Closed Adoption and found the birth mother

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A closed adopted does not assume the birth mother wanted no contact. Stop repeating this ad nauseum. It was designed to protect the ADOPTIVE PARENTS only. Keep in mind also that the birth father had zero rights for many years. It is pretty easy, btw, to find the bio mother without DNA...and much harder for her to find the adoptive family.

OP here. The closed adoption was the birth mother's choice, not my parents. My parents didn't care, they just wanted the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[i]My sister had a closed adoption and the birth mother was adamant she didn't want to be contacted. [b]My sister took the Ancestry DNA test and found close relatives like cousins and siblings. She's been messaging them and they are upset, have no knowledge of the birth and don't want her to contact them. An older woman told my sister she had no right to do this. She has no way to message the birth mother directly.

Any advice? I think since it was a closed adoption she should only message the birth mother and not the rest of the family. My parents think this woman has no right to privacy in 2018 and her entire family should know about her teenage birth and don't care about any consequences if her children or husband or parents find out. I see both sides. I feel for this woman who was a young teen when she had the baby and chose adoption over abortion under the condition that it was a closed adoption. And then I feel for my sister who wants a new family.

Just because it seems no one in the newer posts can read, please read the bolded, direct.y from the original post.

The birth mother did not want to be contacted. That’s what “adamant she didn’t want to be contacted” means.

Seems like English. Although, I suppose the educational system is failing.

Then, to make it MORE CLEAR, the family is saying they don’t want the adoptee to contact them.

I don’t even understand the question. Because you don’t “feel” like these people have a right to privacy, doesn’t mean intruding in their lives is the right answe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A closed adopted does not assume the birth mother wanted no contact. Stop repeating this ad nauseum. It was designed to protect the ADOPTIVE PARENTS only. Keep in mind also that the birth father had zero rights for many years. It is pretty easy, btw, to find the bio mother without DNA...and much harder for her to find the adoptive family.

This brings up a good point. What if the birth mother chose closed as the best way to handle circumstances at that time, but since her situation changed and she now would be open to contact? Is that openness and opportunity lost because she chose a different option years ago?

Just asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A closed adopted does not assume the birth mother wanted no contact. Stop repeating this ad nauseum. It was designed to protect the ADOPTIVE PARENTS only. Keep in mind also that the birth father had zero rights for many years. It is pretty easy, btw, to find the bio mother without DNA...and much harder for her to find the adoptive family.

This brings up a good point. What if the birth mother chose closed as the best way to handle circumstances at that time, but since her situation changed and she now would be open to contact? Is that openness and opportunity lost because she chose a different option years ago?

Just asking.

Well then, she may look for her child once they reach the age of 18, or she respects her original Choice.

Either way, I don’t see how going to people that had nothing to do with the birth or adoption is okay or helpful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A closed adopted does not assume the birth mother wanted no contact. Stop repeating this ad nauseum. It was designed to protect the ADOPTIVE PARENTS only. Keep in mind also that the birth father had zero rights for many years. It is pretty easy, btw, to find the bio mother without DNA...and much harder for her to find the adoptive family.

This brings up a good point. What if the birth mother chose closed as the best way to handle circumstances at that time, but since her situation changed and she now would be open to contact? Is that openness and opportunity lost because she chose a different option years ago?

Just asking.

yeah lets use this as an excuse for harassing people. all those stalkers should ask themselves - but what if my victim changed her mind?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope all the right to life organizations realize what they’re doing to women down the line, when they encourage them to adopt because it gives them and their child a “better life”. You’re a prisoner either way. No one wants to pay for women to have access to contraception, but they want to insert themselves into their lives.m

Do you think all the adopted kids wish they'd never been born? Some, I'm sure, have gone on to have difficult lives. But many have gone on to have fulfilling lives. So abortion isn't necessarily the better route. We don't know what the situations are in all the cases of adoption. It may be logical to you and me to have an abortion, but I won't wade into other families' religious beliefs and their views on the sanctity of life.

Frankly, I don't think abortion/anti abortion has a place in this discussion over closed adoptions and finding the birth mother. It's an entirely different topic.

I’m saying that if they had known their lives would be impacted / “blown up” 20 years down the line, many women may not have chosen adoption. They choose what they felt was best for both their child, and themselves. Now, that choice is being taken away. And so many on this thread are saying that’s okay.

It’s not. This was a conscious choice, years ago. And their right to their lives has to mean something too.

When thinking of the reasons for adoption, a, narrative is that the biological mother made the best decision that she could on this under the circumstances at the time her baby was born, she did what she needed to do for her baby to have a better life than the mom could provide. They narrative is not generally that the mother was embarrassed about having been pregnant and having a child and decided to hide that embarrassment from her family until the end of time. For a biological mothers who were looking out for their child’s best interest, I would think they would likely be thrilled to find out what has become of their biological children. And if at that point their life circumstances had changed such that they could have a relationship with an adult child, rather than having to go through the stressful, hugely time consuming and emotionally draining raising of a child to adult hood, why wouldn’t they want to?

