AIBU to have expected information from birth mother?

[FeetZelet]

Lurker & grateful beneficiary of advice, first time poster...

Looking for thoughts or experiences to help me understand the response I have received from my birth mother. Background - adopted at 8 weeks in 1970's, legally no access to identifying information from my adoption file but publicly available birth records & internet have led me to my birth mother & her family, they have some public profile. As was the norm, my father's name is not recorded on BC. It is on file but not available under data protection.

I am seeking genetic & medical information and wrote to a business address to seek to engage with BM 7 hopefully to progress to corresponding & exchange of info. My first very brief letter received no response for months so I wrote a second in which I asked for the name of my birth father and nothing else information wise. Gave some background info about my own life in the hope that this was a more human approach and that the details might have been of interest or of comfort but did not outright state she was my BM in case someone else read the letters.

Have now received a short reply, no name, no address included, some weeks later, stating that there was no information to be given and questioning my incorrect approach & the information I had illegally! I am shocked that a mother (she has multiple other children) could be so harsh and accusatory about something she knows to be true. I am also ashamed of having made contact after many decades to be rejected and made feel that I caused the problem. There is no possibility of mistaken i.d., also, some family members are physically very similar to me.

AIBU to expect that she should have replied to my first letter to state 'do not contact' me rather than risking a further approach? Also many months later, to basically tear me a new one for persisting? Feeling lost in this and would welcome other opinions.

@LovePoppy

Good for you that you’ve never had an urgent medical problem then. I’ve been in hospital with my newborn fearing he would die and the doctors floundering due to lack of genetic info. I’ve also watched my disabled child undergo a painful and distressing Lumbar Puncture for the same reasons.

Adopted children are not lesser mortals and they should have access to all the same medical info as non adoptees.

I’m sorry you went through that Katrina.

But, you don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know what my kids have. I’d love a medical history, but I won’t be getting it. I’ve had to work with those limitations.

@Katrinawaves nowhere did I say adoptees were less than

We just all have different stories and experiences

I understand why some people look for biological ties. Not all of us have that burning need. If biological ties found me out without my consent, I’d be pissed off too. My parents were also promised anonymity on my behalf.

It’s all a matter of personal choice at the end of the day.

I equally agree that no-one should feel that they want to trace their biological family and that not wanting to do so is somehow wrong. It’s a personal decision.

WRT medical info though a word of caution. Sometimes that medical information might not be available even if you haven’t been adopted because those who might have the information don’t have it, iyswim. So it’s possible that posters wanting to trace a biological parent for medical/genetic purposes might still not get the answers they need.

Case in point. I have a genetic heart condition. They have isolated the gene, they know that it’s hereditary, but they’ don’t know who I inherited it from because none of my family before me had the condition as far as they know.

Or maybe they did and it just never came out, i didn’t find out until I was in my 40’s.

My family could be tested but truth is they don’t want to know. None of them are ill, finding out won’t change anything for me, and I won’t be having any more children so it doesn’t need to be explored for those reasons.

But unless someone actually presents with an illness/condition they might not actually be able to help when it comes to genetic/medical information.

@FeetZelet, I was going to suggest you contact Adoption Rights Alliance, too. Someone I know found them helpful.

And yy, absolutely to your list of things specific to your experience as an adoptee in 1970s Ireland. I'm not adopted, but I am of your generation, and am (via adopted friends, and with an older generation via my mother's involvement with social outings for elderly women who were still living in one of the last laundries to close when I was a teenager at home) unfortunately aware of issues like the 'othering' of adopted children especially by older generations of a family, who still see them as the products of illicit sexual relations, and 'not one of us', and as you said, the pressure of the feeling of having been a tiny cog in the wheels of the mother and baby homes/laundries. One friend had found this aspect particularly hard.

My own mother, in her late 70s, who is a gentle, kind and well-meaning person, has absolutely no understanding of 'modern' adoption, and at some level unconsciously still sees it as a somewhat shameful covering-up of something sexual and secretive but then her chief experience of knowing adopted children in her childhood (rural Munster of the 40s and 50s) is that they were primarily taken on out of institutions by farming families who needed an extra pair of hands, never treated like the rest of the family, sent to school only when work allowed, and would never inherit the farm they were semi-servants.

And never know the horror of her conception. Yes.

