Open Adoption Roundtable: Adoption Relationship Secrets

I realize I don’t participate in the Open Adoption Roundtable Discussions to often, but I’ve read a few of the posts today and I wanted to contribute too. So, here we go:

Open Adoption Roundtable #17, from Susiebook:

Are there any things that you don’t want the other members of your triad to know—or that you don’t want to know about them? I’ve heard first mothers talk about not sharing their birth stories with adoptive parents because those are for the adoptees and for themselves only. I’ve also heard of adoptees concealing their reunions from adoptive parents so as not to cause them pain. What don’t you want shared in your adoptive relationships?

Since I come at adoption from two sides, I want to be able to share from two sides. Keep in mind, in terms of “adoption feelings” I tend to have two different trains of thought – it’s not uncommon for my adoptee self to get into a screaming match with my first mother self. I realize that this will confuse and even frustrate some of you – all I can say to that is, imagine how it feels to be me?!

First, I’ll take a stab at this as ‘Brandy The Adoptee’:

I’m fairly protective of my relationship with my birth mother. We’re not super close – we don’t even talk on the phone – in fact, she called me yesterday and I didn’t even have her contact info programed into my phone – how’s that for ‘close’? Anyway – we’re not super close – but we do communicate a lot via email. When we do communicate, I feel like I need to keep the ‘info’ about my relationship with her to myself. I don’t feel like I can share things we talk about or discuss with my adoptive family – because they get all stupid and say stupid things or act stupid or sound stupid. Mostly, they sound stupid – they get that ‘tone’ – you know the one I mean, the one where they act like they approve, they talk like they approve, but you can totally tell by the sound of their voice and their tone that they DO NOT approve.

It pisses me off and I get mad.

I just don’t share with them. She’s one part of my life and they are another – they’ll never be ‘together’ because no matter what they say, they’ll always have that tone of disapproval.

So, I guess my secret as an adoptee is my whole freakin relationship with my birth mother. In fact, I’m sort of planning a trip to Texas and my main motivation is to see members of my birth family and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my adoptive family won’t approve – so I haven’t even told them yet…and you know what? I may not ever tell them. I may just show up and act like it was a big surprise – just so I don’t have to listen to them say things like, “So when are you going to go see those people?”

Second, I’ll now try to answer as ‘Brandy The First Mom”:

This is difficult for me for two reasons – there is a very good chance that what I write here will be read by my daughter and/or her parents. That’s kind of scary for me.

I keep my feelings about ‘the situation’ to myself. I rarely talk about my feelings.

I’m going to let this sit for a minute. I need to decide if I can answer it any deeper than that.

I’m sorry, I don’t think I can. I guess, the basic answer is that I don’t talk about the bad stuff – or stuff that could be confused as bad. I find I’m not often honest about my feelings related to certain topics, like never getting pictures…

Well – look at that – not a single contradiction between the two Brandy’s…

Related posts:

1. Open Adoption Blogger Interview Project
2. No Longer A Mother’s Day
3. Cue The Clapper Board – Train Wreck in 3-2-1