My sibling was hidden from me for 25 years. AIBU

[Wedidntknow]

Seven years before I was born my mother (early 30s at the time) gave birth to a baby who she gave up for adoption from birth. The baby was the result of a fling much like I was

Sadly, and it makes me sick to say this, the babies skin colour was a driving factor in her relinquishing him as from what I'm told my grandfather (now deceased) heavily dissaproved of her having a child of colour and had quite alot of influence.

I was raised as an only child and found out about my sibling by accident when I was 25. I asked my mother to sit down for a serious conversation about something totally unrelated and she thought I'd found out about my sibling - she rushed to defend her actions whilst I sat there gob smacked as I had absolutely no idea.

I managed to trace him via the adoption agency and now we are in one anothers lives. He had no idea about me either as she never bothered to send updates, give answers or provide any information for him at all.

AIBU to be angry that we were robbed of the opportunity to know the other existed?

Would you be?

I've never berated her or been anything less than compassion about it when we've spoken, the feelings I speak of here are my own and not something I share with her.

I need to make peace with what happened and I'm sure in time I will.

OP im sorry bt reading your updates about giving your own chils up for adooption i ak gobsmacked that you think your circunstances are so different to your mothers. Both victims of control.

It would be so easy for me to say you could have left that man and gone it alone as a single mum or a mother and baby home...just like it is so easy for you to say your mum cohld have stood up to your grandad. I think you need to seperate your anger with your mum for your childhood from your judgement of her circumstances. If you wish your adopted child to show compassion you need to do the same. Or sever contact with your mum. Of you arent supporting eahither you may be better out of eachother lives.

Sorry to be harsh. I have compassion for you and your mum and i think you need to dig past the anger and think about where you want your relationships to be in 5 years time and work towards that. Good luck.

I entirely understand how you feel and appreciate that this must have come as a shock to you. I am so glad you and your brother are in each others lives.
Can I just write a little from your mother's perspective. I was what was then called an 'unmarried mother. This was in the sixties so appreciate things might have changed considerably by the eighties.
I was in a Mother and Baby home with roughly fifty other women Without exception all the women loved their babies, but they nearly all gave them up for adoption. The reasons were lack of parental support, shame, no financial resources and others feeling that they could give their loved child a better life than they could.
No information was given to the mothers about the adoptive parents nor were we allowed to pass any information on. It was heartbreaking for all.
Iwas able to keep my baby because I had emotional and financial support from my parents but I was one of the very few.
Is it possible it was such a painful time for your mother that she has tried to bury the pain by not thinking about it.

I have worked on numerous adoptions in my job as a social worker and nowadays openness about adoption and the child's birth family and heritage is the norm, from the start, so the adopted child grows up with this information, as their right.
It is their family information, and supersedes anything about the “privacy” of parents. Children should never be lied to, or kept in the dark.
There shouldn’t be the startling revelation when a child’s is “old enough” or worse, finding out by accident (which is what happened to me, aged 9)

Sadly, sibling groups are often broken apart, in care and in adoption, because of the difficulty in parenting a group of children who may have issues. We try to maintain contact between them but often, it doesn’t happen.
But we are obliged by law to consider the lifelong effect of separation on all the child's relationships. The relationship of siblings is usually the longest in a person's life, and despite this, and the law, I still do not believe we have got it right.
I am sad and angry that my sibling relationships were disrupted (I have older and younger ones). Our rights to know each other were denied.
I got to know them when I could, and then two of them died young.
I hope you and your brother go from strength to strength, OP.
Your post has also highlighted for me that any remaining siblings in a birth family may have absolutely no information about their own family, unless a parent chooses to share.

I have been thinking about this thread this morning (should probably do something more productive) and I think I have two huge issues with it.

First of all, the OP and some other posters feel her Mum should have been honest about her sibling - my question is when? When do you do that? How do you explain to a little child really complex and difficult questions about racism, casual sexual relationships, coercion and abandonment? I work with children and one of my roles in a past life has been to try to help children process some unpalatable facts, but that doesn’t mean it is easy or that children will accept it. Sometimes, and I know this is not a popular view now, ignorance really is bliss. Obviously if it’s something a child has to know or really should know, then they have every right to be told but I am not sure this is one of those cases. Teenagers also don’t generally have particularly nuanced skills when it comes to understanding the complexity of relationships. I remember reading flowers in the attic as a teen (I know!) and thinking ... ah well, they had three years that were bad, surely that’s not that big of a deal in the scheme of things!?

