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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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May 23, 2017 - 02:45pm PT
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Exceptional and heartfelt thread, especially John's eloquent statements on the emotional impact on adoptees caused by sealed adoption records.
My wife Gerry's father is Reuben Pannor (now deceased) one of the original advocates for an adoptee's right to knowledge about his or her birth parents.
His book, the Adoption Triangle, is well known in the field and did a lot to persuade legislatures to change laws to allow more access for adoptees to the records of their birth parents.
Out of print now, but can still be obtained.
https://www.amazon.com/Adoption-Triangle-Arthur-D-Sorosky/dp/0941770109
Reuben was a remarkably kind and generous man, one of the best human beings I have had the pleasure to know.
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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May 23, 2017 - 06:47pm PT
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Bump for Jonny boy and the celebration of the upcoming world of being a daddy!
And, welcome to the light from the darkness of the stalker.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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May 23, 2017 - 06:52pm PT
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This conviction causes you to believe that you have to engage in all kinds of manipulations and games to get your needs met and to make things work out. Like rock climbing? Great post. Seems I've met a curiously higher number with father attachment issues over the years in our sport.
Great thread, thanks, had it bookmarked for a few weeks, finally read it start to finish.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - May 23, 2017 - 10:07pm PT
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JohnP I'm way stoked for you. And for Rex. What an adventure you both have in front of you. As a father of four (two adopted two natural) I would give you a few thoughts regarding the "early days" based on my experience.
1. Don't try to rush "connection" or "attachment" or love. Give it time and do not have any expectations. It will come if you and your wife continue to love on him regardless of your own expectations and preconceived notions. Just to be there for him and for each other and enjoy the process.
2. Just know that one of Rex's most innate needs is to feel safe. Find a little ways to exemplify that to him with your actions, not just your words.
3. Keep up the communication with your wife. Express your fears and fun moments and confused moments and the entire process with each other. You will learn a lot from each other and about each other in this process. Continue to take care of each other and Rex will pick up on that.
4. Set boundaries. Early. He will innately push you and his boundaries in an attempt to get you to show him that you don't love him and don't care enough about him to give him boundaries or discipline him. This is very well ingrained in him, as it is all kids....... but telling him "no" and creating boundaries for him shows him that you care enough about him to protect him. I have personally seen many parents practically ruin their adopted children by giving them everything they ever want and create zero environment for discipline because they ( knowingly or unknowingly) feel bad for "The poor orphan" or his or her past..... and it leads to all kinds of problems. Parent him with love and conviction and a willingness to create structure based on those principles.
5. Just know that you are going to mess up plenty and that it is a journey for all of you. This goes for parenting and there's nothing special about adoption. Cut yourself some slack and just know that you are winging it a vast percentage of the time!
6. Don't stress out over hearing the "nightmare stories". Yes, they are out there and can be tragic but they are the minority. Sure, learn from them if you want but dont let them drench you in fear. It's like listening to nightmare "knee surgery" stories the week before you go have a knee surgery. Focus on all the wonderful stories of redemption and joy and fun and wholeness that are out there and let that stoke carry you into this first chapter.
So excited for you. Feel free to reach out to me personally if you have any questions along the way. You can email me or call me.....just use this thread and I'll share my email and phone number. I mean it! I'd be tickled pink to be an ear if you need anything.
Scott
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2017 - 08:53am PT
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I want to foster a girl to compliment our two boys. Bill is growling at the idea. Not a problem, I have a few years to work on him. I honestly deeply believe all kids deserve a chance to be loved.
Anastasia I wish you the best as you hopefully move forward with fostering. Its a wonderful thing to do for a child.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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May 24, 2017 - 11:06am PT
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To Jon - Congratulations on your soon to arrive little boy. As a non-parent, I suppose the only advise I can reasonably give is 1) Take lots of pictures and 2) He's probably too young to belay you for a few more years
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 24, 2017 - 01:15pm PT
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Wow, this thread has really bloomed with so much openness, and it has stirred up stuff for me, more as I keep thinking about it.
My dad was adopted. I don't know my ethnic history or genetic risk factors because he strongly felt that his adoptive parents who loved him were his only parents. I only found out from my mom. One time when I was in my early teens I pressed my dad for more info, and he was pretty defensive about it. I never probed for more info after that.
During that same conversation, he confirmed that he had a daughter with another lady before he met and married my mom. That's something else I would have never learned from my dad, but my mom shared it in spite. Apparently the lady wanted to keep the baby and was OK with my dad not being involved because there was another guy by then and they wanted to just have a clean start? So I have a biological half-sister somewhere in the world, and I have never seriously thought about reaching out to her. Definitely unsettling. My inclination is to let sleeping dogs lie.
My dad adopted a child 5 years younger than me... my mom and dad divorced when I was 4, he remarried a lady who already had a baby, and he adopted the child. My perspective was poisoned early on by my mom's anger and her belief that it was a maneuver to reduce child support. My step/adoptive-brother and I interacted during the few times per year that I visited my dad, and it was a weird relationship- like normal siblings when we were together, then absolutely zero contact the other 98% of the time. After nearly 40 years of this isolation, we happen to own houses only a few miles away from each other (after growing up 300 miles apart). It is such an awkward feeling... we still live parallel detached lives, and I think of it often, sometimes make overtures to connect more, and we sporadically do stuff, and it seems like we both want to but we both hold back... such a weird unhealed wound with some other complications buried in there. I think we'll work through this one over time.
