Tag: adoptees

Adoptees and Absalom

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

“But what if they turn you against you when they grow up?” A question apparently asked of not a few adoptive parents when they mention that they will adopt. “But what if you invest all your money on this stranger and then they repay you by moving on and forgetting you later, forgetting to be grateful for what you’ve done and forgetting that they owe you?” Is what they are asking.

I have always hated that concept. The concepts-plural. Firstly, gratitude. That our adoptees owe us a whole lot of gratitude that our biological children apparently don’t is plain weird to me. I don’t get it. We give both sets of children life. The bio kid wouldn’t be alive without us. Without our feeding and changing them as helpless newborns, without our getting them treatment when sick, they’d die. So why don’t we ask pregnant women if they’re sure they want to have children given the children might respond to them like Absalom did, with murder in their hearts?

Our adoptees receive a life from us. Hopefully a life of love, compassion, nurturing, education, care, respect…Hmm, nothing different to what we give our biological children! So why should only one type of child owe us anything?

Secondly, the concept of leaving us, or of forsaking us. I don’t adopt so I can keep someone under me. I don’t adopt so later in life they take care of me, or love me… It’s not about what I’ll gain! It’s about being something that someone needs. It’s not an investment that I want a return on! It’s a living human being who deserves love.

If these naysayers died and left behind their biological children, would they expect the guardians to expect to be repaid for raising them? Would they be thinking, “I hope Susie always sticks to Mandy and Jim no matter what. I hope she remembers that she owes them her loyalty for doing what any decent human should do.”

Absalom turned against his own biological father. The ultimate act of rebellion and ingratitude-desiring to murder your father. I’ve seen quite a few articles of family murders. Most have been performed by biologically related children.

Yet nobody has ever responded with, “See!? They shouldn’t have had sex and conceived. Now their child turned against them after everything they did for him.”

If they ‘turn against’ me, I’ll do what I do now. What I did before I met them…

Love them.

I didn’t adopt so I could have a loyal puppy. I adopted so my children could experience family. I’ll have succeeded. I’ll have succeeded if they grow up with a mom they have the luxury of “turning against.” And that’s all that matters to me.

One of the people who has been very hateful about my children once had her lastborn son hold her by the neck, trying to throttle her. She called the police. She also once had her only daughter tell her she looks forward to “pissing on” her “grave” when she’s dead. Hmm, the fact that her bio kids would act the way they have, means that if any adoptee left HER, they’d be justified. And so it is with some adoptees who DO turn against their parents. They weren’t even trying to be what the children deserve. And sometimes, they were being hurtful on purpose.

More power to those who don’t stay merely for the sake of the debt they feel they owe. Do what is right for you, Adult Adoptee. You don’t owe your adoptive parents anything more than what biological children owe. If we adopted to do you a favour, expecting your undying loyalty not because of love but because of DUTY, then we have failed you.

Feel free to turn against us.

You’re Not a Biological Child

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

I’ll never forget hearing those words. Sent in a voice note to a younger female in law, they were full of venom and evil intent. I knew in that moment that the vile person who said this stupid sentence would never accept MY ‘not biological’ children. I knew she hadn’t exactly welcomed them- after all, she’d said the name we chose was that of the child of a pedophile. “Umm, ok..? Why would your mind even go there?”

Also, if she’s “not a biological child” then what is she? What kind of a child is she? Sperm and egg fertilization are biological processes. Yeah, dummies say dumb things.

I wanted to adopt from childhood. Then met a man who ONLY wanted to adopt. I truly felt it was a match made in heaven! (Once we got past my asking what kind of a Black man doesn’t want children with his seed?🤣) M y wanting to experience pregnancy was purely that. A desire to experience pregnancy. I could have willingly given birth to an adopted child. I didn’t want a bio child and an adoptee, I wanted to be pregnant, and to become a mother.

The first thing my own mother said when we took our first adoptee to meet them for the first time was, “Where is her home? Where is her mother?” I should have known. But I thought she was just fumbling with wording. I knew what she meant, but I responded, “Her home is with us. I am her mom!” Duh!

The pedophile, “You’re not a biological child” person told me we shouldn’t have adopted, as now I’d not go into the workforce. I told her I had yet many more years educating my other children in our homeschool so paid employment wasn’t on the radar anyway.

Then she wonders why my husband didn’t tell her about our second adoption, complaining that she found out through social media like everyone else.

I read a book by an adoptee recently. Sadly, her maternal (adoptive) grandmother made it very clear to her that only her biological grandchildren mattered. And her mother in law who knew she was adopted, told her and her husband not to adopt but to have biological children first. OUCH!

The last few words in that chapter were something like this, “Not biological. Second place.” And that is something I never want my children to feel if I can help it. I have shut out both my mother and the voice note relative. My innocent children come first.

A friend of mine is single and in her 30s and has made it clear to suitors that she will adopt.

They’ve all refused to love a child coming to their family in that manner.

So, single she remains. My heroine!

I don’t know what this obsession is with blood. Or really, sperm and egg. Why people can’t love all children.

At church once as we led a discussion on adoption, a young man sincerely asked my husband, “But how do you do it? How do you love a child that’s not yours?”

His answer was, “Because they are all GOD’s children. Whether they came from my loins or another man’s, none of them are MINE. They’ve been lent to us by God to raise for Him. So, if I can love God’s child from my loins, I can love God’s child from anywhere.”

Side note. The possessive nature too many adoptive parents have is also weird. They go to extremes as if the child is an object. They express dislike towards the birth parents. Even some guy who wrote a self congratulatory book about his adopting children stated that he felt (for a time) that updating the child’s birth mom made him feel like he was reporting to the real parent and he was just a guardian. He felt as if she was judging him and that he shouldn’t have had to tell anyone how HIS child was doing.

I don’t get that. If I love my child, I want them to be loved by everyone! The more, the merrier. I want the birth parents to love the child so much that they will put self aside for our child’s sake. I want them to fall in love with this little human and be willing to sacrifice for them. I WANT them to watch our children grow. It doesn’t feel like I’m reporting to a higher authority, it has always felt like I’m sharing something special and sacred with someone who will also feel the same sense of sacredness. With someone who is hurting and needs the pain to be reduced. Not someone who is in competition with me, like this dad felt.

I need my children’s birth parents to stick around. To be engaged. I want them to stay engaged so that if my children ever have questions I can’t answer that only they can, my children get the answers. The closer, the easier it is for that to happen.

Sadly, the one birth mom who was close and engaged has disappeared. Well, her other daughter who she is living with now has my number should anything bad happen to her. But she has disengaged. The other one- we never did find her.

I wish I could share my children with these women.

Back to the point. I am very ‘judgmental’ when it comes to this. If you can’t love a child sincerely just because of whose belly they came from, I can’t respect you. I just can’t. If you will rant at someone who was abandoned by their mother and tell them they are “not part of the family,” that they “are not a biological child,” I will wish upon you every bit of judgment that God can heap on you. You’ve crossed a line. And I will only allow you back in my life when you change that evil heart and allow love and light into it.

I extend my deepest ‘sympathies’ to every adoptee or step child who has ever been made to feel second rate. You are enough. I just wish those who AREN’T enough didn’t spew their poison over and into you.

Those people are NOT part of MY family.