I’m also very uncomfortable with the idea that having had a child that child has the right to know intimate details about her parents life. I had an abortion and I do regret it and feel a great deal of sadness (it was a very difficult period generally) but I really feel that this is private and I will never tell my partner or child. I am also a very different person now to who I was as a teen and young adult and I certainly did many things I am not proud of and I don’t see what is to be gained from raking up the past.

In this case, this is the OPs mothers story, not the OPs. And I think it is most unfair to be angry with her about it.

Knowing very little about adoption, I’m wondering when, realistically, you would have been able to forge a relationship with your brother, if you had known about him.

I’m thinking, maybe naively?, it would have been when you were 18yo so not that long before you learnt about him iyswim?

Having said that, I agree with some pp that your history is tainting your view of how she reacted.
I suspect she saw that child as shameful for lots of different reasons and that’s why she didn’t talk about him. A very different situation than you where you really WANTED to keep the child.

@An0n0n0n

OP im sorry bt reading your updates about giving your own chils up for adooption i ak gobsmacked that you think your circunstances are so different to your mothers. Both victims of control.

It would be so easy for me to say you could have left that man and gone it alone as a single mum or a mother and baby home...just like it is so easy for you to say your mum cohld have stood up to your grandad. I think you need to seperate your anger with your mum for your childhood from your judgement of her circumstances. If you wish your adopted child to show compassion you need to do the same. Or sever contact with your mum. Of you arent supporting eahither you may be better out of eachother lives.

Sorry to be harsh. I have compassion for you and your mum and i think you need to dig past the anger and think about where you want your relationships to be in 5 years time and work towards that. Good luck.

Sorry but thats bollocks. You're placing the same level of responsibility on a 17 year old child as a grown woman in her 30's?

I didnt give my child up, I fought it until the very end. At no point did I consent to adoption.

I was a teenager, little more than a child, who had recently been abandoned by my so called mother and left to fend for myself, un surprisingly I fell into the arms of an abusive man.

I did leave him, but SS had no confidence in me staying away. He was adopted on the basis there was 'potential risk of future emotional harm'

She was a grown woman in her 30's who approached SS herself and said she wouldn't be taking her baby home.

Besides, this isn't about my brothers adoption this is about us feeling robbed of a relationship with one another.

I'm astounded that anybody would think my circumstances at 17 are in any way comparable to my mother's in her 30's.

@lavenderandwisteria, but adoption is very different than an abortion.

Adoption is about family members and the child has the right to know they have a sibling. For me saying there is no need to talk about the adoption is akin to saying you don’t talk about a sibling who died when they were young. After all, why do they need to know as they were born after all that?

I strongly disagree that your right/wish to know trumps your mothers right to privacy. Most women do not give up a child on a whim and never look back, happily moving on with nary a thought about that child again. Most women who give a child up for adoption live with pain/regret, and in some cases shame and guilt- their way of dealing with things is to try and forget/pretend it never happened. Depending on how old your mother is, there may be a lot of shame attached to the whole situation. I don’t think it’s right that women feel that way or that there is any shame, but we can’t pretend the stigma and shame didn’t exist (and to some extent, in some communities in particular, still does).

You say she is not very intelligent, OP, and was heavily under the sway of your grandfather. If so, it is not hugely surprising that your mother was heavily influenced by his opinions, is it? Especially if he was quite a dominant “head of the family” sort of father. He may not have to have been physically abusive to exert influence or even control over his children into adulthood. I have a friend, who is not religious in the slightest but was alll set to send her child to the (poorly performing) catholic school because her father (a non-practicing but self-defined catholic) demanded that she uphold “family tradition”. He is a very traditional “head of the family” sort, and quite often they jump to his tune. I am fairly sure he has never been physically abusive or violent, but I do think he is emotionally manipulative, at the least. Friends husband put his foot down and said they needed to choose the best school for their child and not based on a religion that none of them practice. Luckily, she was able to see sense but I do know it strained relations with her father for a bit.