Chances are she will find out anyway. Maybe not all the details, but in the days of ancestry.com and DNA testing, an overlap in DNA due to incest would be discovered. If I had absolutely no idea who my parents were or my genetic and medical history, I would be having my DNA tested. I could possibly argue she would have more right to such information if there was a chance of genetic disease or disability to to incest.

But hey, yeah I’m lacking in kindness and empathy!

My dad had a daughter 14 years older than me which I didn’t know about until recently. The mum of my older half sister wasn’t interested at all. Tbh, my dad isn’t really so it’s fortunate that she has a loving adoptive family. The harsh reality is that if you’re adopted it’s not always because your parents ‘can’t’ keep you, it’s because they don’t want you. I feel awful writing that but it’s the truth because my dad told me. That’s the day I lost all respect for him. Sorry you’re going through this.

If the child in question goes on to ancestry or similar and finds her and subsequent children that way there is literally nothing she will be able to do about it.

But my friend and her children will never be on ancestry. She left her home country and came here and changed her name. She's about as untraceable as you can get.

People are writing as though everyone is in ancestry these days, millions of people aren't. I am and their DNA is not that good. It's getting better but when I first had it done years ago their estimates were totally wrong.

Ancestry DNA won't help establish parenthood, it isn't detailed enough for that. It can establish kinship but you need a proper DNA test for anything better than that.

Re the medical information that you say you want - that isn't always helpful since many diseases have no genetic connection . If your doctors want to know if / why you have a particular condition, family history often doesn't help at all. Medical testing is much more helpful than a statement that "my mother's family has that condition".

Yes of course, but I would personally want to know if there was a history of breast or ovarian cancer in the family etc.

I just don’t think it’s as simple as “fuck you kid, you’re on your own”. I do think it is quite cruel, regardless of circumstances of conception.

No one is doubting that many conditions don’t have genetic origins. Or that those brought up in their genetic families always have full access to their medical records. What’s being said is that an adoptee having the same information can be life saving or spare the adoptee or their children from painful and unnecessary medical tests and for that reason it is not unreasonable for the adoptee to contact the birth mother and request it.

As for those who would be pissed off to be traced - well fair enough but taking that out on the adoptee is unreasonable too. For all the adoptee knew you could have been like my BF (or Philomena in the film) and been hoping to be reunited for many years but felt this was the adoptees choice to initiate and not theirs. What’s actually wrong with responding to the first letter with a bland letter saying “I know this may be painful for you but I have no wish for contact with you” rather than ignoring letters or shouting about taking legal action against your own child? That’s just vile and unnecessary.

I completely agree with you Katrina. It’s possible to say you can’t haVe contact in a kind way.

I think, personally, this is why I think the best thing to do is go through an intermediary. There are services out there who offer that, and that means those two very conflicting and raw emotions don't bump into each other.

I don't think that an AC is wrong to want contact but I also don't think it's fair to expect a BM to swallow all her emotions too. I suspect that a lot of the brutal letters people are talking about come from a place of fear and pain.

I just wondered ...

OP, you said you didn't say clearly in your letter(s?) that this woman is your birth mother. You also say that she has a public profile.

Is it possible that she has taken the letters as vague threats, e.g. blackmail, from someone unrelated?

Someone in the public eye receiving a letter to a business address, which makes vague comments about her past, might think so. Initially ignoring, and then making reference to illegally obtaining information, might then be a reasonable response.

Apologies if this is very off the mark ...

I think its important to remember what societal attitudes were like in the 40s/50s/60s/70s.

I had a conversation with my mother about this and she said that we(modern women) have NO idea of how deep the shame was, how women were seen as 'spoiled goods', how little support there was for a woman to keep her baby as an unmarried mother. Apart from anything it was financially impossible.

Abortion only became legal in 1967.
Lots of women probably didn't tell future spouses about the child they gave away because of the shame. Would the men still want to be married to them if they knew?

We cant possibly judge these women through the lenses of our modern view iyswim. The world and society and morality are all completely different.

What’s actually wrong with responding to the first letter with a bland letter saying “I know this may be painful for you but I have no wish for contact with you” rather than ignoring letters or shouting about taking legal action against your own child?
That’s just it though. For a lot of these women are biological child who was adopted is no longer actually their child.

Shoot, hit post too soon

Women who gave up children were told the baby wasn’t theirs.

They might have taken that to heart in order to move on.

To them, it’s as though a stranger off the street is writing to them claiming to be entitled to their private information.

