One of the biggest hurdles for adoptees that are thinking about searching is the major question of impact on their families. No one wants to hurt the feelings of their parents...the people who raised them, loved them, kissed their booboos, tucked them in at night...you know, their parents! Most adoptees, me included, fear the reaction of their parents if they tell them that they are searching for their birth family. Does that mean the parents weren't good enough? Does it mean the adoptee doesn't love them? Is the adoptive family insufficient? Will the adoptee abandon their family should they find their birth family? The answer to all of these questions is overwhelmingly no in the majority of cases, it certainly was in mine. But that doesn't stop the fear of losing their child from rising in the mind of the parent.
Again, I have been extremely fortunate in this area. My parents, Jerry & Joanmarie, have believed from the beginning that openness about adoption is essential. While there may be and certainly are many other things that we disagree about, we are entirely unified in this belief. They have always made both Thom and my adoption history transparent, or at least as transparent as they could given the limited information they had. In my case, they were told that my parents were both professional people with jobs who couldn't keep me. My mother thought that the social worker had told her that my birth mother was musical and she swore that she remembered hearing that they were from the NY Capitol Region. And she was able to provide me with a letter that she had received from the Catholic Charities foster family that took care of me in the two months between my birth and my arrival with my new family. More about that letter in a later post.
At the end of the day, my mom has shared my excitement for the search and hoped that I would, eventually, find out about my birth history. She may have, probably did, harbor intense feeings of fear, self-recrimination, anticipation and doubt about my search, but if so, I never heard about it. She was supportive to a fault on this issue, even at times when I know it probably scared her out of her mind to do so.
My dad is significantly more circumspect; he's a quiet man except for telling some boisterous stories if you get him going. He comes from a time that men didn't talk about feelings or emotions and the years haven't changed that. As my search went out, I learned that bringing up any new information or asking questions was a sure fire way to guarantee my dad would just clam up. The silence would flow over the phone line and I knew I had crossed the line. It was clear that the idea of me searching or finding my birth family was very painful for him. I worked hard to reassure him of my love and just avoided the subject whenever possible. The more I searched, the harder I tried to repair past hurts with my family; like many adoptees, I found that searching actually helped me to let go of some of the petty grudges I had held from childhood. In a very real way, it helped force me to build bridges back that I had burned long before.
Again, I have been extremely fortunate in this area. My parents, Jerry & Joanmarie, have believed from the beginning that openness about adoption is essential. While there may be and certainly are many other things that we disagree about, we are entirely unified in this belief. They have always made both Thom and my adoption history transparent, or at least as transparent as they could given the limited information they had. In my case, they were told that my parents were both professional people with jobs who couldn't keep me. My mother thought that the social worker had told her that my birth mother was musical and she swore that she remembered hearing that they were from the NY Capitol Region. And she was able to provide me with a letter that she had received from the Catholic Charities foster family that took care of me in the two months between my birth and my arrival with my new family. More about that letter in a later post.
At the end of the day, my mom has shared my excitement for the search and hoped that I would, eventually, find out about my birth history. She may have, probably did, harbor intense feeings of fear, self-recrimination, anticipation and doubt about my search, but if so, I never heard about it. She was supportive to a fault on this issue, even at times when I know it probably scared her out of her mind to do so.
My dad is significantly more circumspect; he's a quiet man except for telling some boisterous stories if you get him going. He comes from a time that men didn't talk about feelings or emotions and the years haven't changed that. As my search went out, I learned that bringing up any new information or asking questions was a sure fire way to guarantee my dad would just clam up. The silence would flow over the phone line and I knew I had crossed the line. It was clear that the idea of me searching or finding my birth family was very painful for him. I worked hard to reassure him of my love and just avoided the subject whenever possible. The more I searched, the harder I tried to repair past hurts with my family; like many adoptees, I found that searching actually helped me to let go of some of the petty grudges I had held from childhood. In a very real way, it helped force me to build bridges back that I had burned long before.
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