My mother gave me away. Logically, I understand why. She was married to someone other than my father. She was white, and he was black. It was the late 60’s in Detroit. I was given a better life than the one I could’ve had with her. I understand that.
My mind weighs it and the answer is an easy one. My heart weighs it and it is not so clear. My heart won’t let go of the first sentence. My mother gave me away.
I wrestled with writing this because I can’t tie a nice bow around it. I can’t end this blog with some great solution because I am still working through it.
Two years ago, I came across a show on talk radio. They were talking about adoption and the host mentioned that a lot of adoptees have issues with rejection. Naturally, being an adoptee I rejected what the host was saying.
Over the next few weeks I thought about this and realized this host may not be the quack I thought he was.
Rejection is my core issue and I have recognized other issues that are off shoots of this root problem. The biggest secondary issue I have is the feeling of not being worthy which stems from my feelings of being rejected.
The realization of this has really helped me explain some of the choices I have made and my reactions to situations. Now I understand why I shy away from working at relationships or why I can sabotage my best plans.
My issues are not uncommon from what other’s face. I do not sit in the corner rocking myself to sleep while I sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows the sorrow.”
Instead, now that I know the cause, I can work at changing the affect. So it means forcing myself to engage with people when I lean towards going off by myself. It means plugging my ears when the voices in my head tell me I don’t deserve something or things won’t work out for me.
My mother gave me away and I have lived an interesting and at times, charmed life. To think I wouldn’t have issues, which I did for most of my life, was a little naïve.
This was a nice, honest post. I have adopted two little boys, one who is half-hispanic. (we think Mexican). He is four. Since he is number seven of seven children who are all caucasion, I don’t know if this will ever be an issue for him and am searching for ideas in case it is.
My heart broke when you said that your mother “gave you away”. If you think of it in these terms, of course that is nothing but hurtful. I watched my boys birth-mother as she relinquished her rights as a mother to them. I have never seen anyone so broken. From this experience I learned that no mother “gives away” her child. I didn’t know your birth mother but I can’t imagine she thought of it this way either. I would guess she thought of it as “giving you more”. In the case of my boys birth-mother I know as hard and torturous it was for her she loved them enough to make the right decision for them and not herself. In my opinion, if she really didn’t care about you she would have had an abortion.
I pray you can let go of these negative feelings because I feel they are not only unnecessary but will do nothing but bring you down.
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You have touched on something I worry about for my son. He is the product of a one night stand. His birthmother is in a long term relationship but she had a little too much fun at a party one night. I reject the notion that she “gave him away.” I believe that she gave him a better life than she thought she could provide him. She chose parents for him that could give him the life that she wanted him to have. I think that your birthmother must have done what she thought was best for you at the time. However, that does not change the fact that you have struggled with feelings of rejection and it has complicated your life. I love my son so much but I worry that all my love will not matter to him. I worry that he will say, “My mother gave me away” and focus on his feelings of rejection and not on all the love and acceptance that my husband and I give him. Do you think that there are things your parents should have said or done for you to help you with feelings of rejection? Do you think this is just something that adoptees have to work out for themselves? If you could go back and give your adoptive mother some advice, what would it be?
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As an adoptive mom, I find it interesting that other adoptive moms struggle with your words. YOUR truth is yours and the reality, as painful as it is for everyone, is that birthmother’s – in one sense – do give away their children when they make an adoption plan for them. I find your post helpful for the very reason that you DO name it this way and share the confusion and pain. I may not be comfortable, as an adoptive mom, with the unspoken implication in “she gave her away” which is then “I took him from her”. Most adoptive moms I have talked to admit feeling at least once some sense of having kidnapped their adopted child. It’s a double edge sword and not looking at one side doesn’t mean the other side isn’t there. Anyway, I hope to use your words and experience to better help my sons grieve and work with greater intention to help them understand their own “cause and effect” issues. Thanks again for your willingness to share and grow in front of us.
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I’m not one of those adoptees who rejects everything based on the first rejection. That is to say, rejection is not a core issue for me. However.
“My mother gave me away. Logically, I understand why. My heart won’t let go of the first sentence. My mother gave me away.”
THIS is a perfect explanation and it resonates so clearly.
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“I love my son so much but I worry that all my love will not matter to him.”
It’s not that your love isn’t important. It’s that it can’t ‘solve’ everything, nor should it.
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“I didn’t know your birth mother but I can’t imagine she thought of it this way either. I would guess she thought of it as “giving you more””
Sure… that’s what the rational adult side says. But the infant doesn’t know that. The infant just knows Mommy placed him down and that Mommy left and is not going to come back.
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Wow. This is honest. I am a white mother who has adopted 3 African American daughters. The oldest, who is 6, has always been sassy and headstrong, is now struggling with self awareness of the differences that exist in our family. She was adopted through CPS which means she was taken and not given away. Of course, my daughter doesn’t know those details now.
I re-tell the story often of how her birth parents weren’t able to raise a baby and needed help, so God brought us together because we were praying for a family and her birth parents were praying for help. My daughter recently asked me why we couldn’t give her birth parents money to help them raise her. I explained it takes more than money to raise a child.
So my 6 year old is suddenly using negative words to describe herself – fat, brat, dumb, etc. The teacher says nothing is going on at school and she was shocked to hear these stories. Is my daughter feeling the rejection you feel? How can I address her feelings of rejection in a way that would have comforted you as child? At the moment, I hold her when she feels sad for reasons she can’t explain. We are sad together. What more can I do?
Thanks,
Amy
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Amy,
I was taken away from my parents at age 3, then bounced around in foster care until I was finally adopted at age 8. What you have been doing is good.
As for comforting your daughter. Acknowledge her feelings. Validate them. Have her draw a picture, write a letter to her birth mother about how she feels. Help her express her feelings in a more positive manner.
The story you tell her about her birth parents is nice. At some point you should tell her the reason as honestly as you can why she was taken away. Always speak about her birth parents in a positive way.
The most painful thing for me growing up was the way everyone talked about my birth family. I loved them with all my heart. They were the only family I knew at that time. I didn’t just lose my family, I lost my entire world. Everything I knew was suddenly gone.
Your daughter is grieving over what she lost, what could have been and missing them a lot. I would take her to a grief counselor. It sounds like she could use one.
email me if you have questions or want to talk… cbland9162000@gmail.com
Carrie
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My birth parents didn’t give me away, the state took me away from them. I was old enough to know that I was being adopted.
I still feel the rejection. Not so much from the birth parents, but from the transferring from one foster family to another. Why didn’t anyone want me? That was my question.
Sadly adopted children come with a host of questions that just can’t be answered. It really doesn’t matter what you say in response to the questions. The answer will never be good enough to wipe away the pain.
All the mothers that responded already with the statement “your birth mother was giving you more” just don’t get it. Yes on a logical level a child can understand that their life financially would have been better. But on the emotional level, that is the ultimate rejection. That your parents didn’t want you.
It may be irrational, but how they feel is how they feel. All you can do is acknowledge those feelings.
Just because the child feels this or even thinks this, it has nothing to do with the adoptive parents. When you say “I love my son so much but I worry that all my love will not matter to him.” you make this about you and not about them and their pain. You are forcing them to put away their pain to make you feel better. In the long run it just takes them that much longer to deal with the pain.
What no one seems to understand is adopted children are grieving. They have lost something, something with the highest importance. They have to be allowed to go through the stages of grief and it may take a long time to work through it.
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