An Adoptive Parent's Perspective
One Part of the Adoption TriadWhen she turned 12, I decided it was time to give her a poem from her birth mother that had been given to me when she gave up the child. I explained I had the letter and wondered if she would like to see it. She sat up and said "yes!" (This was the child who never would discuss having been adopted, no matter how many times I tried to open up a discussion about it.) So I gave her the poem. I explained how we would help her try to find her mother when she was a bit older, but she never mentioned it again to me.
I really wasn't sure how she felt about it until I got a call from her favorite teacher a week later who told me she was so impressed that we had handled the situation with the letter so well. My daughter had shown it to her, and she was so honoured to be chosen to share her joy. That was the only outward sign we had that she really was affected by the letter (although we knew she must be). If I brought it up, she would just shrug and go to her room. So I didn't bring it up again.
Hitting the Teen YearsI am very outgoing. My husband is reserved and shy to a great degree, and I felt she was more like him than me, which was okay. I did try to make sure she had friends over to play, and that she interacted with the neighborhood children. The three of us (as her siblings had gone out on their own) had a great time together taking car trips and holidays. I have no bad memories of our life until she reached the teen years.
During her teens, she rarely went out. Her school was a long way from our place so it was difficult, as her friends lived on the other side of town. She was never interested in attending school dances, etc., even though I was willing to drive her to school functions. At that time, I went to the school once a week to work in the lunchroom and she always came down to see me. I am quite crafty and a painter, so I used to volunteer each year to do a demonstration for her class, from Grade 3 on. She seemed very proud of me at that time. Even in high school when we were having some serious issues, she invited me to go and do a demo of oil painting for her art class.
I always felt she closed me out and pushed me away, and then for a small while let me in. I didn't understand her at all. Both her dad and I felt she was very cold to me. The harder I tried to have a good relationship, the further she pulled away from me. It broke my heart. I rarely felt that I pleased her. I felt disdain from her. She was sarcastic and unkind to me. She felt I was smothering her (I guess I was – as I felt she was my child and was trying to "fix" our relationship by reassuring her about how much I loved her). I was so hurt and uncertain inside, so I accepted bad treatment from her (mainly in the form of sarcasm and disdain) because I was feeling like such a failure.
She was such a sweetie to other people – very close to our neighbors. I felt she cared more for them than she did me, which hurt me a lot. We did have some good times – usually when the two of us went for groceries, driving in the car facing forward – not facing each other. That is when she would open up to me and tell me her thoughts and what was happening in her life.
When my husband had major surgery, she was so caring and protective of him. Six months later I was very sick. She did visit the hospital but when I came home, she never once in any way showed any concern or caring for me. I had some major life-threatening health issues to deal with and later on, when I asked her why she acted that way, she said, "you were such a baby about it," which really devastated me. I was facing the possibility of major brain surgery and the whole family was trying to deal with it.
Reconnecting with Her Birth MotherWhen she was 19, we asked her if she was interested in trying to find her birth mother. She answered, "I guess," so we registered her in the State /Province where she had been adopted.
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