Keeping the dialogue open?

Question

"My parents were very open about my adoption - it's not that they didn't want to discuss my feelings about it, they tried their best to get me to open up. It was me who was afraid to tell how I really felt. I couldn't have had better adoptive parents - my fears were not their fault."

This is a quote from an adoptee's answer to another question. I hear a lot that adoptees keep their feeling hidden from their adoptive parents. It's good to know as an adoptive parent to expect that my child may have a lot of feelings related to adoption that she doesn't share with me so I know not to assume they don't exist. It sounds like, even though many adoptive parents want their child not to keep their feeling bottled up, that adoptees still often worry about how discussing adoption will make their parents feel. Is their any way an adoptive parent can help minimize their child's fear that their child's feelings will hurt them?

Answer 1

When I was a teen, I watched a movie on TV called "Stranger Who Looks Like Me."  The next day as I talked to my mom about the movie, she said, "Why didn't you ask me?" (about the topic of searching/my curiosity).  

I didn't ASK because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, or my dads!!!  Adoptees often fear hurting their parents feelings.

When I joined a search group to find my first mom, I was the youngest searcher in our group. Many of my fellow searchers had waited until their adopted parents died before beginning their search.  Why?  B/C they DON'T WANT TO HURT THEIR PARENTS FEELINGS.  

I know there are AP's & others in this forum who get upset at adoptees for expressing a passionate desire for adoption reform.  They believe those who do search are "disloyal, ungrateful, bitter, unhappy".  One has even said it's an 'insult to the family that took them in, loved them & raised them as their own'.  Geez, how would YOU feel about talking to your parents if YOU read (or heard) that?!

Please just be clear to your child that they won't hurt your feelings.  Or if it will, reassure them that that's OK too! My dad encouraged me to continue my search even though he felt threatened. (My a.mom told me "he's happy for you, but don't talk to him too much about the search).  My dad loved me enough to encourage me in spite of his fears!  I loved him even more for that. And I told him so long before he passed away.  It made me feel even closer & more bonded to him.

My desire to search had NOTHING to do with my parents and EVERYTHING to do with ME.  I didn't want to hurt my parents. Even though my adoption was far less than the "perfect happy ending".

ETA: My parents never told me that stuff about being ungrateful (as far as a desire to search). It's from OTHERS that I'd hear it....just like here...

Answer 2

Thank you for asking this question.  It's a great one, and I'll be paying attention to the answers.

I wonder if it helps for AP's to just be human and flawed, and to share their own pain (not hide it)?  I'm sure the answer is far more complex than this one thing, but I wonder if this would help, at least.

Answer 3

Starting conversations like..."It's very normal to feel...." or "You will not hurt my feelings if you felt..."

or I was speaking to another parent who adopted and "they".....using someone else as an example (even in it's a little fib) to reassure the adopted child that it's ok to have feelings that may hurt/seem like they are ungrateful....also keep in mind that your body language speaks volumes...so be sure to practise first....even in front of the mirror....look at your facial expression as you are speaking and be sure your hands, arms legs are relaxed.

Good luck!!!!

Answer 4

This is a great question, I think.

I'm an adoptive mother of a now grown son.  From the time I brought him home I was always prepared for the fact that he could have feelings he should talk about.  I was, after all, a grown up parent and more than able to handle any "honesty" from him.  It never happened.  When he got to his teens he had some questions, but it was never anything Earth-shattering.

I'm not sure there's a way to get those children who truly love their parents to be more open about "issues" (and sometimes I even wonder if, when an adoptive situation is a really good one children don't have many of those "issues" at all).

When children (adopted or biological) absolutely love their parents they often just can't bring themselves to say something they think could make their parents feel bad.  One of the ironies of the situation is that the most loving, capable, solid parents often end up with super-close, loving, relationships with their child; but when there's so much love there few people would risk saying something they think could hurt their parents.

On the other hand, disgruntled kids (adopted or biological) are pretty free to insult their parents.  When my son was a teenager we had our share of teenage arguments, and my son was pretty insulting at times - but they were not about the adoption feelings.  They were the usual teenage arguments.  My point is he's a pretty open person, and yet the only he talks about when it comes to being adopted is the fact that his birth family (whom he's met) are "questionable people".

My son, I think, always knew how much it meant to me that he not have issues over the fact that I didn't deliver him; and I've often thought that it was precisely because he knew how much it meant to me that he would never be completely honest IF he had issues to be honest about.

I have two biological children besides my son, and maybe being able to tell him - first-hand- that I saw no difference in how I felt about any of them helped keep the issues down.  I don't know.  He's 30 today, and I still have no idea if he has feelings he's keeping in - or just hasn't had those feelings.

Part of me like to believe that if adoptive parents are truly successful at being parents their children will not have those issues.   Based on comments from so many adopted people who do have "issues" or feelings, another part of me isn't confident that it's possible for at least some adoptees to be "issue-free".

As a parent, I've always known that no matter what comes or goes my role is to be grown-up enough not to get my feelings hurt over it.  Also, when you're super-sure about the quality of love you have for a child you're not afraid of any bumps in the road and you have faith that any honesty about feelings related to adoption won't destroy your relationship.   I've always hoped my sons knows that; but then again, could I have "insulted" my mother on something I knew meant so much to her?  I'm not sure I could have.

I was about six when I'd cry about being afraid my mother or father would die, and there was absolutely no way I could make myself tell them what was wrong.  I'd just say, "I don't know."  Younger kids often don't have what it takes to "just be honest", and the older kids get, the more they get protective of their parents (unless, of course, they have "issues" with them that make them free to say all kinds of "mean" things).

Sometimes I do wonder if there's a "silent majority" of well adjusted adoptees who simply did not have a whole lot of feelings big enough to bother talking about; and if the more vocal and less happy minority are the voices we hear most often.  Then again, I also wonder if all those "vocal" people who say there's no way a person can be adopted and not "have feelings about it" are right.

I do know one thing:  For every child who sees the fact that he was "given away" as an "issue", there are some adopted people who see what their birth mother did as something that was the right thing for her to do.   Whether or not even those more at-peace adoptees ALL have secret feelings about their adoption, though, is something that this mother of a 30-year-old son still doesn't know.

Answer 5

This is a really good question...so it is really hard to answer.  

Let me put it this way:  I never EVER asked about s*x.  Because the doors for asking about that were never EVER opened.  Because I had no idea how my questions would be received.  I suspected that they simply would not be answered or I would somehow be punished for asking...so I just never asked.  Do you think I fooled anyone about being interested in knowing, asking, find out about s*x?  Of course not.  Wanting to know is an obvious, natural part of growing up.  THAT is natural.  Having to swallow my questions was not natural.

Although my questions about adoption were tolerated, they were never encouraged.  Searching was simply described to me as "impossible" since the records were sealed.  My adamant claims that I would find my bparents someday were never EVER taken seriously.  All my questions about my adoption we're answered with "I don't know."  Although I was always told that "your biological mother loved you enough to..." even as a child I knew this was just something pretty you tell to a child.  I didn't believe it then; I don't believe it now.  Frankly, YES, there were things that I could tell or discuss with my asiblings that I could not say to nor discuss with my aparents.

Sadly, I think my aparents were products of their times.  In the days when I was adopted, aparents were told to raise their adopted children as if they were their own and it simply wouldn't matter.  Adoptees could never miss what they never had, right?  I sincerely believe that my aparents did the best they could.  Although I did eventually discover my own truths, a little dialog along the way would have made it a bit easier.