Comments on: Specifics I don’t write about

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:12:24 +0000

Dawn, I think people squirm or avoid the situation, because most people really can’t understand giving away a child - adoption or not. Further, who gives away a child then watches that child being raised in another family? As much as people would like to normalize adoption, I really don’t think it’s possible. People can adjust to a situation, but not fully understand it.

I know a couple in an open adoption and see the interaction among the a-family and the the kids’ families. They are trying to make the best of a bizarre situation. One boy sleeps with a picture he has of his mother and siblings. He doesn’t understand after visits with his mother, father and sibs, why he can’t go home with them. How do you explain this to a child? One day his parents couldn’t keep him; not long after they are capable of keeping him -but he can’t be with them. Eventually he will get used to it, just because that’s the way it is.

I imagine he asks himself “why?” all the time. If he is asking himself why, then certainly, the people around him are doing the same.

By: Lisa V

Lisa V — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:57:45 +0000

Yeah, we had family members for the longest time who would squirm uncomfortably when we talked about Mallory’s birth family or Mason’s birth father. What I can equate it to was when I would talk about my friends who were gay and had AIDs. The same squirming. My relationships that they tolerated but didn’t want to know about.

I think with the birth families they hoped it was just a phase and we’d all move on.

It’s better now. No one even blanched when I mentioned that Mallory was going to go nanny for her birth mother this summer. I think they now feel more secure with their place in Mallory’s life, and my place as her mother. She’s almost a grown-up and is perfectly capable of loving both of us, something I knew all along, but I think they had to see over the long term.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:38:53 +0000

Ok, I’m not talking about specific people here (but pretending to be vague) and they do ask about other family members to whom they are not actually related. But more to the point, they actively change the subject if we bring it up. So, for example, “Yeah, my sister’s cards are selling really well!”
“Oh that’s so great! Does she have plans to send them to more shops?”
Then, “Yeah, Pennie got second place in this big cooking contest!”
“Hmmm, that reminds me — is anyone hungry?”

By: Becca

Becca — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:30:01 +0000

You know, I’m with you on everything except the asking about Pennie. In some ways this seems akin to an in-law situation to me, which is something I’m dealing with right now. Pennie is YOUR relative, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she is the relative of your relatives. My husband’s family is my family, but they are not my mother and sister’s family. And while my mother and sister are obligated to accept, actively, my relationship with them, they are not obligated to engage in that relationship on their own. Make sense? So in your shoes I would expect my relatives to honor my relationship with Pennie, and to engage with my family if we were talking about Pennie and to engage with Pennie if she were in their presence, but if they called and said “So how’s Madison, and how’s Noah, and how’s Brett?” I would not expect them to add “and how’s Pennie?”