Hello Blogville friends! Welcome back, it is so nice to see you. This morning I am drinking a green tea with lemon. I added a bit of honey in order to sweeten my tea as I write to birth parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even cousins on behalf of adopted people who are about to turn 18. If you know anyone who fits into any of those categories, please share this blog with them.


In Ontario, and several other Canadian provinces, at 18 years of age an adopted person has some rights to ‘sealed’ file information, and opportunities to seek out birth relatives. I’m not sure what the rules are where you live but if you fit any role in the ones I mentioned earlier, you might want to check out what happens when children who were placed for adoption become legal adults; and if you can connect with them.


For birth parents, especially birth mothers as they definitely know about their birth children’s existence, this is your chance to update your birth child about who you are today. If they are seeking information this is your chance to tell them about who you are now. They are now old enough to be provided file information from when you relinquished your legal right to parent them. I always hope that their adoptive parents have been providing these details as the child was growing up so they ‘know’ you a little. However, we must remember that the adoptive parents may not have been given adequate information, and sadly, may even have been given some incorrect information that they have innocently shared with your birth child. 


Even if your birth child has been given some details about you as they were growing up, typically people have changed in 18 years or so. I am pretty sure you are living a different life today than you were back then. I am not sure if you are aware, but you can write an updated letter and submit it to the agency, lawyer, or private practitioner, that handled the adoption. This is where your birth child with start their search if and when they decide to do so. If they do approach the agency, or agent who handled the adoption, they will be provided the original details as well as any updated information you have provided. I only wish that I could only fully express what a gift a letter of update would be for your now adult birth child. 


From the original file, your birth child would likely have been provided some minimal information (mostly medical history in my experience) about your extended family members. As a birth parent, you might have provided your worker with some idea of the roles your parents and other extended family members played in why you made an adoption plan for your birth child, which would be shared with them in a file disclosure. In your letter, it will be relevant to let your birth child know how birth relatives have coped with your decision (supportive, ignored it, etc.) over the years, and if in fact, they are still living. You are likely able to provide a more complete medical history on the health of your extended family members as at least 18 years have passed since you first provided information to an adoption worker or adoption agency representative.


If possible, a further ‘gift’ would be to provide updated information about the birth father. We all know that sometimes birth mothers did not give any information on the biological father for many reasons. In some cases the pregnancy occurred in an involuntary scenario and you truly could not provide any details about him. Your adult birth child will appreciate knowing that you actually cannot provide any information as opposed to not wanting to provide it. In other scenarios you may wish to continue to protect the identity of the birth father for your own reasons but you have likely kept up with where and what he is doing today, or can find out. Without revealing his identity there may still be some information you can provide such as physical characteristics, any medial information he may have disclosed during your relationship, as well as type of employment, interests, talents, sense of humour and other traits you may have noticed. This person is responsible for half of who your shared birth child is. If you are simply not wanting him to know about this adult child, you must think about the fact that you are purposely withholding information from someone who did not ask to be conceived and then made to lead a life full of unanswered questions. 


Your birth child will want to know if they have any siblings that you, or their birth father, may have had. Their original social and medical history will have told them of any siblings born prior to them, but then sibling information simply ends with their birth as a result of the file closure. If your birth child has been aware of the existence of any older birth siblings they will have had some time to prepare and adjust to that idea. When your birth child learns of any birth siblings born to you or their birth father after them, this may be a bigger adjustment. For some it might mean to them that they were left behind and then replaced. They will need time to consider this huge piece of information, and may even seek counselling to work through their feelings. For others, they may seek an adult relationship with siblings recognizing that all of them were ‘innocent’ in their separation from each other. Some may also have been raised as only children and relish having siblings, or not. The bottom line is that they are siblings, half or full, who share at least one biological parent and a genetic link with each other. In my experience, birth children simply have not thought about their parents having relationships with other people before they met and created the family they know today. Personally, I have yet to meet a sibling who blames the child placed for adoption for having been born. 


I know that this has been a hard blog to read if you are a birth parent, it has been a hard blog to write as an adopted person. As you know, having read previous blogs, I have met my older half sibling that I was separated from due to adoption practices of the time. I met my birth father and his other children (my paternal half-siblings). My birth mother declined the opportunity to meet with my birth half-sister and I, but following her passing, we met her other children (my maternal half-siblings). My relationships with my birth father before he passed, and with my paternal and maternal birth siblings are nothing short of ‘normal’. We get together when we can, we joke and have fun with each other, we dine out together, just like ‘normal’ siblings might. Some of us are closer with each other than others, just like ‘normal’ siblings. We can provide each other with medical information, historical and ongoing, to keep each other healthy, just like ‘normal siblings’ might. 


As I said at the beginning of this blog, if you cannot bring yourself to put your name out there (where it is a legalized process) then please give your birth child the gift of information. Information that only their birth parent(s) can provide. Write a letter to update your birth child and find out where you can leave it for them. You likely chose an adoption plan to keep your birth child ‘safe’ or ‘better cared for’ because you truly did not feel that you could manage. They are adults now, but they still need you, in the form of medical history; yours, your family’s, and if possible, the birth father and his family’s information. Be there for them today in a way you could not in the past. Who knows, this might even bring you closure, and peace.


Thank you so much for visiting with me today. I honestly hope I have given you something to think about, and perhaps, even to take action. As always, feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. To be notified of new blog posts, so you can stay up to date, please follow me on Goodreads. Simply go to: www.goodreads.com Lynn Deiulis’s Blogs, and start following.


‘See’ you next time. 

