I need some advice/guidance

It is scary.

I've been thinking a lot about how to get him ready to see her. Is there a way I can make this big deal not seem like a big deal? When I talked to him about it earlier he was angry and I don't want him to get angry again.

For a 13 year old boy he's good at talking about how he's feeling. Knowing him, I think he'll take it in stride -- for a week or two -- then everything will come rushing to the surface and I think it's going to be really, really hard on him. I think he's going to be confused and mad. I do think he'll get depressed.

I know that he loves me and Mr. B and I know that he knows that we love him. I holding on to that with both hands.

OM and I are going to try to get together next weekend. I appreciate having another adoptive parent's perspective. Thank you. I'll keep you up to date.

I'm also wondering that maybe when you talk with her, she also might still have grave hesitation even while she had at last said yes.

I think the best way to try to stabilize your mood is for you to meet with OM as soon as possible--so at least you know what you are dealing with in terms of where she's at.

You said it yourself

You need to get some idea of what that territory is like, so you can begin to chart your own path, that's what will give you back some sense of control. That's why you need to get that meeting over with as soon as you can. Mo's meeting with her can wait, and you both might decide it should wait, but, for your peace of mind, your meeting with her really shouldn't wait.

I have great faith in your ability to handle/adapt to/navigate whatever comes next, in the best way possible, I am just so sorry you are going through this emotional upheaval right now, thanks to the aunt.


By delaying Mo's meeting with her for a while, to make it seem like less of a big deal, and to give him a longer period of time to process and express his emotions about meeting her. You're still the one in charge of when you think he should meet her, in terms of what you think is in his best interests.

Also, you need to know whether OM wants to meet with him once, or is this going to be ongoing contact, and could either of those things possibly do more harm than good in Mo's life at this point in time. The final say in the matter of when he meets her has to be yours, and there should be no hurry or urgency about your making decisions regarding that. After you meet with OM, you'll have a better idea of what, and should, come next.

Give some thought about warning her about some really important questions he may have when / if they meet. Her more well-thought answers in place of wide-eyed hemming and hawing will be more helpful to him. Her facial and verbal response to a couple of his more vital questions will be emblazoned across his heart for the rest of his life.

Why did you...?

and this other thing that's hurting him - why do you have a relationship with your other children and not me?

That makes sense to me.
That was what I was thinking, though in a much less coherent way, when I said that about that she might still have hesitations.

Not my business - but have you talked with your neighbor/psy/adoptive parent? I could easily see why you wouldn't, at least yet, as even as much as you two relate, it still a very private matter.

I strongly disagree with firefly's opinion. Don't force a quicker meeting than she sets up and definitely don't manipulate your son meeting his birth mother. If you make yourself an issue in his path toward his birth mother, you may be held responsible for any bad outcome.

Let him make the calls. You can advise him, give your opinion...but in the end, he is 13 - and old enough to make this call. I believe you'd regret forcing him to wait, or even strongly advising it. It will easily look like jealousy and color your every move regarding the birth mother in his mind.

This may be a short thing that dies well. It may also be a winding, changing, emotional journey that continues the rest of your life. Step well on a sound footing.

Imagining myself in your position, I'd do my best to assume an advocacy role for my son. I'd try to realize that I am not the center of this relationship, that I am where he can come when he needs comfort, advice, guidance, a loving opinion. It must be the hardest thing in the world to accomplish. This may sound crazy, but it might help you. When my son (who I love so much I can't even describe it) got married, I was not the number one woman in his life. (Nearly killed me) But I knew I had to assume a new position in his life if his marriage was to be healthy and if I were to maintain a healthy relationship with him. I lost. But I won. I gave up pre-eminence willingly.

Many women I know never did. They manipulate situations to force their sons to choose between them and their new wife - they throw their weight around, causing conflict in their sons' marriages.

You're being faced with some similar re-adjustment for Mo's health and increased ease in this rough spot.

Don't manipulate the situation - even under the banner of "what's best for him." Only step in and put a stop to it under dire circumstances.

My opinion, anyway. Sending positive thoughts to you.

It turns out that OM has partial custody of the girls and they are with her for the next few weeks. She does not want them involved in this yet so there could be a delay on us getting to meet. She's trying to arrange something but isn't sure if she can. I'm hoping she can because I can't continue on like this for long.

