Lurking in the darkness — a birth mother!
Yes, there she is — scuttling across the yard, flashlight in hand, creeping around the doorway ready to SNATCH THE BABY!
Arghhh.
WTF about the freaking MYTH THAT WILL NOT DIE and is contributing to people LOSING access to their children????
I’m so angry right now.
So Supergirl, the daughter of a blogging first mom, had what sounds like a fun visit with said first mother. And at the end of it (according to adoptive parents) Supergirl says, as they’re driving away, “I don’t want her to take me.”
As I said in the comments there, Madison has never said that but she has expressed some of that same fear. From that blog entry:
The part that’s particular is how she wants reassurance that she can think about Jessica as a mommy without worrying that it’ll rock her world and actually make it so her Thomas the Tank Engine pillow and favorite pink shoes suddenly end up at Jessica’s house and she’ll find herself living somewhere else. I think she wants to hear that her life is sturdy and permanent and can withstand her struggle to understand things.
So if Madison said, “I don’t want her to take me” I’d have said, “Pennie would never take you, honey, she knows that you live here with us.” I would talk and talk and talk to her about it. I’d talk to Pennie about it so she could say, “Yup, you live here with your mommy and daddy and Noah and Peanut. That’s where you live.” (And Pennie has reiterated to her that she knows just where Madison lives and just who her mommy is because Madison has challenged her on it making sure that everything is okie-dokie and safe.)
What I WOULD NOT do is stop visits because — hello, doesn’t that just tell the kid they ought to be scared? That birth mom ISN’T safe???? And do they think that this is going to assuage their daughter’s concerns? Because I remember talking to an adult adoptee who had a closed adoption who said, “I was always afraid my birth mom would come and snatch me.” It’s not like absence makes the heart grow less worried, people. Absence can just feed your fears.
I just think that aside from the whole closing of a working open adoption thing, here’s a chance to start processing adoption with your child and the parents get all knee-jerk about it and just freak the hell out. And that makes me NUTTY, just NUTTY. Are THEY afraid Supergirl is going to get kidnapped? Because if they’re not, what in the hell would make them solidify that fear for their daughter? I mean, when Noah was afraid of robbers outside the window I didn’t go, “OH MY GOD — you’re right! We better go stay in a hotel!!!!” No, I saw those fears as developmentally appropriate for a kid who’s growing up and being — as healthy, normal kids can be — scared of all that growth and separation. Likewise when Madison was afraid of riding her taller bike I didn’t say, “You know, you probably will fall. Get off it and go back to your trike. Seriously. It’s weirding you out too much!”
What I think Supergirl needs is to hear FROM HER FIRST MOM that she will be staying right where she is and all the grownups know it.
And you know, another thing Madison needed to hear from us (and maybe Supergirl needs to hear, too) is that she can love Pennie with abandon and we grown-ups will hold her steady. Brett and I won’t feel betrayed, Pennie won’t usurp our parental status — we all remember where Madison lives and the roles her different parents play in her life.
Since we were able to give Madison that reassurance, she is so much more comfortable with Pennie and in loving Pennie and in telling ME that she loves Pennie and in telling PENNIE that she loves Pennie. It has been a good and healthful thing to work through and to me, open adoption made all of that easier to work through. I’m so sorry for Supergirl and her losses. And I’m angry, too. Because I GET wanting to protect your kid but I don’t get closing a working open adoption. I just don’t get that. It just seems so so so so wrong.
Sadly, I can see many an adoption being closed up when/if the child verbalizes that thought process.
It’s a fear myself.
I wish I could grab them by the collar and say STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE HURTING YOUR DAUGTHER!!! I’m so angry and sad. I feel so bad about this oh Jenna, the world makes me angry.
Dude, you read my mind.
Why don’t people get that this is how kids process life? Puppy was worried about being sucked down the drain for awhile, but we didn’t stop giving him baths. We talked it out and he experienced not being sucked down the drain and it was fine. He figured out what was real. I feel like some people freak out because OMG IT’S ADOPTION and clamp down on contact instead of just parenting their kid already.
Maybe there’s more we don’t know about, but the way L was shut out of any conversation about it and the visits got blamed for something that seems so normal–it doesn’t sit right with me.
Oh my god. Whose feelings they really need to deal with are the adoptive parents.
Okay that was snarky.
But sincerely, if the adoptive parents are comfortable with and believe in open adoption, then they have the room to help their child process the child’s feelings. If you haven’t or ambivilant about open adoption, then a kid saying this confirms the aparents feelings and fears and gives them “legitmate” reasons to close an adoption and not deal with their own feelings. This is rambling. Sorry.
I don’t know where to find the original blog post. I agree that, in general, those feelings need to be talked out, that the adoptive parents need to learn the feelings are appropriate for the chid’s age, and that closing an adoption due to this one statement is, frankly, the wrong choice.
OTOH, if they have had these talks, or if the child repeatedly says statements such as that after visiting her birthmom, then maybe visits do need to stop for awhile. Go with letters and phone calls. I don’t think you should give in to your child’s fears, but I do think you should respect them. I mean, I let Jack sleep with the light on sometimes, even though I know and I tell him that there’s nothing in the dark and Mommy, Daddy, and the cats won’t let anything hurt him.
I don’t think an adoption should be closed without good reason. But if visits are consistently fearful for the child, then pulling back may be a good idea.
Robyn, I should have pulled the link out (the words “I don’t want her to take me” are linked) but here it is:
http://lhjh4.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/more/
Do you think its a fear or a statement of fact?
The child has already experienced being “taken”. Its real. They were intended for one place and taken to another. Had one mommy and given to another. That fact lives in their system. That experience is imprinted. If its a fear, its a fear based on their experiential knowledge that it already did happen. I would guess children who have never been taken and given dont have quite the same fear.
My point is that I am not so sure it is just the adoptive parents instilling that but it is an accurate expression of what the child has already experienced.
And if I am STILL not making sense, let me say that I do see how adoptive parents instill that/reinforce it (often to their own benefit) but we should not overlook the childs very real experience of being taken.
I think I am rambling like Lisa now…LOL
Suz, I answered you in the next entry!
It seems to me that children are afraid of being snatched, kidnapped, etc. How many childrens’ books can you think of that have this as the them? I’m thinking of The Rescuers series, with Miss Bianca and her faithful Bernard. So it’s a real fear already in place that’s easily exploited, I suppose, even by folks who don’t mean to exploit.
Whoops! Dawn’s on the money! Her next entry deals with this! Ignore the woman behind the little black horse. She’s not paying attention!
Great post Dawn!! I wish I could strangle them too!
The ridiculous myth will never go away. On TLC’s Adoption Stories yesterday, the show info said, “A birth father snatches a baby…blah, blah, blah.” Yes, it used the word “snatches” and so my sister and I watched the show and of course it was just that he hadn’t signed off on the adoption. Nice choice of wording, though. Idiots.
I meant to comment on this then but my emotions have still been all over the place thanks to them.
thank you for your words. Not just this one time. You have been a great voice of reason for me.
Thank you