Greetings my Blogville friends. A calming chamomile tea steeps beside me as I write today’s blog. My thoughts today are mostly for my fellow adopted persons and their parents because, once again, I’ve been thinking. People who know me would say, ‘uh oh, here she goes again’. I’ve been thinking that there is no real guide offering step by step advice and tips for adoptive parents and their children help them learn to handle the often rude, and frankly personal, questions that people feel entitled to ask members of the adoption constellation.


I’ll start with the classic ‘real’ parents questions. People seem infatuated about the relationships, or lack thereof, between adopted people and their birth parents. From the moment I understood my ‘status’ and would tell people that I was adopted the focus immediately shifted to my birth parents, like my birth parents were the important plot point of my adoption story. I continue to wonder what made people assume that my birth parents were/are my ‘real’ parents? They are my birth parents, or my biological parents, two people who were really no more than egg and sperm donors when it comes down to it. Real parents actually parent their children, not just give birth to them. There are many parents whom society then would not consider to be ‘real’ parents by the ‘giving birth to’ standard (e.g. kinship parents, step-parents, adoptive parents). Instead of ‘giving birth to’ the child, these people actually parent the child. I believe, that they are the actual ‘real’ parents.


Growing up wondering what people meant by ‘real’ parents led to asking myself who else gets these kinds of questions. For example, when people learn that a person was born to their parents by IVF (in vitro fertilization) or by ART (Assistive Reproductive Technology that uses egg or sperm or embryo donation) do they immediately ask them about their ‘real’ parents? I honestly did not know. However, that being said, I feel that a person disclosing that they were born to a surrogate would face the same ‘real’ parent questions as adopted people do. Though I think that those questions would be even more awkward, such as: ‘Was it your real father’s sperm or some other guy’s sperm?’ ; ’How did they get the egg out?’;  “So, are your parents both your real parents, or just one of them?” Wow, this could get complicated. I just had to worry about adoption questions.


Clearly I believe that a ‘real’ parent actually parents the child. You know doing parenting stuff like: losing sleep; changing diapers; toilet training; teaching life skills and lessons; reprimanding; keeping the child safe and healthy; driving to extracurricular activities; meeting with teachers; surviving adolescence (being loved and hated simultaneously); dropping off at post-secondary institutions (crying most of the drive home without their child); walking their child down the aisle or helping them with their first apartment; and finally, launching them into adulthood. So, I am confused when you ask about my REAL parents. My REAL parents took responsibility, adopted me, and raised me. For others, their REAL parents might have been or may be their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, step-parents, or even members of their Band that took responsibility when their birth parents did not. In my case my REAL parents were my adoptive parents who chose to raise me and be my parent(s). For others, their REAL parents may be or may have been a Kinship caregiver, or further, a Kinship caregiver who wanted them to have a sense of permanence so they legally adopted them, really just legalizing their emotional adoption. So, who do you mean when you ask about my REAL parent(s)?


‘Do you want to find your REAL parents someday?’ I so badly wanted to say, I live with my REAL parents, who are you talking about? But my mother raised me better than that. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” she would say, “they just don’t understand”. I so badly wanted her to let me explain it to them.  Don’t worry, I heard the things they would ask my parents too. Things like, ‘Would you still have adopted even if you could have had your own children?’ What does that even mean? When a child overhears those comments it begs the question, “If I’m not my mother’s child, whose child am I? She sure treats me like I’m her own!” Then, just before, or sometimes even as we walked away, my mother would often look at them and politely comment, “She is my own.” In hindsight, I admire her ability to not say what I’m sure she would have liked them to hear. I respect her for that.


Adoptive parents, when people ask you about your child’s REAL parent, I strongly suggest you respond with, “I AM their REAL parent.” If you are so inclined, you might then follow up with questions of your own such as; Oh, did you mean their birth parent? In some circumstances, and only if you and your child are comfortable with the words, perhaps ask them if they are referring to the sperm donor, or the egg donor? Maybe even the embryo donor? Whatever the case may be. Not only should responding to the questions about your child’s “real” parent in that way make you feel pride in yourself as your child’s parent, but it will also reinforce your ‘real’ parent role for your child, maybe even empowering them. Being prepared and ready for these intrusive and often inappropriate questions is good modelling. When they see you reinforcing your role as their REAL parent when people ask you very personal things, your child will not have to worry about you feeling hurt by these questions. Instead, your child will see that you know you are their REAL parent. 


People often would say to me, ‘aren’t you curious’? Yes, I am curious, every single day. I grew up with so many unanswerable “what if” scenarios. Some things I have found the answers to, and others I will likely never really know. Frankly at this late stage in my life I am more curious about medical conditions that I might have inherited than I am about who my birth parents were. But the question remains, why are so many people curious about my curiosity? Do they think they might know how I feel? If they were not adopted then I can assure you, they do not know how I feel. To be honest, I truly do not even know how other children that were adopted feel. I only know how I felt and feel about having been adopted. I believe people think I should be curious about where I get my height, my build, my talent, or whatever. However, they might be shocked to learn that in reality, I am still curious about what I did wrong in utero or at my birth to make my birth parents able to give me away. I am still curious, even at my age, about what I did that enabled them to release the very infant/child that they created together. How they could allow me to be parented by other people and never look back, or more to the point, never look for me. That is what I always was, and still am curious about, not who they were or what they did, but what I did.


Thank you so much for visiting with me. If it was your first read, welcome. If you have been reading regularly, welcome back today. I am always curious if my blogs have meaning to others and look forward to any and all comments my readers might share. If you prefer a more private contact than posting your comments here, please feel free to email me at [email protected]


“See” you next time.
Lynn