Mo's school starts at the end of next month. I've been trying to decide whether it would be better before, or after school starts. One one hand I hate to see this play out during school -- too much room for drama and input by other kids. On the other hand, his school has excellent counselors, ones who know him well, and are always available to talk.

It's really hard to know what's right.

I'm worried about talking too much, but one idea is to present these facts to your son - share your concerns - and assist him in facilitating his decision.

Listening to you too, Lash.
(I'll be quiet now)

The sisters are the BIG issue.

I think I'm going to have to address that with him beforehand. I'm hoping she has some good suggestions on how she would like that to go down.

He has followed my advice and not sent her a Facebook friend request. She did allow mine. I think it will upset him greatly to see it. I'm going to have to ask her to put it on private if they intend to communicate that way.

I don't Facebook much at all but since we all share a computer I'm making damn sure my account is logged out and I'm making sure that he can't look at my email -- something I've never worried about before. All of the sudden there are secrets. I hate it.

She might change her mind or she might not want much contact beyond meeting. I still don't know. She probably doesn't yet know either.

I have talked to the friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. Not much. And not within the last few days. I might have to seek her out.

I think that's exactly what I mean by feeling both grief and okay-ness.

It isn't about me and I'll need to get out of the way.

It's hard.

Me? I don't know what you are referring to? Do you have me confused with someone else? Do you mean boomer?

My brother's child is adopted, and always knew he was adopted, but he was actively discouraged from expressing any curiosity about his birth parents, because the issue was too anxiety provoking for his parents. Even though he's an adult now, I doubt my nephew would even allow himself to think about contacting his birth mother because of the anxiety that was drummed into him about that since he was a child.

One of my closest friends, a very intelligent and normally psychologically savvy person, insisted a child psychiatrist advised her not to tell her two children they were adopted until they reached their teen years, and she discounted everyone telling her that was a mistake. Well, they somehow discovered they were adopted when one was 9 and the other was 11, and that caused them enormous emotional distress and confusion and anger and depression. Eventually, with the help of therapy, they moved beyond that, and the damage did not appear to be lasting, but it would better have been prevented.

So, I have known adoptive parents and children, and how they have dealt with issues relating to adoption, but I'm not sure what you are referring to. Did I mention something else elsewhere? My memory has been known to slip.

Hugs hugs hugs. HUGS.

Yes, it was an afterthought meant for boomer. I should have been clearer.
The neighbor, who is a child psychiatrist, and boomer have some matters in common as well as being friends. Well, a psychiatrist, not positive she works only with children.

This goes to support my theory that the mistakes parents make with their children are primarily due to selfishness. The selfish nature of your brother and sister-in-law's decision is obvious, but it comes into play with other actions parents take or fail to take; convinced they are motivated only by love. For example, parents that are forever stepping in to get their kids of jams they have caused for themselves. It's not so much that they want to protect the child from whatever pain is associated with the consequences, it's that they don't want to feel the pain of seeing their child go through a tough time. Even when they realize that it's the right thing to do, they will not be able to bring themselves to do it. They think it's out of love for the child, but it’s not.

Every parent makes mistakes, regardless of the motivation and if the motivation is selfishness it doesn't mean they don't love their kids. It’s not easy being truly selfless and often when people believe they are being so, they are fooling themselves.



It's difficult to believe a child psychiatrist could be this stupid, but I don't doubt that some are. Here again, your friend was choosing the option that best suited her needs. I've no doubt she rationalized why her decision was good for the kids, but most people (as evidenced by all the advice she was getting) are able to project forward and imagine the potential damage caused by the kids finding out in a way not intended by her, and understand just how likely it was that such a thing would happen. I'm sure she loved the kids and was devastated when the inevitable happened, but the fact remains she was thinking (even if only sub-consciously) more about her own feelings than anything else.

It's why parenting is so difficult. We're not programmed for selfless decisions and if a selfish one goes awry we feel all the more guilty because it’s our kids that are hurt the most.