And for the adoptee their birth information is their own and they should not be restricted in how they use it. If the BM decides that she is justified in threatening legal action because the adoptee has the temerity to approach her and ask discretely for info about her parentage and medical info, she can’t then cry foul and feel abused if the adoptee chooses to go public in the local press or on social media seeking that info. And indeed has probably provoked that response by her own lack of empathy and selfishness.

I agree with @Katrinawaves if the birth mother has the “right” to threaten legal action, be nasty and dismissive, then the adoptee has just as much right to handle the information they have how they see fit. And if that means putting an advert in the local paper then that is their prerogative.

So little empathy from some posters. You should be ashamed.

@FallenLeaves no of course not everyone is on ancestry or has sent their DNA to them. I haven’t because personally I find the idea of sending my DNA to some unknown entity and not knowing where that might end up in the future a bit creepy. But people do, and while your friend and her children aren’t on there, it only takes one person from a whole generation to be on there. One person who has traced their family tree, and then linked their DNA to that family tree.

Interestingly we have discovered from our family tree, and without sending DNA or similar, that two members of the extended family are in fact married to each other but they don’t know that they’re related. Iyswim.

Maybe your friend will be able to keep her information private. But equally she may not be able to, and that is something she will have to face if it comes up.

Really @driftingleaves? I thought I had great empathy for my BM. I agonised before making any contact with her - I didn’t know whether she’d always wanted to be reunited or would hate the idea of being contacted. I’d seen my adoption file and knew I wasn’t the result of rape of incest - she’d been in a relationship with my BF for a year before I was conceived.

I used an intermediary and the approaches were very sensitively made. Her reaction was utterly vile. She was also quite prepared to withhold the name of my BF even though they had subsequently married and been married for a long time and she knew he would have wanted contact. So I was to be collateral damage in her desire to be vindictive to an ex husband. And there were significant medical issues live at the moment relating to my child.

I didn’t go to the press or social media but I’d have been as entitled to do so as a non adoptee seeking a lost relative. I have a birth certificate which says I am “Jane Doe” and my mother is “Jennifer Doe” and I don’t have to keep that fact secret from the world. I could also if I wanted advertise for the father of Jane Doe, born on x date, mother Jennifer Doe to contact me, or for other children of Jennifer Doe to do so.

If the BM has no empathy for the child she relinquished, she has no right to demand that from the child. Particularly if the adoptee did approach circumspectly. It’s the BM who makes the decision by responding rudely and aggressively that it’s every man for themselves so it ill behaves them to complain if the adoptee continues to trace other members of their genetic family without reference to them by whatever means are going to achieve results.

*behoves not behaves!

I had a message off her cousin last week to say that BM wants to contact me as she’s been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer

I’ve told her no. I’m sorry to hear that she’s ill, but that’s as far as it goes, I don’t feel anything else

Perhaps she wanted to contact you because she wanted you to know about the breast cancer in case there's a hereditary element? But you know from the cousin anyway.

I do think you need to provide medical information as a birth mother. It would take me 10 minutes to write down what I know of my family's (and husband's) medical history and put it in the post with a note asking not to contact me again if I didn't want further contact. Is it really that much of an imposition? You could be providing it for anyone, lets face it you get asked for it every time you go to a new doctors or other health care professional.

@Katrinawaves tbh for someone to behave/react in such. A vile manner I would assume that that was more to do with the person they are rather than what happened to them and would probably assume that you’d had a lucky escape by being adopted instead of being raised by such a person.

Many women gave up their babies for adoption back then, and many did so as a result of societal pressure. But that doesn’t mean that all those women were lovely people who had a stroke of bad luck. Bad luck strikes everyone at some point or other - remember, sometimes, bad things happen to bad people...

A BM responding that no, they don’t want contact is one thing and understandable. One responding threatening legal action etc I would be inclined to say she probably wasn’t a very nice person despite what she had been through.

If I found out that my mother had given up a baby for adoption and they had contacted me, I would ask her about the circumstances. IF she’d said that she didn’t want to talk about it I would understand and presume it was a hard decision to make. But if it turned out she had contacted that child threatening legal action and behaving in such a vile manner I would probably cut contact with her, and to most siblings finding out about an adopted sibling, that kind of reaction probably wouldn’t have come as much of a surprise because she’s probably like that to everyone.

There is a poster further upthread who talks about her mother’s experiences of not being adopted. And how actually that most definitely wasn’t the best thing for her.