Telling Your Other Children About The Surrendered Child
BY Mary Anne Cohen
From Origins NJ Newsletter,revised 2004. 2012
One of the hardest but most necessary tasks facing first mothers is telling their other children about the surrendered brother or sister.
The longer a mother has kept the secret, the harder it is. Some mothers want to search but feel unable to come out to their families. These women are not deliberately deceptive or cowardly. They have the best motives towards all their children, but are frightened and confused about the possible ill effect of revealing their secret. They fear that the knowledge will harm their children, and add more guilt and damage to their already fragile self-image as adequate mothers. This is even more common in mothers who are found, who thought that the surrendered child would be a secret forever. Some may have husbands who are opposed to telling the children, which adds an extra source of anxiety.
Most mothers who surrendered in the years after WWII have told their husband about the surrendered child, and perhaps one or two close friends, but beyond that, it usually has not been discussed or shared. A few have not even confided in their husband or another living soul.
As a mother who is searching, chances are your home is suddenly full of adoption-related material, that you are glued to the TV whenever the word “adoption” is mentioned; that you spend hours on the Internet seeking search assistance, and that you have long phone conversations with your new adoption search buddies.
Although physically you remain in your ordinary surroundings, your mind and heart are caught up in a quest as profound, challenging, and consuming as any mythical crusade. You are in a state of emotional turmoil, as you face the challenges posed by each phase of search, contact, and reunion. Life is not really proceeding as usual, much as you might try to separate your home life from your “adoption life”. How can your family not notice that something is going on?
If you have been contacted by your adult child, either directly or through an intermediary, and are secretly corresponding, or in the hard place of trying to decide how or if to respond to the initial contact, your inner state and outer demeanor are probably even more upsetting and puzzling to those you live with, if you have not shared with them what momentous occurrence has transpired.
A secret like this has to come out, and it will, in ways that you may not like unless you take the initiative and control how your family is informed. Even if the found adoptee is patient and sensitive to your need for privacy for many years, the secret can take a toll on both of you and your relationship, and be revealed by some happening beyond either's control.
Your family are already affected by your search, despite your efforts to protect them. Why not let them be equal partners, persons you respect enough to share truth with, rather than confused spectators of something they half comprehend or misinterpret?
Children can draw some surprising conclusions from your unexplained erratic behavior. They may fear that they themselves are adopted, or that they have done something to upset you that is so awful you cannot talk about it. Older kids may imagine you have a secret lover, or are about to be divorced. They may fear that someone in the family has a fatal illness that is being concealed. The imagination of children is unlimited—and so is the needless suffering it can cause. Kids who have imagined any of these scenarios will be relieved when you finally reveal the truth, which in many ways has little to do with them, or their day to day family life.
It is important to realize that while your children may be interested in their lost sibling, and ask many questions, they will never have the intensity of feelings, especially painful ones that you have. They did not experience what you did; the birth, surrender, and years of secret guilt. They do not bring any of the baggage that you do to the whole adoption/reunion scenario. Telling them does not lay an equal burden of suffering on them. They may or may not eventually form their own relationship with their sibling.
We need to keep our boundaries clear and not project our feelings onto our children when contemplating “the talk” about the surrendered child. While the adoption issue is central to us, to most of our children it will be peripheral at most until they actually meet their sibling. Rather than experiencing a loss, some children are overjoyed to learn that they have suddenly “gained” a new sibling, often the big brother or sister they have always wanted, and approach the news with curiosity and wonder rather than horror.
A common reaction is, “Where is she? When can we see her?” If you have been contacted by an intermediary, or by your searching child, how wonderful to be able to reply, “as soon as possible!”. Another common reaction of adult children is that knowing you surrendered a child explains a lot about aspects of your behavior and emotional state over the years that may have been puzzling to them.
There is no ideal age to wait for. Right now is always the right time. It does not get easier with the passage of time, and can get more difficult. Teenagers and young adults may resent the fact that you underestimated their capacity to deal with reality, and treated them like babies rather than as maturing young people. They may feel betrayed that you were not honest with them sooner. Often, the oldest feels slightly displaced, and some sibling rivalry issues can be evident even if there is no reunion as yet.
Older children may be angry at having been deceived, rather than grateful for being “protected” from the truth for years. But like all things, this too will pass; just as it is never too early, it is also never too late. Many mothers who are already grandmothers have told middle-aged adult children of their other sibling, with no ill effects. Much as many of us fear that our subsequent children will fear rejection after being told that their mother gave up a child, I have never heard of any who voiced that concern, or acted as if that were a possibility. Your children have the right to know they have a sibling, and it is best that they hear it first from you.
