needaholiday, honestly it all depends on the individuals. I said earlier on I was adopted and I have known other adopted children and had friends who adopted two. Every case is different.
Adoptive parents have to be very sensitive to their children's feelings and needs; they must be scrupulously honest. Not all are, min weren't, what's more it was a taboo subject. I was told when I was four, just before starting school. Even at that age I felt 'different', however I was told my mother died and my parents adopted me, they took me straight from the hospital at nine days and were very pleased because they had been unable to have children.
Th subject could not be raised without gross awkwardness and minimal information was given. We were not good communicators and mum was often telling me that she knew why I acted in a certain way which was way off the mark - but there was no telling her, she couldn't be wrong. If I behaved badly I was not only severely told off but learned that I 'must have got that from blood family" (can't remember exact words), as my mum and dad and their families were not 'like that'. Also I was accused of being ungrateful, didn't realise how lucky I was. Constant nagging. Different when out and saw someone she knew....voice, words, mannerisms, like a different person. Dad never said anything.
I wondered about my mother, what she was like. I had a picture of her in my mind but thought that was too perfect, I needed to do that because other thoughts would be of some poor young woman, on the streets, homeless maybe even criminal. I was certainly given the impression that my parents were a bit 'better' than her and her family.
I was in pain and nobody saw it.
Roll on years and I was adult, married, a mother: I searched and after a while, found birth mother. I wrote to her, she replied then I travelled (to North Wales from London), at her invitation to meet her. She put me up in her spare bedroom for one night.
She was a widow in her fifties, been widowed eight years. Well educated, poised, kindly, a little shy. She told me everything and it was nothing like what I had been told and I left knowing I had nothing to be ashamed of. We kept in touch sporadically over the next nearly twenty years. She told me about an illness, phoned me actually, and I kept well in touch with her after that.
Nobody outside her immediate family knew anything at all about me, even her husband was never told. They were very happy, had no children.
She died two years ago - left me in her will! Along with her several nieces and nephews, we got equal shares. I was listed in the will as 'friend' :-).
I really do not want to say any more about me because this thread isn't about me; I wanted to illustrate how different each little family is and there are many other stories some of which are shared already.
Op, you sound like a lovely mum. All will be well.
