You reason, their reason?

Question

A lot of adoptees are lucky enough to get the chance to get to meet or at least speak with their birth parents. Most people have some sort of idea of why their birth parents gave them up.

My question is, what were your thoughts on why you were given up and how much different were they from the reason your birth parent gave you?

Answer 1

I used to snoop alot when I was young, and I found my non identifying information long before my parents gave it to me. I found it probably in about 5th grade, and they gave it to me when I was in 8th.

So for about 3 years, I had time to read it over whenever I wanted and make my own assesments on why I had been surrendered.

My non id told me that my surrender took so long because my dad  wasn't cooperating. I took that as he was fighting for me. He WANTED to keep me, and somehow turned it into that my mother was fighting him and wanted me to be surrendered.

So i spent a great deal of my childhood very angry at my mother for fighting him, and forcing him to surrender his rights to me.

I was young and didn't understand how the system worked or even the extent of surrendering rights, court and a legal adoption.

My mom wanted to keep me. My dad denied I was even his. I was in foster care for 6 months because he wouldn't even show up at court. He failed us. She would have kept me if he would have just accepted I was his and helped out a little bit. Not even alot, just a little. She couldn't do it on her own. My mom was poor and I mean POOR. She was living in a 3 bedroom house, with her parents and 7 siblings, on my grandpas income alone.

I look back now and all of those years of me hating her, only wanting to find her to throw it in her face about how HAPPY i was, and how much i didn't need her and I ache. They were wasted and misdirected uninformed anger. I LOVE my mom. I wish she would have been given the resources to make an informed decision to surrender me, or to parent me like she wanted to.

Answer 2

I was actually given two stories, one as a child and one when I received my non-identifying information at the age of 25.  My adoptive parents told me that I had been removed by the state because of abuse.  I believed this for a long time.  

At 25, when I received the write up from the social worker, she said she didn't understand why my aparents thought this, since it wasn't true.  She said that my natural parents came to social services on their own when I was a little over a year because circumstances in their lives had become such that they felt they couldn't provide properly for me.  I asked my amom why she told me I was abused.  She said that's what the agency told them.  I know she wouldn't lie, so I realized my aparents were given incorrect information, probably to get prospective aparents to feel sorry for me.  I was 2 years old, and not being an infant made it harder to place me.

When I reunited with my ndad (my nmom had already passed away,) I asked him what happened.  The story he gave me was exactly the same as the one the social worker gave me when I was 25.  The one thing I never would have guessed was that my nfather had been searching for me for years and missed me very much the entire time.  We have a very, very good relationship.

Answer 3

My aparents told me:  your bparents loved you so much that...  even as a child I knew this was just some pretty thing you tell to kids to make them feel better.

My bdad told me unbelievable stories (aka LIES) about the reason for my relinquishment.  He said that they HAD to give me away to prevent something BAD happening to me.  However, he will not say what the something bad was.

Actually, I believe that my bparents (married at the time of my birth) simply had definite goals that would have been harder and taken longer to achieve with a baby around.  I also think that my bdad thinks an exciting lie is better than a simple truth.  I disagree with him

Answer 4

Don't expect that you'll hear the truth, weather it's intentional or unintentional on your AP's part. That's if you were adopted during the "baby scoop" era.

Now, if you were adopted during the latest craze, "open" adoptions, in that case, the AP's more than likely had them closed and have everything to do with lying. They may have felt insecure and "threatened" by the first mom, but it's normally all in their head. Even though my adoption was closed after a court battle, which the AP's would have lost had I not stayed involved, when they told me I couldn't see my daughter anymore, I never tried to interfere, even though I could have easily walked right up to their house and every family members house on both sides. I have something they can never have, honor and dignity. I wish I could sue them for breech of contract, however in adoption that's the only time that I know of where you can legally get away with it.

Answer 5

Like Laurie, I had a different story growing up. My parents told me that my mother was sick & I was sick & my dad was overseas. And my mom couldn't take care of me.  This made sense to me when I was younger since my adopted dad was a Navy man.  It stopped making sense when I was about 13 & realized that the Navy takes care of their own.  My (adopted) grandmother had been told that my birth mom left me alone in a hotel room & I was rescued when the staff heard me crying. My grandma told me this when I was about 22? Around the time I began my search.  

Like Sunny (WOW) my a. mom tracked my periods. When I was 16, she had my sister question me to see if I might be pregnant (I was).  She actually told me "You're a tramp & a w***e, just like your mother!"  Shocked & stung, I replied, "Your the one who raised me." Which greatly infuriated her.

