Birth mother respect?

Question

Not trying to call out, just trying to understand a bit better thats all.

I HAVE respect for my birth mother. However, I want to know from those who say as adoptees, we should respect her because she gave us life, then how can you kick up a stink about people saying we should be greatful?

As far as respect goes, dont you think its better that every part of the triad on here should have just as much respect as everyone else. NO ONE on here should be superior to anyone else as far as opinions are concerned.

Can people have respect for those adoptees who have had a bad experience, and may have negative feelings toward the birth mother? You cant expect everyone to think birth mothers are a mary poppins figure!!

I think its each to their own. Everyones experience is different, so everyones level of respect is going to be different.

Answer 1

People cannot regulate their natural feelings and everyone is entitled to feel any way they want to with regard to their birth mother. Respect is earned, but given freely because someone gave birth. It is no one else's business to judge anyone else as they have no way of knowing the total picture...some others are horrible, some neglectful some selfish and some wonderful it is the luck of the draw. You get what you get and while I don't necessarily respect adoptees (I don't know many and respect, as I stated, has to be earned) I do respect their difficulty in some situations where their lives are very difficult through no fault of their own.

Answer 2

you did call me out and i answered u via email, NO Where was i saying anything disrespectful. What i was trying to point out was that some people were calling all first(birth) mothers incubators because the only thing they did was give us up. What i said was i respect MY birth mother for giving me life and then making the hardest decision she had to make giving me up. This is how I came to terms with my adoption. I'm confused as where you got that i said that you should be respecting your birth mother, especially when i related my own personal experince. like i have said in previous answers, until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, u can not know how they feel. likewise we may never understand why are mothers have us up, because we may never have or never will be in a situation that would put an unplanned or unwanted pregancy upon us.

ETA: by the way thanks for reporting my question. it shows how mature you are!

Answer 3

I was adopted - many years later met my birth mother - I have no respect for her at all. My feelings toward that person are a total zero.

From my perspective, you have no obligation to "respect" any body. Respect whom you want, feel gratitude to whomever you want.

Answer 4

I think I understand what you are saying, and I think I agree with you to some degree.  

I believe - as I have said time and time again here in Y!A - that everyone should be entitled to their own opinion.  Everyone has a different experience and everyone will feel differently based on that experience.  That doesn't make any one opinion more or less valid than other.  

It is the generalizations that "all" birth/bio/first parents, or "all" adoptees, or "all" adoptive parents feel or act a certain way that is unfair and disrespectful.

Answer 5

I think we all have a right to speak about our own experiences how we see fit, because we know it best. Its when others starting talking and labeling me and my situation, as well as my parents that bothers me.

My mother is not an incubator. She didn't harvest me for someone else's benefit.

Answer 6

For me, it's not about the adoptee's feelings about his/her own first mother.  Your feelings are valid no matter WHAT they are.  If you're calling your own mother an incubator, or birth mother, or whatever, you absolutely have that right.

Where I get concerned is when someone who has NO business judging another person comes in and says that birth mothers are immoral, crack whores, or ANY other judging term.  If she's not YOUR mother, then your feelings just aren't valid.  Feel free to work out your own feelings by calling your own mother whatever you want, but don't be calling EVERY first mother those names.  

It's disrespectful, and as I've learned on this board, chances are it's also an incorrect assumption.  There are first mothers who were coerced, not a teenager, some were MARRIED even.  Not every first mother is a crack w***e...and even if she IS, she's obviously got some issues, and putting her down does nobody any good (again, unless you're the child who has to deal with that fact that she is your mother - then, you deal with it however you need to, and I'll respect that 100%).

Answer 7

No, be honest with how you feel, but don't believe for a moment that your definition (whatever that may be) of my own behavior is going to be mutually agreed upon.

If you belong to the women who ditch their babies because they are morons camp, that's fine.

If you belong to the women are coerced in the adoption process to relinquish their children camp, that's fine too.

If you belong to the women who relinquished a child for adoption should never breed again camp, that's fine too.

If you belong to the women who relinquished a child for adoption are the bee's knees and will be blessed for their selflessness camp, that's fine too.

If you belong to the women who relinquished children are twats because my birth/first mother was the queen of twats, that's fine too.

Feel how you want to feel.

Because honestly, my own definition of my own actions is way more complicated that a one sentence summary.  It oozes between the definitions listed above and rankles and twists me up more than you would ever know.  I get that the only person who really can understand what happened to me is me who lived it, I don't need validation from every person I come across to see me for my true intentions of wanting to be a decent person.

But just because you can have your opinion, doesn't mean that I can't roll my eyes at what that opinion is.  ;o)

Answer 8

Honey, respect is earned.  I don't think anyone deserves to be respected just because of standing ( ie mother, father etc.) .  The birth mother should be grateful for the opportuniy to gift someone life.  life is a gift,  I personally had a best friend who was adopted, and found out when she was 14 yrs old I had alot of respect for her pain.  I helped her find her BM and let me tell you she did not deserve any respect.  Allthough I'm sure there are some that do.  If you give respect in life you will recieve it.  Every life is different celebrate that..

Answer 9

I think what you are saying is very valid. I can't even imagine what it would be like to suddenly find out that my parents are not my biological ones. Then you have to go through the torment of finding out why you were adopted out, feeling unwanted and worthless. Yes you gave the most blessed of gifts to another family that may not be able to concieve or have so much love to give.

It would be very very hard to have respect for a woman that gave birth to you but never bonded with you. You have every right under the sun to feel anger and an unwillingness to understand the reasons.