Having kids can bring the greatest joys and provide the greatest satisfaction in your life, but you only realize how just how hard it is when you become a parent. All the things that are typically thought to be tough by people without kids, nights without sleep, less money and time for yourself, terrible two tantrums and the like, are not picnics by any means, but they’re not the worst. The worst is feeling that you might not be doing all that your child needs to grow up happy, or living with the mistakes that you can’t go back in time and correct. It’s just impossible for someone to “imagine” how they are going to feel about their kids, just like it’s impossible to imagine having responsibility for a living being 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It’s a good thing we’re wired to get off on raising kids, because it’s the toughest job in the world.

Wonderful, insightful, and I think helpful post, Finn.

Woman, please don't be quiet. I'm sure Boomer would like as many different opinions as she can get to help check / test her own ideas, etc. And I easily acknowledge that my disagreement with firefly doesn't make firefly wrong. Dialogue is so helpful in forming decisions.

well, the " me generation" certainly made it hard work, and did a colossally bad job at it.


Rather than write an ode to parents I am much more inclined to smack them up-side the head with a blunt object. Todays kids are largely ignorant, they are incapable of operating in this world without assistance, they largely lack gumption, work ethic and intestinal fortitude....the are in short the most ill prepared for the world they must live in generation in perhaps ever. This is not all parents fault, but a lot of this is.

Scary as hell, but perfectly natural. Lash has done a nice job addressing it.

After 32 years there is still a certain anxiety about my adopted son accepting us as his "real" parents. I know he does, and we're blessed that we haven't had to go through what you're going through, but I would have been a wreck if we did.

My son has demonstrated his love for us in thousands of different ways over the last 32 years, but here was always the possibility hanging around in the back of my mind that one day he would decide we weren’t his “real” parents and he would no longer love us. With my two bio-kids, this anxiety never existed (they were very generous though in providing all sorts of other sources of anxiety to take its place), but it was never a possibility. They could tell us they hated our guts, but they couldn’t tell us we weren’t their “real” parents. Only once did he bring it up, and that when he was 13 and arguing with his mother about being allowed to do something . “You’re not my real mother.” he told her, “I don’t have to listen to you!” She responded in what I consider perfect fashion and told him "But I'm the only mother you've ever had or ever will have, and you're my son so you can't (do whatever it was he wanted to do).” She told me dropped that line of argument like a rock. He was always a wily kid and I think he just figured he’d give it a shot and see if it worked. He never raised it again with either of us.

My wife's sister and her husband adopted, and their daughter throws this up all of the time, which is not at all surprising considering her mother breaks down in tears every time and usually gives in to my niece’s demands. Although they’ve known the birth-mother since she was pregnant (when we adopted, the identity of the birth-mother was a closely held secret)and the woman send my niece letter and birthday gifts (which is weird to think about), my niece has, apparently, never expressed a desire to actually meet her. The woman and her husband had three daughters, but my niece, chronologically the second, was the only one put up for adoption. From what I understand she was going through marital and financial problems at the time. In any case, I can only imagine what the fact that she is the only one who was “let go” does to my nieces head. She and my sister-in-law (who is going through a divorce) have a lot of issues that are independent of her being adopted so it’s hard to know how much of her current troubled status (she cuts herself, swears like a drunken sailor, and just dropped out of HS) has to do with her being adopted. I’m sure she’s been better off with her adopted parents (her father adores her) than if she had been foster care for the last 16 years, but obviously being adopted is not a guarantee of a happy alternative for an unwanted kid.

I don’t know if it will help to relieve you of your anxiety over this upcoming meeting, but unless Mo has hated his life with you and your husband, which appears to be the farthest thing from the truth, it’s just not possible for it to lead to you being replaced in his heart by the birth-mother. He’s bonded with you and there’s no reason to believe that his genes are going to kick in and flood him with love for a woman he’s only meeting for the first time, and who didn’t want him as a baby. This latter bit may not be strictly true, but it’s sure going to seem that way to him. I’ve said this before but I really think that boys and girls process this differently, and boys are a lot less likely to romanticize the nature of their birth-mothers (the poor best young mother forced by cruel fate and evil men to give up her beloved baby) . I’m firmly of the belief that the more you worry about and dread an event, the less likely it will live up to your terrible expectations. It’s when you don’t worry about something it seems to bite you in the butt. So I’m not going to tell you not to worry, but you can trust in the power of the love you and your husband have shown your son. He is your real son and you are his real mother and father.