are not supposed to be your daughter’s “whole world”—she is a grown adult, with a family and an identity that is informed but not entirely defined by the fact that she was raised by you. She gets to make her own choices about whom she wants in her life, and her child’s life, and what those relationships look like.
If you truly want to feel more at peace with this, if you don’t want to further harm your child or your relationship with her, Crawford, Lehmann, and I all think it’s very important for you to find a therapist who has extensive knowledge of adoption (here’s an article you might find useful; here is a directory). Lehmann noted that you might also try talking with other adoptive parents whose children are in contact with their birth families, so you can better understand open adoptions and how those relationships can look. You are at a crossroads right now, and I think we should be very clear about your options: You can work on your own issues and try to reframe your thinking, unlearn the fear and entitlement you have regarding your daughter, let her know that you respect and support her and her choices—or you can continue pressuring her to swear off both her birth mother and her own biological roots, which, as Crawford said, “risks sawing her in half.” I urge you to seek the professional help you need to be able to offer your daughter the understanding she deserves before you hurt her further or drive her away completely.
My husband and I adopted our oldest daughter when she was 9 months old. We’ve had her since she was 3 days old. We adopted her through foster care. My daughter never had any grief or ever wondered about her biological family. She mentioned many times that my husband and I are her only and real parents. She had no desire to look for her biological family or have a relationship with them, and has said more than once that she doesn’t care about them. Her birth mother is an addict, and her birth father is a convicted felon.
My daughter is 22 years old now. She’s married and recently had her first child, my first grandchild. I can’t help but feel upset that my daughter established a relationship with her biological mother. My daughter chose her birth mother to be her support person in the delivery room, so I couldn’t watch my first grandchild be born. Our grandchild’s middle name is her birth mom’s first name. When our daughter referred to her birth mom as “Grandma” and me as “Nana,” I sobbed and felt a knife going through my chest. My heart is broken. If I ever hear my daughter call her birth mom “Mom,” I don’t think I could ever recover from the pain and trauma. I don’t understand how a woman who lost her kids to the foster care system and chose drugs over her children gets to be a mom and grandma. My daughter’s birth mom didn’t earn the title of mom or grandma. Giving birth doesn’t make a woman a mother. I don’t know what my daughter sees in her birth mom that she doesn’t see in me. Her birth mom has never been involved. Now she gets things she didn’t earn.
My daughter is my world. It hurts to know she doesn’t see us the same way. She made me a mom. My husband and I struggled to conceive. We gave her a good life and a good upbringing, and she herself said that she doesn’t care about her birth mom, and we are her real parents. I don’t know if that was a lie, or if she changed her mind, or if her birth mom is brainwashing her. Everything came crashing down on me. I never expected to feel betrayed by my own daughter. She chose her drug-addicted birth mom over me. I try to keep calm because of my grandchild but I’m hurting inside. I don’t know what to do. I hope my daughter can see how damaging this is to me and her grandchild. My grandchild might grow up confused and traumatized. How do I get my daughter to see her birth mom for who she is? How do I keep my daughter’s birth mom away from her and my grandchild? How do I get my daughter to cut off her birth mom so we can all be happy again?
—Hurting and Heartbroken
**
Dear HH,
If you don’t want to be called “Nana,” I think you could tell your daughter what you’d like her child to call you instead, and see if she agrees. I understand why you were hurt not to be in the delivery room when her birth mother was. But your daughter likely had all kinds of reasons for asking her birth mother to be her labor support person, and in any case, it was her decision to make, as was her child’s name.
It’s not uncommon for adopted people to keep quiet about our adoption loss/grief, or to say that we don’t have much interest in our birth families. Sometimes it’s true; sometimes we understand that it’s what many people (including, sometimes, our adoptive families) want to hear. According to Meshan Lehmann, a social worker at Adoptions Together, “kids learn pretty quickly, ‘if I express interest in my birth parents, my mom gets upset.’ They learn that the ‘right’ answer is to say they don’t care.” Your daughter might not have cared, of course, until she did—that’s what it means to change your mind, which we are all allowed to do.
Your identity as a parent is not and should never have felt dependent on your child having no relationship with her birth mom. That’s a really harmful, reductive way of thinking about this—as if there’s only so much love your daughter is capable of, and the more she cares for anyone else, the less she can care for you. She didn’t become any less your daughter when she got married or had a child, after all. Asking adopted people to choose between our biological and adoptive identities and families sets up a false dichotomy, and a cruel one. As Lehmann noted, “parents are never expected to choose which child to love.”