I was a foster child adopted by my foster parents.  I was able to get copies of court records, which provided the facts surrounding my removal from my mother. She was a waitress earning $30 per week & paying $20 per week for my care.  She was behind on payments to my babysitter & late picking me up. The babysitter turned me over to authorities.  Further, she was "living with a man to whom she was not married", which was apparently a great sin at the time, because even when she no longer lived with him, the record continued to refer to the time when she was living with "a man to whom she was not married".  She was ordered to pay support while I was in foster care & was behind on payments.  

When I met my birth mother, she told me that she was happy to have a girl. She'd hoped for a girl when pregnant with me. She named me after Roy Rogers' & Dale Evans' daughter. I was about 15 months old when I was taken from her & placed in foster care.  After about a year in foster care, she was told she'd never have custody of me again. She could leave me in foster care, or give me up for adoption.  She decided to give me to my foster parents, believing that was best.  She was glad I found her. She had always wanted to find me, but was afraid she'd 'mess up' my life.  She felt guilty about giving me up & didn't think she had a right to find me.  

My birth mom told me that her brother fought with my birth father because he denied I was his (when she first discovered she was pregnant).  Because of this, I expected that he'd deny he was my birth father when I (eventually) contacted him for a medical history.  Apparently, my birth mom forgot that he had also asked her to marry him (guess he got over his denial).  When I called him, he said, "I'd like to meet you."  I was stunned.  We met the following weekend.  And there was no way he could deny I was his daughter. I look just like him.  And, according to him, just like his mother and sister.

I feel extremely lucky that my search turned out like it did. I went into it expecting to have a door closed in my face & prepared myself for that outcome.  I told myself that if that happened, it would be because my birth mother was closing the door on her own painful past & not on me personally. How can she close a door on me if she didn't know me?  

Good luck to all who are on the journey!

ETA: BTW there were NO allegations of abuse or neglect in my court records. No criminal history noted, no drugs or alcohol use. My mom owed the babysitter owed her for Dr.'s bills, also. At the time, there was no welfare, no medical & no family reunification.

Answer 6

I'm with TLK777 on this.

obviously, the situation was not good or i would not have been adopted.

lo and behold, i would hear about it years later (as well as 30 years of anger and obsession).  she was already struggling with one child out of wedlock, living on her own and knew she could not afford to take care of both of us.  No one coerced her, it was a decision she made on her own.

she has a good life now as does her son but she readily admits it wouldn't have been possible for me or her to have the lives we all hold now.

Answer 7

i figured they had many problems in their lives at that time and couldnt take care of me. i was right on. both my bioparents had several problems in their lives at that time. they simply could not take care of themselves let alone a child.

the adoption agency gave different reasons, much darker reasons, but i never believed them. i knew in my heart.

Answer 8

My thaughts were that my birth mother was too young. I found out when I met her that it was because she "wanted to party" mmmmmmmmmm. She was the same age as me when she had me and I was her second child! I have 3 kids and still have time to let my hair down! cant really comment on anymore.

Answer 9

I was never given a 'reason' by my aparents.  I was told she was "one of the youngest girls to ever come through"  the agency.  

This created for me a fantasy of a girl whom something VERY bad had happen to...was she raped?  What kind of a girl gets pregnant at what, 12, 13?  My child's mind just couldn't fathom what had happened to create this situation where I had to be adopted.  I often wonder if this 'story' influenced my amother as well.  Even though I was a very 'good' girl, I was always treated like a w***e.  Never trusted around boys.  My amother even tracked my menstrual cycles--to make sure I wasn't knocked up like my tramp of a mother?  

I met my nmother at 22.  She was living in a house a five minute walk from the Pacific.  She had never really worked.  My DH called her a 'trustifarian'.  She gets money from her very wealthy family.  She was 22 when she had me.  She had met my father at their parent's yacht club.  The big 'problem' is that he wasn't 'ready' to marry her.  And her mother pushed for me to me given away--NO ONE kept a baby out of wedlock in the early 1960s!  

So, yes, my 'thoughts' (lies supplied by the Lutheran adoption agency) were quite different from the reality.  Maybe, just maybe, had my parents been told the truth (!) I wouldn't have paid for my mother's 'sin', and had a shred of self-esteem as a child.

Secrets and lies are NEVER healthy!

