I am a potential adoptive mom to a baby girl due in early September. We just had a visit with the expectant mom that has contacted us and chosen us to be the adoptive parents of her baby. She has two older children, 10 and 3. I have one daughter from my first marriage, 8.
She and the kids were here for a whole week. We had a lot planned and live in an area with a wide variety of community events all the time. We planned some down time and then bigger adventures every other day (she’s 33 weeks pregnant, so we didn’t want to really overdo it).
The main issues came up with differing parenting styles. We strongly believe that no child should be hit, in any way. We don’t speak derisively or yell. She uses a lot of corporal punishment and shaming.
My strategy for getting through the week was to keep the kids (especially the 3 year old who took the brunt of her anger) very, very busy. No hanging out watching tv aimlessly, always had playdoh or coloring or games out.
My daughter was shocked at the yelling and physical punishment, since she’s never seen anything like that before. I know the expectant mom is in a very tough, stressful life situation right now (part of why she is making an adoption plan), but I see this as her normal pattern of parenting, even when relaxed and generally happy.
My question is this, How do I make the visits better once baby is here (if she does choose to place)? I don’t want to come off as judgmental, or act as if my way is “better” than hers (there are cultural and background differences) as I feel that would harm our relationship. We’ve worked hard to reach out to each other, and I don’t want to put barriers up right now.
I told my daughter that different people have different ways of behaving, and even if we don’t approve, we can still be supportive of that person and try to understand them. (I abhor spanking, I worry that it will escalate, and I wonder if what is happening is worse when they are alone.) So, I feel I’m lying to my daughter, because it ISN’T okay to hit kids, but it’s legal.
How do I do this long term? We are committed to having an open adoption with visits and a lot of family contact.
Related posts:
I wouldn’t worry about your situation. OA means keeping the lines of communication open not raising the child for the bparents. You will be the parent of the child and if you don’t believe in spanking that’s your choice as a parent. You don’t need to explain anything. As to worrying about leaving the child with the bmom and she hitting the child( after the adoption and in the future) , then you need to question IF an OA is really best..maybe semi-open. I would have taken it as a “sign” to see how she interacts with her child, it would have given me insight about her being around any of my children.
I wish you the best
I don’t believe in spanking at all either.
If the placement occurs, and you have visits, then you are well within your rights to ask that the birth mother not spank her children in your children’s presence. I can’t imagine that will be an easy conversation to have, of course. You can just say, “We don’t spank and it upsets my daughter to see other children spanked.” If she can’t refrain from spanking her children when you have visits, then maybe the visits need to change. As opposed to being in your or her home, go to a public place, like a park.
Apparently, there’s a slow-growing movement in the US to ban corporal punishment and to make spanking illegal. We’re one of the last countries that still allows it. I’m not sure we’ll see that law in our lifetimes, but maybe our kids will when they have kids or grand kids.
I’d also say, if it comes down to it, and you discover that more is going on when you’re not looking, call Child Protective Services. She doesn’t need to know that you’re the one who called, but even if she does, if her kids really are being beaten, I think that the sibling relationship trumps the birth mother relationship. I’ve had to think about calling CPS because of my son’s birth mother’s situation, and I believe that, later in life, my son would be upset with us for not protecting his siblings the way we essentially protected him. It’s not an easy decision to come to, and I hope you never have to worry about it.
I hope this helps somewhat.
First of all, if you really believe it’s something you need to call CPS about, then call CPS… nothing else matters at that point. Otherwise…
I know this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s a conversation you need to have with the expectant mom now. If you see this (or anything else) being a potential issue that could cause you to not be able to fulfill your side of any openness agreements you may have with her, then she deserves to know that up front. She’s not carrying your child… she’s carrying HER child who she is trying to find the best situation for, so she deserves to have all the information to decide if your household is the best situation. If you withhold it now and it causes a problem later, then she’s going to be left feeling duped… and rightly so.
Obviously, there are times when things come up after a placement occurs that were unforeseeable and change the course of an open adoption… but this is not one of those times. It’s wrong to intentionally hide information to keep the match from being disrupted. I’m sure it would be very hard to do… but, if you don’t, you risk having a child whose birthmom feels like she was tricked… and that’s not conducive to a healthy open adoption!
My opinion is this…lead by example. Also just to be clear, here are the signs that a child is being seriously abused.(as far as I know)
1. there are varying stages of healing on buises and other injuries.
2.there are other signs of neglect(from malnurtion to ill-fitting clothing)
3.the children themselves re-enact violent behavoir.
4.the child may be reclusive and anti-social.
Now this is not a conclusive list, it’s just something a learned from experience and stories I have read.
I know that some of the things I list could exist in a loving home, but not usually.
It is my believe that corporal punishment can be done in such a way that the child can benefit from it. The thing is that if any ANY punishment is done to a child out of anger, that’s not right, in my opinion. It doesn’t really matter if you are taking away a toy or doing a time out. If it’s done out of a feeling of anger, it’s no longer about the child.
I think you do have to be honest with this expectant mom. She does need to see that you don’t agree with her ‘style’ of parenting. It might just be that she really doesn’t know any other way.
It might just be that it’s the only thing she knows. As you have said that you have ‘worked hard’ to develop a relationship with this expectant mom, I think you should totally be as blunt as possible with her. In my opinion, the direct approach is often the best approach.
I know, personally, I picked my son adoptive parents because their lifestyle is the closest to what I know. Now, they don’t seem to be everything they said they are nowadays, and often I feel extremely disappointed about certain things they said they do(in parenting) but actually, they don’t. They are good parents, but I will always wonder why they told me lies in the beginning..
I agree with PP, especially Britney… I don’t think your post really suggests this is something that you feel like you need to call CPS about, but if it is, then do it NOW.
And, if this is something you forsee as an ongoing issue (especially one that could cause you to close what’s supposed to be a very open adoption) then you should discuss it with her now. She deserves to have that information. If you think it’s something you can live with and look at as a situation where you can model alternative parenting strategies, then not so much.
My sister is going through the adoption process right now and the birth parents are asking lots of questions on how they will parent. Its hard to lay everything out on the table and also you wouldn’t want to offend the birth parents so they don’t place their child with you. Not that I’m saying to lie, just deal with it when the time comes and know that the child will be in a much better environment in your home with out the abuse. My sister hasn’t had to worry about the spanking side of things luckily though because they are going through a Christan agency http://www.bethany.org/A55798/bethanyWWW.nsf/0/EA1AF73BF7FC9453852570F50075903F, people seem to behave a bit more relaxed. The birthparents at this agency are good people they are just unable to parent their child for reasons like young age or financial issues. I feel bad for the woman you are talking abouts kids that live with her now though, so sad to treat a child like that. Good luck in however you decide to handle the situation.
Angie, I feel concerned when we’re encouraging families to lie by omission. I don’t think this is a good idea. I totally get that many of us who are waiting to adopt feel worried about “messing up” when we’re matched with a potential birth family but I guess I feel like if the match falls through because of a difference of opinion then it’s not meant to be. It’d be kind of like not telling a potential partner that you actually vote Democrat while he’s a staunch Republican and thinking, “Oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Good relationships thrive on honesty.
Some of our members have used Bethany and some were very happy with the service there but others were very UNhappy so I’d also caution in saying that because an agency is a Christian agency that there are bound to be less issues.