These ARE My REAL Parents

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