In short, if my mom loved me so much that she was willing to part with me so that I could have a better life, why wouldn’t she want to know how I turned out many decades later?

These children are not secret in their own lives. They have families that care for them. They are looking for more, where there may not be more. A choice to make an adoption closed is done so for a reason.

[Anonymous]

Totally going out on a limb here, but for the ones who think it’s okay that the family be contacted: how do you handle invitations that only include certain people? Like if your children weren’t invited to a wedding, would you still bring them because you feel they should be there? If your DH goes out for boys night, do you feel you should go along too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A closed adopted does not assume the birth mother wanted no contact. Stop repeating this ad nauseum. It was designed to protect the ADOPTIVE PARENTS only. Keep in mind also that the birth father had zero rights for many years. It is pretty easy, btw, to find the bio mother without DNA...and much harder for her to find the adoptive family.

This brings up a good point. What if the birth mother chose closed as the best way to handle circumstances at that time, but since her situation changed and she now would be open to contact? Is that openness and opportunity lost because she chose a different option years ago?

Just asking.

Well then, she may look for her child once they reach the age of 18, or she respects her original Choice.

Either way, I don’t see how going to people that had nothing to do with the birth or adoption is okay or helpful?

Just playing devil's advocate. Sometimes, people can only locate relatives, not the birth mother or father themselves for a variety of reasons. Should they not reach out to those people because it is not the actual birth parent?

Full disclosure- I'm an adoptee. I've found my birth family (who was thrilled to be found, btw). But my adoption was closed at the behest of the adoption agency, a choice which my birth mother had nothing to do with. In fact, she never consented to my adoption, though that's a long story. Had I read in my file that it was my birth mom's choice to have no contact, I'd like to think I would've respected that. I will say that the info that was in my file was completely incorrect, for what that's worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally going out on a limb here, but for the ones who think it’s okay that the family be contacted: how do you handle invitations that only include certain people? Like if your children weren’t invited to a wedding, would you still bring them because you feel they should be there? If your DH goes out for boys night, do you feel you should go along too?

You do not get the complexity of adoption. This is not related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope all the right to life organizations realize what they’re doing to women down the line, when they encourage them to adopt because it gives them and their child a “better life”. You’re a prisoner either way. No one wants to pay for women to have access to contraception, but they want to insert themselves into their lives.m

Do you think all the adopted kids wish they'd never been born? Some, I'm sure, have gone on to have difficult lives. But many have gone on to have fulfilling lives. So abortion isn't necessarily the better route. We don't know what the situations are in all the cases of adoption. It may be logical to you and me to have an abortion, but I won't wade into other families' religious beliefs and their views on the sanctity of life.

Frankly, I don't think abortion/anti abortion has a place in this discussion over closed adoptions and finding the birth mother. It's an entirely different topic.

I’m saying that if they had known their lives would be impacted / “blown up” 20 years down the line, many women may not have chosen adoption. They choose what they felt was best for both their child, and themselves. Now, that choice is being taken away. And so many on this thread are saying that’s okay.

It’s not. This was a conscious choice, years ago. And their right to their lives has to mean something too.

When thinking of the reasons for adoption, a, narrative is that the biological mother made the best decision that she could on this under the circumstances at the time her baby was born, she did what she needed to do for her baby to have a better life than the mom could provide. They narrative is not generally that the mother was embarrassed about having been pregnant and having a child and decided to hide that embarrassment from her family until the end of time. For a biological mothers who were looking out for their child’s best interest, I would think they would likely be thrilled to find out what has become of their biological children. And if at that point their life circumstances had changed such that they could have a relationship with an adult child, rather than having to go through the stressful, hugely time consuming and emotionally draining raising of a child to adult hood, why wouldn’t they want to?

In short, if my mom loved me so much that she was willing to part with me so that I could have a better life, why wouldn’t she want to know how I turned out many decades later?

These children are not secret in their own lives. They have families that care for them. They are looking for more, where there may not be more. A choice to make an adoption closed is done so for a reason.

Because surely you’ve heard that loving something means letting it go. Your mother likely had felt that you were never “hers” to hold onto.
Because the adult has nothing to do with their lives anymore, as painful as that sounds.

Families aren’t built by genes. They’re built by love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope all the right to life organizations realize what they’re doing to women down the line, when they encourage them to adopt because it gives them and their child a “better life”. You’re a prisoner either way. No one wants to pay for women to have access to contraception, but they want to insert themselves into their lives.m

Do you think all the adopted kids wish they'd never been born? Some, I'm sure, have gone on to have difficult lives. But many have gone on to have fulfilling lives. So abortion isn't necessarily the better route. We don't know what the situations are in all the cases of adoption. It may be logical to you and me to have an abortion, but I won't wade into other families' religious beliefs and their views on the sanctity of life.