None of that is to say that your mother bears no responsibility for her decisions, but I think a lot more understanding is due to her. It may not be the decision that you would make in the same circumstances. Given her time again, she may well make different decisions for all you know. Maybe she wouldn’t. But that decision was hers to make.

It's very interesting to read from the perspective of unmarried mothers in the 60's and how things were back then, thank you for your contribution to the thread PP - it's certainly thought provoking. I'm so pleased you were able to keep your baby.

To the social worker who posted above, thank you for your contribution too and for acknowledging the importance of information being shared among siblings. It's wonderful to hear that come from somebody in your profession (and thank you for being so considerate in your approach)

First of all, the OP and some other posters feel her Mum should have been honest about her sibling - my question is when?

I can't speak for others, but my resident children have known about my first born child since they were old enough to take an interest in photographs. Toddler years.

They know they have an older sibling who lives with another family because mummy (me) couldn't give him the best life back then, unlike I'm able to now with them.

They enjoy seeing photographs of him and hearing about what he has been up to during the year between our exchanges.

They don't know that domestic abuse was a driving factor in his adoption, but when they are old enough to process the enormity of something like that - I will tell them.

I don't believe it's harming them to know about his existence and I wouldn't want them to have the bombshell of his existence dropped on them in their 20's.

Gradual exposure to the truth in an age appropriate way is the best way IMO.

My first sons adoptive parents are as open with him as they can be, but obviously they don't burden him with the intricate details of my life back then.

It will be up to the children to decide whether they want a direct relationship with one another, but I couldn't be the one to deprive them of the knowledge nessecary for them to make that decision.

@youvegottenminuteslynn

I had a child in the 80s. I don't know anyone who would have thrown their child out if they were pregnant with a mixed race child. Racism was not acceptable then.

Not acceptable among people who weren't racist, but rampant in families who were racist and in which young people who were raised in such families thought was normal and impossible to fight. OP's mother I doubt made this decision flippantly and would have been under intolerable pressure from a racist and abusive father. I am honestly not trying to be combative or argumentative but I think if you've not been raised in such a family, it's maybe hard to understand how intolerable that would be. My birth mother on paper could have kept me - it was 1987 and she 'could' have had help from the state etc, but she wouldn't have felt that was possible due to coming from a religious family who would have disowned her and the deep shame that was engrained in her by them from childhood.

I agree with this.

Racist attitudes were still around later than the 1980s. I had friends in the 90s and 00s who knew if they got pregnant, their father's first comment would be 'It'd better not be black' and if they couldn't find somewhere else to live immediately - or were under 18 - that they would be in outright danger because of the threat they had heard throughout their lives that 'If it is, I'll kick it out of you'. And some people are still disgustingly racist.

Contact between adoptive mothers and children hasn't always been so simple - there are cases coming out now where councils have lost everything and it's still possible for communications to be held back if they aren't 'acceptable'. It's also likely that somebody so vulnerable and, as the OP says, of lower intelligence, was told very clearly that it was a shameful secret that must never, ever be told 'or no man will ever want to touch you' or put in terms of 'It's nothing to do with you, keep out of it, leave it alone, it's better that way'.

I don’t think bereavement and adoption are comparable really dreaming, although I do see what you mean with that. However I would add that I do know that it’s possible to create a sense of being a replacement, or second best, when a child is born following the death of a sibling. So while I certainly don’t think that it should never be mentioned, I think you can create problems with that, too.

Op, I don’t there’s such a dramatic difference between you and your mothers circumstances as you might think. But people do cope differently. I would probably react as your mum has. That isn’t right or wrong,it’s just how I would personally cope.

Racism in the 80s was dreadful and I am surprised a pp asserted it wasn’t.

I'm taking on board all of the different POV's, thank you.

Fortunately it was very easy for me to trace my sibling once I knew which local authority he was born under.

I googled the telephone number of the adoption sector in the L.A, left a message explaining who i was and who i was looking for, then within days I had a call back from a lovely lady who knew him personally and had been working with him.

As it happens, they had been trying to contact my mother unsuccessfully in the years leading up to me finding out about him and vice versa.

