When we entered into the open adoption it was ONLY to be with biomother. Because of the whole dcf involvement, the grandparents never wanting contact, thats what we agreed. Today i got an email asking me to bring my son to his biograndmothers daughters bday party. shes turning 6. Honestly she rejected him by not parenting him for her daughter, seen him 3 times in 3 years, now she wants me to attend a party? Am i nuts or am i missing something!!
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Perhaps she has now learned some diffcult things about the loss in adoption, and she is simply reaching out to you & your daughter. Is is possible to contact her and talk about visits and the possibility of forming a relationship? You say she was rejecting him, but I am wondering how much (with dcfs involved) was out of her control, and also how much she may have believed she was making choices that were best for the child at the time. Seems like now she is wondering if contact could be beneficial for you all. Could it? In my experience there are very few of us who make a decision today, and do not move forward and learn things, good or bad, from that initial decision, and desire to do things differently if we could.
oops, I meant your son. Sorry.
unfortunaly she has dcf involvement of her own! she is in the process of trying to keep her 6year old! She was found unconcious drunk while the child was unsupervised in the pool!!!!! She said i raised my kids i wont raise a grand child. She had every opportunity to take him, 3 times she was asked and 3 times said nope! Basically the least involvement i have with my sons birth family the better and SAFER for us all…its unfortunate!
@melissa,
You posted this while I was typing below. I can see that she might not be safe to leave your child alone with…but that doesn’t mean that some type of relationship (phone or letters) or visits with you always present and her sober would be unsafe. If you prefer no contact, just say “no”.
Obviously, I don’t know the whole story…
But why should the grandparent have been obligated to parent? Parenting is a whole different ballgame than being a grandparent. And grandparents trying to parent while their child (the bio-parent) attempts to be involved sometimes on their own terms is even harder. Grandparents can be good parents to grandchildren but sometimes they just can’t do it, probably for the same reasons that many first parents place for adoption. Finances, age (old age instead of too young but still), ill health. Not parenting might not be “rejecting” your son any more than placing a baby for adoption is rejecting the baby. For a first parent, placing for adoption is because they recognize that they’re not in a good place to parent a child (or another child) and they want something better. Isn’t it possible that the grandparent felt this way?
There is a possibility that in the future at some time, your son might want to know these people. They are part of him. Don’t agree to the party if you don’t feel comfortable with a visit now or don’t think it’s in your son’s current best interest. But not agreeing to the party doesn’t mean that you have to close the door completely. Is there some middle ground that you’d be comfortable with? Could there be some other contact and a gradual involvement?
Just because she didn’t want to parent her grandchild doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want some sort of relationship. And as time goes on, she might be realizing how much she’s missing out on in the life of her grandson. Or it could be possible that her daughter (age 6, right?) had asked if he could attend. Do they know each other?
I’m not saying that you should agree to contact that you don’t want. Just say “No” if you don’t want to do it. But you’re posting it here and for the most part, this is a place in support of openness. If these people are safe and your son (I didn’t see an age posted) doesn’t have bad memories of them, how could contact hurt? Why not build good memories of a grandparent who loves him even if she couldn’t parent him?
my son is 3. i agree to openness thats why i did it. what i DONT agree with is inconsistency.
she is either on board or not. my son doesnt know her from jack. she said she wanted to see him because
her 6 yr old asked. its complicated. he wasnt placed out of love …he was taken away and placed for safety.
i feel bad but i dont think contact is ok . i think when hes old enough to want to know…we may reestablish contact
You have to trust your instinct as a mother first. And then take a step back a look at things from your son’s perspective. If ever he has a desire or need to have contact with his bfamily…it might be nice to have an open line of communication there..just in case. With my daughter, my “goals” with the open adoption are that she feel like we have been totally honest with her all her life in regard to her adoption, that she feel secure and happy with the adoption, that she sees adoption as a normal, healthy way for families to be created. Part of these goals is communication with her birth families. I say families because both sets of birth grandparents, and siblings of the birthparents, are welcome at the visits. (We leave it up to the birthparents who that want to include at the visits.) Granted…we do not have the same set of circumstances in which there are safety issues present…but we have had and continue to have boundary issues with the bfather’s parents. We have been tempted (and still may one day in the future) terminate the relationship with these bgrandparents because they continually “cross the line” with us. The only thing that has kept us from completely terminating the relationship is because we don’t want to close that door entirely just in case our daughter would like to one day know about them or have a relationship with them. We want it to be her choice (again..no safety issues here…just that they are pushy and meddlesome).
