My son was adopted years ago, now his returned back to me.

[cazanna]

Heres something worth thinking about...

Back in the 80s i had a young child, i loved him to bits, but, me and his father were always having fights,and i eventually, ended up with severe depression..to the stage, where i couldn't cope, i was very young and stupid then...

Years later, my son is now 20, has returned back to me, but he has told me that he started taking drugs at 10. My son was supposed to of been protected. I have a 17 year old who i have raised myself, and he doesn't smoke,drink, or take drugs..If people are going to Adopt, they need to think carefully, and think can they really cope, with raising someone else's child.
Also, its lovely when they are small, but be prepared for teenage hood.

I just want to point out (particularly to nursejo) that attachment issues can develop in utero and most definitely by 13 months. Cazanna - I'm sorry you're hurting, but I think this needs to be said. You say your son told you he did drugs at ten years old, but if indeed he has attachment issues, then he very well might be a compulsive liar and may very well not have done drugs at ten but and has just lied about it to triangulate you and his adoptive parents. How do you know for sure? How well do you know your son now?

I can see what you are saying BytheSea,but at 13 months with a stable and loving upbringing,the child doesnt have to have problems with "previous" attachments.Whats in question here I guess is how stable and loving his upbringing was......

Maybe I'm reading the OP wrong, but it doesn't seem that her son had a very stable time in his first 13 months if there were a lot of fights and then severe maternal depression.

good point bythesea and nursejo. Children brought up by severely depressed parents are affected. That, followed by being given up for adoption, is bound to have had a profound effect on the child; and unfortunately social services and legal processes grind slowly, particularly in those days, and there is nothing to say that the child was matched with adopters AT 13 months; there may have been foster carers or even a children's home, we don't know.

but ALL those things will as I said have had a profound effect on the child.

I think the only HELPFUL thing to focus on here caz is how the relationship develops now between you, and I hope it brings good times to you both.

I agree, I think you have to let go of the past and concentrate on the future.

I'm adopted. I had issues growing up and it wasnt the ideal childhood by any stretch of the imagination. I took drugs, who knows why,I met my biological mother also aged 20.

I 'belong' to my adoptive parents. My bioloical mother is not my mother and never will I think of her like that. She's a lovely woman but when she sends me inspid birthday cards saying "I love you" I cringe. I don't know her, I don't feel anything for her.

Thats the way it is. You gave your kid up. That's life. Don't be hypocritical and blame the adoptive parents.

Sorry about that little rant but the "raising someone elses child" thing makes me mad. When you're adopted at birth like I was you think of your adoptive parents as your parents, no ifs no buts. It doesnt matter one iota to that child whether their adoptive parents have great parenting skills or not

It's very upsetting and unsettling for an adoptive child to have other people constantly make cracks about you being "someone elses child" or "not really" the child of the adoptive parents. I distictly remember when my apotive mum was trying for a child and some horrible bat pointing out that it will "be different" when she has her own child. WTF!!!! It's other peoples attitudes that fuck up adoptive children most of the time.

Thank you for that, Tess. I find it really tricky as an adoptive mum to a child who came to us at 2.5 years. We are very much expected and encouraged to maintain links with her birth parents, but also to raise her in exactly the same way as we do our own birth children. Emotional gymnastics!

I expect that must be difficult for you Janni and also not very healthy for the child to keep links with the biological parents.

Do you really think so, Tess? Have the social workers all got it completely wrong?

I don't know Janni but in my personal opinion it would have been confusing for me. A child needs to know where he/she belongs, and two sets of parents would give conflicting messages. Perhaps if your child was a little older-say about 7 then I may think differently. 2.5 is young enough for he/she to have no memories of the biological parents.

"It's other peoples attitudes that fuck up adoptive children most of the time." My little foible that no-one apart from me seems to take is with is the people who say "Is he adopted" and I reply "Yes he was" They don't understand the distinction.

I hate it when children who were adopted are referred to so often as "she/he is adopted" when it might have happened 20 years ago. Why are you defined forever as being adopted in the present tense. No-one asks "are you born?". It was an event in the past.

I'm not trying to minimise the issue for the child who was adopted, but to the rest of the world it shouldn't an issue except where relevant as a matter of fact.

Sorry to digress...

Actually thats a lie - when people say "Is he adopted" I say "why do you ask?"