Frankly, I don't think abortion/anti abortion has a place in this discussion over closed adoptions and finding the birth mother. It's an entirely different topic.

I’m saying that if they had known their lives would be impacted / “blown up” 20 years down the line, many women may not have chosen adoption. They choose what they felt was best for both their child, and themselves. Now, that choice is being taken away. And so many on this thread are saying that’s okay.

It’s not. This was a conscious choice, years ago. And their right to their lives has to mean something too.

When thinking of the reasons for adoption, a, narrative is that the biological mother made the best decision that she could on this under the circumstances at the time her baby was born, she did what she needed to do for her baby to have a better life than the mom could provide. They narrative is not generally that the mother was embarrassed about having been pregnant and having a child and decided to hide that embarrassment from her family until the end of time. For a biological mothers who were looking out for their child’s best interest, I would think they would likely be thrilled to find out what has become of their biological children. And if at that point their life circumstances had changed such that they could have a relationship with an adult child, rather than having to go through the stressful, hugely time consuming and emotionally draining raising of a child to adult hood, why wouldn’t they want to?

In short, if my mom loved me so much that she was willing to part with me so that I could have a better life, why wouldn’t she want to know how I turned out many decades later?

These children are not secret in their own lives. They have families that care for them. They are looking for more, where there may not be more. A choice to make an adoption closed is done so for a reason.

Because surely you’ve heard that loving something means letting it go. Your mother likely had felt that you were never “hers” to hold onto.
Because the adult has nothing to do with their lives anymore, as painful as that sounds.

Families aren’t built by genes. They’re built by love.

...is your perspective. Some people do see the familial obligation as one more of biology and "ownership/belonging". You surely understand that loving and being interested in one's children isn't a universal truth and hasn't actually been around for that long? Especially for female children, parents historically saw them as tools, not objects of love and devotion.

I agree with you that families are built by love, but I'm also not naive to the complexities and realities of the world and social structures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[i]My sister had a closed adoption and the birth mother was adamant she didn't want to be contacted. [b]My sister took the Ancestry DNA test and found close relatives like cousins and siblings. She's been messaging them and they are upset, have no knowledge of the birth and don't want her to contact them. An older woman told my sister she had no right to do this. She has no way to message the birth mother directly.

Any advice? I think since it was a closed adoption she should only message the birth mother and not the rest of the family. My parents think this woman has no right to privacy in 2018 and her entire family should know about her teenage birth and don't care about any consequences if her children or husband or parents find out. I see both sides. I feel for this woman who was a young teen when she had the baby and chose adoption over abortion under the condition that it was a closed adoption. And then I feel for my sister who wants a new family.

Just because it seems no one in the newer posts can read, please read the bolded, direct.y from the original post.

The birth mother did not want to be contacted. That’s what “adamant she didn’t want to be contacted” means.

Seems like English. Although, I suppose the educational system is failing.

Then, to make it MORE CLEAR, the family is saying they don’t want the adoptee to contact them.

I don’t even understand the question. Because you don’t “feel” like these people have a right to privacy, doesn’t mean intruding in their lives is the right answe.

I am one of the posters you are referring to. And, yes, I can read. It says that the biological mother “was” adamant but does not say anything about now, decades later. Also, I am wondering how the original poster knows that the mother was adamant about this. Either way, I do not see any problem with a person reaching out to their biological parent if they can identify them, and seeing where it goes. No, the biological parent does not need to respond, and, as with all interactions, continuing to contact in the face of rejection Ken in some circumstances be harassment or worse. There is a world of difference between reaching out once, and harassment. Not the same thing at all. Nobody can point to anything that reflects the biological mothers wishes any time over the past several decades. And if the biological mother has any sense, she is well aware that she gave up a child and that the child will be able to locate her with current technology. It is not as though this would be a surprise.

[Anonymous]

Come on. If you had a child and gave it up for adoption, you would never be curious about how that child's doing? I'm not saying you'd want a relationship but to never wonder? Birth mothers aren't automatons who can suppress their feelings about a child they carried for 9 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on. If you had a child and gave it up for adoption, you would never be curious about how that child's doing? I'm not saying you'd want a relationship but to never wonder? Birth mothers aren't automatons who can suppress their feelings about a child they carried for 9 months.

So...you think that your vision of this situation overrides the feelings of the actual living people who are IN this situation? You're saying how you think they ought to feel is more important than what they actually feel?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on. If you had a child and gave it up for adoption, you would never be curious about how that child's doing? I'm not saying you'd want a relationship but to never wonder? Birth mothers aren't automatons who can suppress their feelings about a child they carried for 9 months.

omg what feelings 20 years later? the mother moved on.