When a man answered--it was the adoptee's father!

Lorraine

A few weeks ago I wrote that adoptees who find their parents--which is most often a mother--contact them directly via telephone if they can, rather than write a letter. Letters can be put aside, answered in the great foggy future, forgotten if one has "neglected" to tell one's spouse or other children about the one given up for adoption.

As I was writing I realized that since adoptees have every right in the whole blooming world to take matters into their own hands when they find their birth/first natural parents on their own. I urged them to call rather than write. It occurred to me that since adoptees talk about free choice being taken away from them (it is), this was a case where they could grab it by the horns, so to speak. I wrote: You don't know what will happen when you make that phone call, but it does put control into your hands rather than someone else's, and control over your life and identity to a large part has been taken away from you.

A week later an adoptee wrote this to me:

I recently popped back on FMF and it changed my life.

Approaching a natural mother without scaring her away

Lorraine

Dear First Mother Forum:
I found my natural mother and we are writing to one another--but I am so afraid of offending her, and she seems quite wounded when I bring up my father. My life as an adopted child was not good, and while I don't blame her for that, I'm afraid of telling her about it. Is there a blog post that might be helpful?--Walking On Eggshells

This is a common story, and we hear it from both sides--both natural mothers and found children going into reunion are terribly afraid of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing--and neither ones of us knows what the trigger points for the other person will be.

We've talked about what natural mothers need to avoid upon reunion before, but never written about what might upset mothers. So here goes.

Is there a universal right to know one's heritage? Part 2

Lorraine

Whether or not there is a universal "need" to know one's specific origins, or an inborn natural curiosity that we all carry within our breast, has been the subject of an ongoing debate at the previous blog,* The universal need to know who you are. 

Little children--before they know they are not supposed to ask--all ask the question about the beginning of their lives. How did I get here? Where did I