He wrote her letters which were sent to my mother via the adoption agency and there were phonecalls made in attempt to speak to her too. The adoption agency worked hard on his behalf to get a message across to her that he was looking. She knew.

She asked her sisters advice as to what she thought she should do and her sister insisted the past was the past and should be left there. Said sister returned one of the calls and spoke on my mother's behalf to a social worker, with my mothers permission, and said she didn't want contact.

Now, that is entirely her prerogative and nobody has the right to demand she has a relationship with him but what she failed to consider was us and the fact that we both, if given the information, would have (and do) want a relationship with one another.

There were many times she could have told me about him, like when she knew he was trying to find her, I would have respected her wishes to have no contact herself and wouldn't have put any pressure on her to meet him (and I never have)

Alternatively when she knew he was trying to contact her she could have told the social worker acting as an intermediary that she didn't want contact but she has a daughter who might etc.

It feels like we are supposed to have endless compassion for her despite her having none for us, she has done alot damage in her time - not just to me but also my brother in how she handled his attempts to find her, depriving him of even the most basic of information about his identity.

I'm just glad we have one another.

It is always very sad when someone has a baby abd for whatever their reasons at the time, put the baby up for adoption.

Your mother was in a predicament 25 years ago (if I understand correctly from your Post) and the world was a different one 25 years ago, even unwed mothers were still considered a bit scandalous back then. You really cannot ascribe today’s social acceptance to 25 years ago plus you’re judging her on how she should have coped raising a child on her own without any family support. She cared enough to have the baby rather than opting for an abortion, which were readily available 25 years ago. Clearly she cared for this precious life abd made the difficult decision to give the baby up given her circumstances at the time.

Yes, very sad you grew up not knowing about your sibling. Yes, very sad he was adopted. BUT it is NOT your place to judge your mother. You were not in her shoes and especially considering how things were 25 years ago to which you cannot relate in the world of today.

Op, I don’t there’s such a dramatic difference between you and your mothers circumstances as you might think. But people do cope differently. I would probably react as your mum has. That isn’t right or wrong,it’s just how I would personally cope.

I think the biggest difference that is relevant to this thread is the fact she deprived me and my brother of the knowledge that each other exists.

My children know about each other, irrespective of my trauma I don't feel I ever had the right to keep that from them. It's not all about me and my feelings.

It's not about me and my situation in my teens at all really, I only mentioned that because people were asking me to imagine the pain of being separated from my child and I wanted people to know that I do understand that very well.

Our issue is being kept a secret from one another and only finding out we have a sibling well into adulthood.

You’re judging her on how she should have coped raising a child on her own without any family support.

No, I'm not.

I believe adoption was the best decision for him as she has never been a good enough parent.

I'm judging her for keeping our existence from one another.

That actually makes me go a bit cold.

The adoption agency knew fine well that this woman did not wish to pursue a relationship with her birth son, and there are all sorts of reasons why that might be the case. I am not attacking you personally here OP, but does it really take so much imagination to work out that?

A rape, or a sexual assault.

A horrendously abusive relationship.

Even just being taken back to a very dark period in your life. There is a part of my old town I will not even drive through (fortunately it is somewhere that I have no reason to ever go there) because it transports me straight back to a very traumatic event.

And I presume since they went to such trouble to track down the mother, they also tried to find his father? I suspect not.

You don’t need to have endless compassion for someone who treated you badly, OP, and I am sorry you went through that. But I do feel this is quite chilling, to be honest.

her sister insisted the past was the past and should be left there. Said sister returned one of the calls and spoke on my mother's behalf to a social worker, with my mothers permission, and said she didn't want contact

So not just her father being determined that she couldn't keep the baby - her own sister insisting that she shouldn't acknowledge it when she was considering doing it - and taking it upon herself to make the call?

Sounds like she really didn't have any more of a choice back then than you did because her family was determined to keep it secret. After all, they didn't tell you about him either, did they?

Your feelings are very valid, but please don't take this out on your mother, she was forced to give up her child, do you know how hard that must have been for her.

The fact she blurted it out to you means it has been on the for front of her mind for 25yrs.

Be kind to yourself and I hope your relationship with your sibling is a long and loving one.

