For adoptive parents and kids, the focus just always seems to be on the birth mother. That is the way it has been for my daughter and myself. My daughter has never once ever expressed interest or had questions about her birth father. She has had over the years asked to meet her birth mother or had questions about her biological mother but again never about her birth father. In fact neither have I.
Since I can remember, I have always been upfront with my daughter that she is adopted. When she was younger, I regularly read her Jamie Lee Curtis’ “Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born” adding on her unique adoption story to the book’s story line.
In elementary school, kids would often ask her “where’s your dad?”, she would respond “I am adopted.” Occasionally, some kid at the playground would run up to me and ask “Is she adopted?” “Yes,” I would say and the kid would run off happily as though they knew what adopted meant. Whatever?
Even in middle school when kids ask about “her father”, she responds in the same manner, “I am adopted.”
So another Father’s Day has come and gone and still no questions. I have no idea what that means, good or bad. I don’t even know if she has thought about her birth parents lately or even wants to ask me questions. As my daughter heads into her teen years, I think she may have questions or will bring it up but who knows she’s a teen.
Like my freak out when she asked to meet her birth mother years ago when she was in elementary school, I will freak out out when that day comes when asks to meet her birth parents, figure out how to make it happen and deal with it. I only hope it’s when she is college.
So what accounts for the “freak out.” I think that I have those insecure feelings all adoptive parents have. When she does meet her biological parents, ” Will she still love me?”, “Will she still think of me as her mom?”, “Will she want to spend more time with them than me?”
These are irrational thoughts, because I know she loves me but still…