You’ve written a great deal about your feelings, but you have not acknowledged the trauma or pain that adoptees and birth parents can and do experience. You repeatedly refer to your daughter’s birth mother as an addict, as if that is all she is or can ever be. Addiction is a disease that can be treated, and even if she is struggling with addiction or recovering from it, that alone doesn’t make her undeserving of love or any sort of relationship with her child. It is definitively not your place to try to get your daughter to cut off her birth mother—her birth parents are the only people in the world who can answer certain questions for her, share certain parts of her history and heritage. As Martha Crawford, a psychotherapist and adoptive parent, put it: “There can be more than one ‘real’ mother. You are real, and so is your child’s biological mother. There is room for both of you to be essential in your child’s life—and the more people that love and support her, the better.” The connection your daughter is building with her birth mom may be helpful and healing to her, to both of them, and right now it is something they both seem to want and feel is important. You shouldn’t want to take that away.
You talk about love and family relationships being “earned” or not, as if your child owes you gratitude or fealty that can only be demonstrated by cutting off the person who bore her—someone who is a part of her. Your letter reads as though you expect her, an adult and a parent in her own right, to remain like a little child for your sake. Our children, adopted or not, are neither our possessions nor our puppets, forever wanting precisely what we want for them and nothing more. Nor do they exist to affirm us, to make us feel good as their parents. You are not supposed to be your daughter’s “whole world”—she is a grown adult, with a family and an identity that is informed but not entirely defined by the fact that she was raised by you. She gets to make her own choices about whom she wants in her life, and her child’s life, and what those relationships look like.
If you truly want to feel more at peace with this, if you don’t want to further harm your child or your relationship with her, Crawford, Lehmann, and I all think it’s very important for you to find a therapist who has extensive knowledge of adoption (here’s an article you might find useful; here is a directory). Lehmann noted that you might also try talking with other adoptive parents whose children are in contact with their birth families, so you can better understand open adoptions and how those relationships can look. You are at a crossroads right now, and I think we should be very clear about your options: You can work on your own issues and try to reframe your thinking, unlearn the fear and entitlement you have regarding your daughter, let her know that you respect and support her and her choices—or you can continue pressuring her to swear off both her birth mother and her own biological roots, which, as Crawford said, “risks sawing her in half.” I urge you to seek the professional help you need to be able to offer your daughter the understanding she deserves before you hurt her further or drive her away completely.
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those two sentences are WILD.
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Also, just gonna note that she keeps calling this baby "my grandchild" and not "my daughter's child". God, I hope her daughter reads this letter, recognizes her toxic adoptive mom, and starts distancing herself.
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When our daughter referred to her birth mom as “Grandma” and me as “Nana,” I sobbed and felt a knife going through my chest. My heart is broken. If I ever hear my daughter call her birth mom “Mom,” I don’t think I could ever recover from the pain and trauma.
I'm going to extrapolate wildly here based on my own life/work out some of my own stuff here for a minute, okay?
These phrases sound so familiar from dealing with people in my own life, who when confronted about their controlling behaviour would say, they knew it was controlling and wrong, they never wanted to do that, but their distress over their perceived loss of relationship was so severe that no other reaction felt possible for them. Which sucks, because it puts a lot of pressure on the target to just take it and be controlled because the person can't help it, and they're in such pain. And I believe their distress is that severe. I believe their pain is that intense. It's awful. And the way they respond to it poisons their chances of having comfort and security around the thing they think they need, because they wedge their target into a position either of being controlled or doing the thing that they've set up to hurt them most: pulling away.
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"I'm sorry it sucks so much to be you, but you're behaving so awfully that it also sucks just as much to be *around you* so I'm out of here until you deal with your stuff."
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The whole letter is a parade of poisonous assumptions about motherhood, love, loyalty, etc., but this sentence is a little shadowbox of ick all on its own.
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LW, from personal experience: that reconnection can be very heady, especially for a child who's had no connection at all with a bio family. Both my daughter's birth and getting to know my bio families have given me a healthy respect for DNA. I literally have the same job as my bio father. And while my mom will always be my mom, there has been this tremendous...relief, after 45 years as the family oddball, to have people who get me, who like me as much as they love me. And I'm not saying LW hasn't given her daughter all of that, but it's not something we really talk about as a culture.
Also, that last line is awful.