Answer 10

I was adopted at 5 days old.  I met my birth mother when I was 42.  The reason for my being adopted was that my mother was still in school.  The school counselor and my birth grandmother thought that the best thing to do was to send her away to a home for unwed mothers.  That is pretty much what I heard all through growing up.  Things are a bit different now and it's not so much taboo about being a single parent.

Answer 11

I'm an adopted person, and I really don't dwell on why my real parents gave me up. I'm in a great environment, I graduate high school in June, I'm college-bound in September, I have a wonderful family, and I'm thankful for everything and everyone I have. My aunt of my current family is the one who connected my old family with my new to get me adopted to where I am, so she is pretty much the reason that I'm here.

However, I used to always feel that it's my real parents responsibility to contact me. If they really wanted to be in touch with me, they would do so. Also, I'm one of many kids that they have adopted, and I have siblings out there that are pretty much unaware of my existance. Unfortunately, I've been told that my sister has a lot of problems, and I have another sibling out there somewhere.

In general, I just can't see much good with making my presence known. I have been contemplating lately of contacting my real dad / inviting him to my graduation party, if anything to let him know everything is ok. The last thing I want to do is make things awkward for anyone.

Answer 12

What I didn't know was how much a role my first mom's mom played in my relinquishment.  Essentially, she made my first mom (who was 19, nearly 20 at the time) give me up.  My grandmother, from all reports, is a very dominant woman, and her daughter never would have questioned her demands (not at that time, anyway).  From every thing she has told me, if she had known it was an option to keep me, she would have.  

I figured she was just too young or not ready.  But from what she has told me, that wasn't really the case.  Not exactly, anyway.

Answer 13

I was adopted at 8 months.  My birthmother was only 15.  That is what I have been told.  I have not met her yet.

Answer 14

I have not met my birth parents.....but my brother has an interesting story.  He was told his mother was a young, poor woman who could not afford to keep him.  We know he is part native american so it was assumed that his mother was probably from a reservation

He met his bio mother and found out that she was not young or poor or Native American.  She was a middle class woman who was having an affair with a very influential  mafia-type man who apparently was very violent and threatened to kill her if she did not give the baby up.  His mother apparently always regretted this and searched for my bro for 40 years.  My brother never wanted to be found and was extremely upset by the info he learned about his bio dad who had a history of violence and criminal activity.  

I think my brother sort of liked the made-story more than the reality of his birth story  :)   He has handled it well, but does not maintain contact with his bio mom.

Answer 15

This is a very good question.  

My aparents told me that my first mom gave me up because she wanted to finish college and couldn't do that and take care of a baby.  This left me feeling my whole life like my first mom had chosen a degree over me and that she was either A) a selfish person or B) I wasn't worth keeping.  

This reason may have been what the adoption agency told my aparents just to make them feel comfortable about adopting me.  My aparents both have college degrees and hold education in high regard.  It probably made sense to them to think someone would want to finish their education.   I think that the social worker knew just what to say to them.

When I met my first mom, she told me that finishing college hadn't been the reason at all.  She said that if she could have she would have kept me but her parents, my father and his parents all pressured her to place me for adoption.  She felt like she had no choice but to do as they all wanted her to.  No help was offered to her and it was made clear that she would be entirely on her own if she chose to keep me.  

Apparently, after she gave birth to me, her family and my father's family told everyone that I was stillborn.  Gives me the chills to think about to this day.

Answer 16

My parents told me the whole story of both of my adoptions. They didn't leave anything out. As I got older they answered any questions I had.  They also never ran down my bio's. They were very honest so I didn't have unanswered questions. They told me at a very early age in a way that I could understand. I never doubted what they told me. I met and had a relationship with my grandma an grandpa. They were great people. They also told me what had happened and it was the same as my parents had said only with more detail about what my bio's life was like. So I guess I was lucky to have parents that were open and honest and didn't try to  hide the truth. They were both very supportive to me if I ever wanted to look for my bio's, which I haven't.

Answer 17

I am not adopted, but did raise two foster children a few years ago. I am very lucky to have been raised and loved by my real parents. I have read each of the stories here and it sounds to me, that each situation was for the best. You all sound like really nice people with your heads on straight. It sounds like you were loved while growing up. Good luck to each of you and god bless.

Answer 18

I can' truthfully answer this question.  I don't know.  The agency supposedly contacted her.  I do know that I am the product of a married man and an unmarried woman.  Unfortunately the agency is known for lying about contacting natural parents.  They are known for taking money from adoptees/natural parents and saying that they denied contact.  I don't know what the truth is.