I TOTALLY dnt think it is 100% to do with the way you were bought up..... BOTH of my parents are alcoholics....My brother is going the same way too, where as my sister is tee-total and i drink when i fancy it!( Mind you im 9 mnths pregnant@the mo and gagging for a rose!! )
we can only do the best we possibly can when bringing up our children-Yes it has some effect on what kind of people they become but hey.. there are other factors like the area we live in, school, Friends etc

And Janni take no notice of other peoples 'comments' you sound like you have a great loving home and they cant take that away...

Kewcumber: I love that about 'he was adopted', will use that myself (I was adopted too).
And I must admit I'm a bit at the suggestions on here that people who were adopted are likely to be manipulative, mental, needy etc: we are just people of various kinds, like any other category.

MadameZ, in no way was I implying that anyone who was adopted is likely to be manipulative, mental, needy, etc. Unfortunately, though, some people who experienced trauma during infancy, who may or may not have been adopted or fostered or stayed with their biological parents, may develop attachment issues. And often it's the parents raising the child who get blamed by everyone for the myriad of problems that child may have and that's not fair either. That's all. Apologies if it came out in a way that painted all people who were adopted with the same brush -- that's definitely not how it was intended.

Kewcumber said >" My little foible that no-one apart from me seems to take is with is the people who say "Is he adopted" and I reply "Yes he was"

That's so lovely. I always knew I was adopted as it wasnt hidden from me and it was never an issue-until other people started chipping in with those sort of questions when I was within earshot. It's a horrible feeling when as a child you are always aware that people see you as the 'adopted child'. Why do people do this??? It's horrid and made me feel sick when I was a kid.

My adoptive mother and father were my mother and father that's all I knew or cared about. I hated that people kept on highlighting the adopted part.

I'm feeling abit guilty now as I am guilty of often explaining to people that DD is our adopted daughter, and now I wonder if should really be more careful with my words.

I guess it's just that we have had two birth children since her arrival so people often assume, for example, that birth dc2 is birth dc3 and there's often a need to explain our slightly mixed family (or at least I guess it's more the case that I feel there's a need - maybe there's not...?) A HV asked me in front of DD whether I had breastfed all of my children - and of course I didn't BF her. I felt for DD at that point, because she and I would dearly have loved to have shared her babyhood, but hey ho...

I hadn't really thought of how it might be making her feel even more 'outside the fold' - think she does already to a greater or lesser extent and I've been guilty of sometimes feeling a bit differently too...

Will be more careful with my words in future I think...

Misspollysdolly:- I think it's something to think about. Does anyone really need to know that she is adopted? I think it's important to allow her to tell people on her own terms-if she wants to.

sorry madamez - I was thinkging specifically of attachemnt diorder which can make people notoriously manipulative. I was trying to avoid the suggestion that any child might have been damaged during or before an adoption and obviously made it sound like I was suggesting that its usual.

misspolly - i also have adopted, bio and step kids and i never tell anyone about their background unless they specifically need to know eg doctors enquiring about THEIR family medical history

so if someone asked me if one of the adopted children was Bf i woudl say no. full stop. if they asked why, given the others were BF i woudl say " oh its a long story" or " For a lot of reasons" and only explain if they needed to know.

i cant remember the last time i needed to tell anyone which ones were adopted TBH. Which is just as well as usually I'm not sure....

great posts kew, you are so sorted in your thinking.

most birth mothers do not have a choice about giving their children up. when we were first looking into adoption the ss quoted less than 20 women a year relinquish their children, those who do then have second thoughts and keep their children.

I don't tell anyone DS is adopted anymore (unless as Kristina says its relevant) but I have to share the one occasion recently when I did share because the temptation was too great...

Random woman with delicious baby chatting to me and another MN (& RL) friend about our various children and how old they were. COnverstaion got onto prematurity and woman says my DS was 4 weeks prem, my friend says my DD was 5 weeks prem, KC says "I win DS was 26 weeks, 14 weeks prem".

Woman looks very shocked and says "Why what happened?"
KC "I dunno, I wasn't there"
MN friend "Typical west london mother, she outsources everything"

Cue woman gaping like a fish obviously trying to work out whether I paid a surogate and was far too busy to attend birth

I did take pity in the end and share.

Some times it doesn't matter how well a parent brings a child up or how well they(may think) that they have prepared that child for the big wide world - a parents influence may mean zilch

once they start to love their own lives