My other brother that I shared a house with growing up, is technically my half brother. When I was in 5th grade and my brother in 2nd, mom sat us down and explained how my brother was from a different dad (who was at that time making a re-entrance into our lives that didn't pan out). My brother was conceived in an extramarital affair, and we were burdened at a young age with that knowledge, AND had to keep it a secret during the rest of our childhood by not telling my biological father. That was pretty F'd up. I remember feeling acutely left out when my brother's biological father was briefly back in our lives and he and my mom were arranging for him to live with us (before the guy just got scared and bailed). Those brief weeks or months of rejection that I felt must have been the baseline for my brother's life, and I could see what a deep psychic scar it made on him.
And I imagine it was terribly isolating and lonely for him every time we visited my dad. He had this hollow sense of disconnection and was unable to talk about it. It was compounded because I was more analytical and bonded with my dad over engineering/geeky type stuff, and my brother is more of an artist and just felt like he had nothing in common.... We both felt the burden of the secret that itself was a wall that blocked us from feeling unconditional love- always that nagging "if he only knew" feeling and the dishonesty that blocked us from feeling that we were fully giving and receiving the love that was there. We each had that and a load of other baggage to overcome, and found very different paths to getting our sh!t together.
Since junior high school, my brother wrote letters to his biological father that went unanswered, tried to call him, and the guy totally avoided him, until he died. My brother was really torn up about it. At some point later, my brother got in touch with that guy's family (or they got in touch with him?) and they had a reconciliation together and were close for a few years. I think it was healing for that family (to know about this mysterious child he had before that family), and it was healing for my brother.
My brother has taken those experiences and fused them into a passion for raising his family in a very different way (still happily married with his first wife). He forged a career where he can use those experiences and pain to bond with and mentor very troubled kids in the youth correctional facilities where he has worked. That and some other stuff we went through gives him good street cred for getting through to the kids, being able to relate to them on a level that they don't just dismiss what he has to share.
I've dealt with these things at different stages of my life, achieved varying degrees of closure, but it somehow didn't occur to me when this thread first came up. I just thought of it through the lens of me being a parent... I don't know if that means I am in suppression/denial of the stuff, or that it just doesn't hold the emotional power in my life these days. It feels more like the latter.
Micro said:
Set boundaries. Early. He will innately push you and his boundaries in an attempt to get you to show him that you don't love him and don't care enough about him to give him boundaries or discipline him.
I think this dynamic plays out in a range of separation scenarios, including adoption, divorce, step-parenting, etc.
It resonates intensely with me because of my own challenges with my kids (more so with my son) in the wake of my divorce. Ironically, divorce was the pathway for me to be able to share more of my life with them... but it was heart-breaking how much they were stuck in the middle of an ugly parental separation conflict... my son tried to reject my love, pushed me away for years, very directly trying to prove that I didn't really love him, trying to make sense of his experiences. It was only through years of repetition and continuing to show up, of refusing to be the "Disneyland dad" in spite of what it cost day to day in the peacefulness of our interactions, focusing on giving love rather than expecting to receive it, that things turned around. It seems now that what we went through was a premature emotional puberty, the same sort of typical parent/child individuation and struggles that normally happen in high school. At least that is my hope because we are on such a different plane now and I hope it stays in the good space for the last few years of high school. I think I'm hitting some of that pushback at a more developmentally normal age with my daughter now.
I've been very happy for 9 years with my wife (married for last 4 years), and we might have our own biological children or we might adopt if that doesn't pan out. I look forward, from this base of deeper experience and patience and a more stable marital foundation, to raising another round of kids. If we bake our own, it will be a chance to raise kids who don't have trust/separation issues to overcome, and if we adopt, then hopefully we will be a solid foundation on which they can rebuild their lives and shift the wiring in their brains- to believe that we are defined not by what happens to us, but what we choose to do with it.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2017 - 02:32pm PT
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NutAgain...wow man. Thanks for the read. You're a great dude and have thoughtfully learned much from your journey. You have a lot to share with any kid. Amazing how we all forge our own path due to (or often in spite of) our early childhood circumstances/parents. May you continue to find peace and reconciliation and identity in the days to come, whether in adoption or "the old fashioned way."
Thanks for sharing.
Scott
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jon p
Trad climber
flagstaff, az
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May 25, 2017 - 06:47am PT
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Thanks, Micro, for your truly thoughtful response. I just might be hitting you up for more practical info, but for now, both my wife and I were moved by your openness and offers. Laura, my wife, printed out your email and I think we'll be leaning on it more than you know. Hope I get a chance to repay you for that one day, in some way (belays, perhaps?, refreshing beverage?, a combo of the two?)...
Appreciate the shout out, HappieGirl. Cheers to you. I've had many a happy moment on top of what looks like the very Sedona skyline that seems to adorn your photo. Have a great summer.
And Micro, wow. I teach overseas and your tale has made me rethink what it means to be connected, and disconnected, from those who mean much to us. Inspiring stuff, and even more inspiring that you've been able to holster and package much of that early angst into helping others.
Just got word that the little lady and I are off to China in two weeks to finalize and pick up the munchkin. Will report back with the highlights and freakouts.
Pura Vida, all!
Jon P
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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May 26, 2017 - 05:46pm PT
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I have no personal experience to add to any of this. But, this is a fascinating, thought provoking, and often heart warming thread.
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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May 26, 2017 - 09:17pm PT
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Taco Gold!
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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May 27, 2017 - 08:32pm PT
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Great posts everyone.
Adopting and parenting is one of the most amazing, generous things you can do. Huge respect ✊
There are a few adopted people that are special to me and their stories are mirrored in a lot of the posts here.
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