Just a suggestion….If I were in your situation…I would not go to the party. I would try to establish some ground rules and some boundaries (in a nice, non-confrontational way), and suggest meeting on more neutral ground…like a park, or the zoo. If she is truly committed to having a relationship with your son, she would go along with it (one would think). If she isn’t…she may not go to the trouble to meet you.
Best of luck to you!
sorry, to interrupt conversation. but, i’m new to this site and i want to post a new community question, and can’t figure out how. i keep trying to log-in, etc and get weird error messages that concern me about computer virus. i would very much like to be active in this community — i’m an adoptive parent.
thanks
@nadine, I need to get the links back up. I will do that later today. Meanwhile if you like, you can email it to me at dawn AT openadoptionsupport DOT com.
I think I was certianly missing something here.
From the original post, there did not seem to be anything mentioned that would prohibit visits due to safety. As you made additional replies it now seems as though there many be many issues, either that or you are finding ways to justify refusing contact. Either way, you know the full situation, and you will know if contact is a good idea, versus your feeling just don’t want to be bothered with it. If it could be the latter I would encourage you to think about what is good & comfortable for your child and not just yourself. A good many adoptions become closed to contact with no real reason other than adoptive parents do not want to face the emotional hard work that contact involves.
I’m going to encourage you to leave the door open. I’m with Deb that an open adoption is a lot of work, and with artistmom to that there are many healthy reasons to keep the door open. Worth considering:
“…she feel like we have been totally honest with her all her life in regard to her adoption, that she feel secure and happy with the adoption, that she sees adoption as a normal, healthy way for families to be created. Part of these goals is communication with her birth families. I say families because both sets of birth grandparents, and siblings of the birthparents, are welcome at the visits.”
That said, even in step- or divorced family situations, sometimes non-custodial parents can be no-good, irresponsible creeps and the child, over years, sees them for who they are, with no need to “close” the relationship. Heck, even in healthy marriages, you can have in-laws who are pushy and meddlesome.
I’m an adoptee and think that some openness, e.g., park visits, even with creeps and meddlesome jerks, is better than nothing.
Your child’s safety has to come first. If your gut tells you this person is not safe even for minimal contact, don’t do it.
If you feel the situation is safe, just not ideal, I would still consider allowing the children to meet, but I agree 100% with the suggestion to do it on neutral territory, like a park or zoo or lunch, and not in their home. I would put a time limit on the visit upfront so that there is nothing uncomfortable when it’s time to leave.
Good luck! You are a good mother for considering it with a biological family with issues like that. I’m in a similar boat–it’s extremely difficult. Just remember, you are his mom and must make the decisions for him. His biological relatives aren’t entitled to contact with him–if you allow it, you are doing it for his benefit and no one else’s.
As an adoptive mother, in an open relationship with my son’s birthfamily, I am supremely grateful for every single little scrap of contact that I am offered. A short phone call, email message, name and address – anything that I can offer to my son about his birthfamily is SACRED to me. From my perspective, you are being offered a precious gift and are sounding like you want to throw it out with the day’s trash. I believe that our children learn how we really feel about them from how we treat their birthfamily’s – what message are you sending?
ITs not that simple….biomother is still involved with unsafe things…gang members,,tons of drinking,,,gang affiliations on her myspace with
my sons picture next to know affiliates. I WISH i could safely allow contact…for instance..she was over last weekend…sheSECRETLY called the biodad who has NOOO contact for various reasons,,ie incarserated numerous times, drive byes,,intimidating witnesses in a caseagainst him etc. Didnt ask just did it behind my back and my oldest daughter heard he and she said dont tellyour mom. SACRED?? thats alittle much. Im adopted myself and sure contact is nice but i can do with out it.
I, personally, don’t believe that criminal behavior or violence should necessarily exclude contact with a child. Many many many incarcerated people safely have contact with their children and are no possible harm to them at all. Many many many “hardened” criminals adore their children, in fact. These are still your child’s “people” and an important source of his self-identity.
To the OP, Take adoption out of the picture and ask yourself ” if these people were relatives of mine would I allow them to have contact with my child?” If the answer is no, then you have your answer.
Best of luck!
oh my goodness angela..how easy is that!!!!! your right! THANK YOU!