They tried to trace his father but got nowhere because (like my own case) she claimed to not know much, if anything about him.

The agency did try to contact her multiple times yes, but at the point of sending the initial letters they didn't know she didn't want contact.

Once it was established that she didn't want contact, they left her be.

So not just her father being determined that she couldn't keep the baby - her own sister insisting that she shouldn't acknowledge it when she was considering doing it - and taking it upon herself to make the call

Yes. My mother asked for her sisters advice and she said it's best to leave the past in the past. My mother made her decision and had her sister relay that back to the adoption agency as she didn't want to have that conversation herself.

I think every case is different, but sometimes it really is better for the past to be left in the past.

I am glad you are enjoying a positive relationship with your brother but I don’t believe anybody has the right to bring the most painful and difficult parts of your life to the forefront some forty years later because they have decided they have this right.

I'm probably coming across as very ignorant to the difficult situation my mother was in. I'm not, honestly.

When it all came out I was nothing but understanding and supportive. I have never spoken about it with her like I have here.

Given my complex relationship with her for reasons relating to my upbringing, I do have some associated resentment for many things.

I am not generally this harsh but this is starting to sound horribly misogynistic.

A woman with loose morals (two flings, both resulting in pregnancy) who gives one child up for adoption and abandons the other aged 16, who doesn’t work and hasn’t since 1984, or thereabouts (you say she hasn’t worked since her late twenties and she had your brother in the late 80s, when she was in her early 30s) who is racist andheartless.

This is what you believe about your mother and it could well be true, we don’t know.

But there are other possible readings of these events too and I’m going to say what no one else has - that SS do not remove children, particularly newborns, without serious, grave concerns about their safety.

Your brother was a relinquished baby. Have a look at clip. (There is some racist content, apologies.) These were the attitudes of the time. A woman with a white baby and a mixed one - huge joke. Hilarious. It may well have been an act of compassion.

@lavenderandwisteria

I am not generally this harsh but this is starting to sound horribly misogynistic.

A woman with loose morals (two flings, both resulting in pregnancy) who gives one child up for adoption and abandons the other aged 16, who doesn’t work and hasn’t since 1984, or thereabouts (you say she hasn’t worked since her late twenties and she had your brother in the late 80s, when she was in her early 30s) who is racist andheartless.

This is what you believe about your mother and it could well be true, we don’t know.

But there are other possible readings of these events too and I’m going to say what no one else has - that SS do not remove children, particularly newborns, without serious, grave concerns about their safety.

Your brother was a relinquished baby. Have a look at clip. (There is some racist content, apologies.) These were the attitudes of the time. A woman with a white baby and a mixed one - huge joke. Hilarious. It may well have been an act of compassion.

Well I'm the furthest thing from misogynistic. Those events are factual as I have outlined them here.

Its unfortunate that my description of her means she fits a stereotype but there we are.

I'm going to say what no one else has - that SS do not remove children, particularly newborns, without serious, grave concerns about their safety

What are you implying? Of course they don't remove newborns without serious concerns. Everybody knows that. I, and by extension my baby, were at significant risk of harm when I was pregnant with him in my teens. SS made the decision that he should be adopted as I couldn't safeguard either of us. Do you want me to feel ashamed? Well I have, for many years.

That shame isn't mine to bare though. It is my abusers and yet I am completely transparent about my circumstances. I don't withhold that child's existence from my subsequent children or vice versa. I was practically a child and was left to fend for myself. How could I have known that the only person to show me what I thought was love would turn out to be such an insidious person capable of inflicting such abuse onto me.

That's what you want to do isn't, make me feel like shit? Well done. Slow clap.

If you knew even half of what my mother put me through I don't think there would be one person on this thread rushing to defend her.

She cared more about men than either of her children, which is why I was a constant target for fucking paedophiles.

I'm done here. Thank you all for your posts.

On a final note I just want to emphasise once again that my upset stems from being deprived of knowing I had a sibling. This is sadness shared by my brother.

The adoption was the best outcome for him, hell I wish I was adopted too.

I should have never mentioned my own circumstances as of course people were going to attack me about it, when the reality is I was never judging her for the adoption in the first place - purely the enduring secrecy and the way we (My brother and I) had to find out about one another.