It takes time and alot of courage to be able to forgive and move on. It isn't just a little issue that you are dealing with it is your whole life feeling like a lie. Now it has to be unravelled and would feel like you have to start all over again.

I understand that some mothers have very valid reasons for doing what they had done, some never had power over their choices. Others need to accept that they have turned a childs life upside down.

So yes I totally agree with what you say, not every situation is going to be peachy or easily resolved.

Answer 10

Respect is completely different from Gratefulness.

I don't have respect for my Mother who gave birth to me. NOT NOW, that she wants nothing to do with me.

The only reason I wasnt aborted, I feel sure, was because of her strict catholic upbringing, that she ran away from at 17, and that it was the late 60's and there was only back yard abortions and she already had another baby to worry about.

I have respect for "birth mothers" in general.. But I dont feel grateful.

And yeah sorry but adoptees are completely different.

They are the ONLY part of the triad that had NO CHOICE, NO SAY.

I dont really understand the point of your Question either ?

Answer 11

I wrestled with these very same questions, early in my reunion. I have friends who are bmoms and adoptees who said that I should be grateful to have a relationship with my bmom, that I should be thrilled that she is willing to LET me stay close to my mom and dad, that any *real* siblings were more important that any *adopted* siblings... when what I actually felt was completely different. I felt a little like she was an interloper into my world, and that she was lucky to be invited into my family with my mom and dad. I also resented that I *had* to feel anything, just because we shared blood.

Thankfully, I talked it all though with my mom, who stressed compassion and understanding and respect, and reminded me that the only people who has opinions that mattered in my relationship with my bmom were my bmom and me. That helped a lot - as did my bmom, who has never pressured me to make our relationship anything other than it is.

But as I have said before, I resent anyone who feels that they have a better understanding of how I should think or feel about any topic, and adoption is just one of those topics. If I want to respect, or love, or hate, or resent my bmom, then I will, but no one has the right to decide for me what is right.

Also, I like what Magic Point Shoes said.

Answer 12

and people wonder why most unintended pregnancies end in abortion..  serious, who would want to put up with this c**p?!

fmoms have historically been viewed though a "goddess/w***e"  lens.  if a pregnant woman decides adoption, then she's a "goddess" yet, the moment she relinquishes the child, she's a "worthless w***e who only squeezed out a kid."  

regarding the respect vs. grateful issue....the two are not the same.  respect usually comes from the person (adoptee); gratefulness is something imposed on someone by an outside entity.

here's more: if a woman reveals that she placed a child for adoption, she is blasted for that (how could you give up your child!?) if a woman made an adoption plan, and changed her mind, she is called a scammer.  if a woman feels remorse or regret about her adoption, she is told "you gave him/her up, now stop b!tching!"

...fmoms are damned if they do...damned if they don't.

i think most of the fmom hatin' is based on the historical stigma placed on female s*x, unwed pregnancy and the need to socially condemn fmoms to better authenticate adoption.  quite honestly, it's waaay too nuanced.

once more, this is NOT referring to fmoms who have abused or neglected their children...i'm referring to the MAJORITY of fmoms who are healthy, non-drug addicted, young unmarried women.

Answer 13

well your birth mother did chose to keep you, did MAKE you, did CARRY you, and did BIRTH you, you could have respect for her in that sense couldnt you?

and im sorry but i read your question like 3 times and it doesnt really make sense.

dont waste your time being bitter it gets you no where

Answer 14

My partner's birth mother gave him up when he was quite young to be raised by his grandmother.

Neither of us have respect or gratefulness to the woman who would give away her child to be with a man who did not want to take on another child.

She has since compounded the situation by denying this happened to my partner's full sister (whom she kept) and perpetuated a lie that they were not full sister and brother which her whole family knows to be untrue.

We unerstand if an adoptee has negative feelings towards their BM...this woman was no freekin' may poppns...

Each is an individual...you don't know unless you've walked in their shoes....and should respect them as such.

Answer 15

I think everyone has the right to define their own experience.

As for gratitude, I do not believe that an adoptee should feel any more gratitude for being alive than any other person, that doesn't mean that I don't respect and adore my mother.  I do, very much - she is part of me.

You're the one who sent me abusive angry emails me telling me that my mother didn't want me and to get over it and move on, leave it alone.  Well I found her last month and you were wrong.  We are happy to define our own experience Sarah, so you can stop judging others' experiences and telling people how they should feel now.  Thanks.

You keep going on and on about how your mother is not really your mother and therefore telling other people that their own mothers are not their real mothers.  You obviously don't find that disrespectful - I do find that disrespectful. Well, my mother will always be my mother - stop telling me she's not.  OK?   call her a chimpanzee for all I care, she IS my real mother.

Answer 16

I am not aodpted, but when I think to my own mom, I don't "respect" her for giving me life.  It is the action afterwards that deserve respect in my eyes.  As a foster parent, I have seen Many parents give birth but then beat their children, I don't feel they deserve my respedct for giving life.  How can we respect people who activly drink during their preganancies?

It is the actions that we need to respect.  Women who take care of their children, even in utero, good food, no alcohol, no smoke that I respect.

Women who make best decisions for their children that I respect.  

So I don't know, I think respect has to be earned, and just giving birth in my mind is not what deserves the respect, but what you have done for that child before and after.  My understanding is that most women who put their children for adoption take excellent care of it in utero, and when they are born before the chlildren are given/taken from another family.  If that is the case, that deserves the respect.

To each person it is different, but respect has to be earned to me.