APs/PAPs: Have you ever felt that you were raising someone else's child?

Question

I do not.

But after spending some time online, I have heard from APs who feel like they are and some PAPs who would classify it that way as well.

Obviously, biologically I did not create her, but I have never thought of her as "someone else's child". Something about it just doesn't sit right. It sounds clinical, detached.

I have always thought of it as I share this child with her first mother. I did not have anything to do with the nature side of who she is, but my husband and I did have everything to do with the nurture side in terms of helping shape who she is and supporting and loving her and encouraging her talents.

I'm curious how others feel.

Again, I want to be VERY clear that I acknowledge and very much respect that she exists because of 2 people in China, but I have always seen our circumstances as more of a "shared" situation rather than "raising someone else's child."

She is very much my child. But she is also her first parents child.

Answer 1

No, I do not feel like I'm raising someone else's child. She most definitely is our daughter and I know she feels it too. She is also very much her nmom's daughter. Hard to understand? Not to us.

Answer 2

I am both an adoptee and an adoptive parent, and I can say this- no I never felt like I was someone else's child, or that my children were someone else's.  I have never not acknowledged our birth moms.  I love them and respect them and know that I had a birth mom that loved me, as much as my children's birth moms loved them.  However, I was and always will be the child of the parents that raised me.  I do not mind my son's birth mom , whom we have met, calling him her son- but she has more than once told him and me that we are his parents.

Answer 3

Hi Kazi,

This is a catch 22 question.

1) If i say no, i do not feel like am raising someone else's child then its like i am not acknowledging their First Families.

2) If i say yes, i feel like i am raising someone else's child then its like i haven't bonded or have as much love for my daughters.

So i am some where in the middle.  We promised both First Families to love their children as our own.  Meaning they get all our love completely and that we would lay down our lives to save our children if it came down to it.  At the same time we acknowledge that our children are not ours alone.  We fully acknowledge our DD's first families.  We are not trying to erase them or take anyones place.

Answer 4

No, I have never felt that way.  My daughter is my daughter.

I have no jealousy toward my daughter's first mother and I wish she was in my daughter's life more.  I'm very secure about the relationship my daughter and I share  because she IS my child.  

We have a bond that could not be formed before birth.  We have laughed together and cried together.  We've been with each other through tough times and great times.  A major part of her is not genetic.  She may have her first mother's eyes, but how she sees things is due to her environment and upbringing.

Please know that I love my daughter's first mother and I do not mean this in any way to say that she doesn't have a bond with my daughter or that she doesn't love her.

Answer 5

Yes and No.

My children are always my children, but they are always their fmother's children too.  One doesn't diminish the other.  Just as I feel it's possible for a child to love more than one set of parents, I feel it's possible for aparents to acknowledge and appreciate the fparents without minimizing their own role as parents.  

It doesn't have to be an "either, or" situation.

Answer 6

I'm not an AP, I'm an adoptee.

I always felt like I was being raised by someone else's parents.

Answer 7

Yes and no.  She's very much my child - our lives, attachments, daily living habits, the intimacies of family life make us totally connected.  I feel the nurturing instinct and love for her for her I never truly understood until she was my daughter and that I couldn't feel for a child who wasn't "mine". But, there are ways in which she'll never be "my" child.  I was looking through a photo album the other day and came across a "4 generations of women" pic.  My grandmother, mother, me, and my daughter.  The physical resemblance between my grandmother, mother, and me absolutely jumped out at me.  I mean all the family history - from aristocracy in England, to redneck life in Kentucky - coursed through us and I really felt that from that picture.  But, my daughter has other people who share that intense family connection and history, not us, and it just struck me as so sad that she was parted from that  in a way it had never struck me before.  It didn't make me feel less bonded to her, or "detached" or less her parent, but it was definitely a realization of a part of both of us connected to separate things.

Answer 8

I think of our child as our child.....

However, he is and looks completely different from us and our family. I often think about what his first mom and dad look like, how they are, if they think about him, what his half-brother looks like. I wonder who he got his eyes from and his little toes......his mom or his dad. I think about him growing up and feeling different and looking different, and how he will adjust, and if we will do a good enough job listening to him and helping him feel both loved and supported. Because we are not yet finalized on his adoption, it does feel very much like he isn't 'ours' fully. He belongs to both his first parents, his former foster parents, CPS, and us....but only his foster parents, CPS and us have spent any time with him since birth. As my husband frequently tells me, "we couldn't have created a more wonderful son if we tried". I agree....they created a beautiful and loving little boy....and it is our job to help him become a kind and wonderful man. He is 'ours' in the sense that we are fully his parents and love and adore him in every way. But he will always look like someone else and have their characteristics.....which is wonderful....and a constant reminder that while he is our child, he is also their child--weather they acknowledge him or not.

<<adoptive mommy through foster care

Answer 9

ummmm, yeah, you are.  (raising another woman's child, that is.)

Answer 10

Absolutely not. I had him in my arms from the minute he was born. He is the way he is because of me and my husband.

Answer 11

I do not feel that I am raising someone else's child.  The only time that I am reminded that he does not share my DNA is when we are attending medical appointments, especially since he suffers from a rare genetic disorder.

Answer 12

At first, my answer was a big NO, but then I thought about it.  

Every time my son does something awesome, I think- I wish I could let his natural mother know.  I just want to share that joy I feel inside with another person who (hopefully) loves him 110% like I do.  (Yes, I do tell my direct family...  but his natural mother is special.)  I don't know, I just think about her alot.  I 110% feel he is my son and I am raising him.

Answer 13

being that mine is a relative adoption...  I see a lot of his bio mom in him.