Young children are generally trusting, and accept whatever you do because you are their mother and they love you. Children who grow up knowing that you had another child and placed her for adoption accept this as part of history, just as they would deal with knowing about a previous marriage of either of their parents.
Some of you have long passed the stage of telling little children, and are faced with the task of telling teenagers. Many mothers of teens fear that their children will lose respect for them as people, and will flaunt their mother’s “immorality” when told by their parents to wait to have sex. “You did it at 16—why can’t I”? Some young people, mostly male, have reacted with anger, judgment, and disbelief, and have shown resentment at their mother’s supposed “double standard.” But they get over it.
You could use your unhappy experience as an example of the problems created by sex without adequate protection, commitment, or maturity. Teenagers respect honesty; they hate hypocrisy. They will ultimately respect you for admitting you were not perfect, and may become more open and honest with you in return. Once they know and have incorporated your story into theirs, your teenage and adult children can be your greatest source of comfort during search and reunion. Don’t shut them out of something that could bring you all closer together.
Present the subject in a way that is appropriate to the age, maturity, and temperament of your child. Each child is unique. Some mothers prefer to tell all their children at once, others take each aside and discuss it with each separately. You know your own children and family dynamic best.
Once your children know, don’t go on too much about the subject, but do involve them in all the important points of your search and reunion. Any picture you have of the lost child, either from infancy or any current one you have been sent is helpful in “making it real.” If your husband is against telling the children, try to educate him, and help him to see that honesty is best for your whole family, while secrecy is already doing harm. Go forwards towards reunion with courage, truth and love—and follow your own heart and sense of ethics. It may help to introduce the subject of medical information that could be vital to all your children, and how in reunion it can be exchanged both ways.
You may want to wait to tell the children about their sibling until after you have had some contact with the adoptee, and know that he wants you in his life. In this way, you feel you are protecting your children from disappointment and rejection. This is a very common assumption, but it is wrong. In fact, it is easier for all if your children know before any contact is made, no matter what the outcome. If the adoptee is delighted to be found, or finds you, he may want to meet his siblings right away, which means you will have to either put him off, or tell your other children in the midst of the turmoil of a new reunion, rather than letting them hear and absorb the news in a more relaxed fashion. It is not fair to the adoptee to contact them, and then insist on a covert relationship where they remain a “dirty little secret.” If you are found, in most cases your surrendered child will be understanding, but eventually you may want the secret to end and true openness to begin.
Wherever you are as you read this, if you have not yet told your family, the right moment is now. There will never be an easier or better time, no matter what your present situation might be. The past is gone, but you can take an active and honest role in the future.
In case of rejection, or finding something tragic or distressing, you will need the love and support of those in your family more than ever. You will not need the extra strain of grieving an additional loss or blow while continuing to hide your pain and secret. If you should die before being reunited, it would be best for your family to know of the other child, so that they could welcome her if she searched, or search for her themselves if they felt the need. Adoption and surrender are family matters for generations to come, not just your own sad secret.
The good news about telling your other kids is that so many of us who were just as scared as you are have done it, with no lasting ill effects, some of us many years ago. Many faced difficult situations, but all were relieved to have finally gotten rid of the burden of secrecy. The truth really will set you free.
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Monday
How can you, or why should you, trust a psychotherapist?
I had been wondering how people who are in therapy can trust their therapist. People who've rarely, if ever, had anyone prove to them they were worthy of trust. They are in therapy because they have issues trusting others, so how do they become comfortable, trusting, enough of the therapist to achieve their goals?
I asked Dr. Jean Mercer at CHILDMYTHS about this and she kindly agreed to share her thoughts here with me so that I could share them with you.
How can you, or why should you, trust a psychotherapist? I know many people wonder about this, and although I can’t completely answer the questions, I want to make a few comments. Before I do that, though, I need to say that I don’t speak as a therapist. I’m not trained or licensed as a therapist. I do have a doctorate in psychology, so I’ve studied a lot of material connected to psychotherapy; I’ve been in therapy myself; I was trained and worked dealing with telephone calls at a suicide prevention center; and I led therapy groups under the supervision of a licensed therapists. So, I speak as somebody with some experience of the field, but as it’s not a main part of my professional life, I don’t speak of therapy as a person would who is deeply identified with that kind of work.
I understand the real confusion between the therapist as a professional helping person and the therapist as a possible friend. When we tell therapists our deep feelings, we can’t help being reminded of the way we’ve done this, or wanted to do it, with friends, and it can feel very strange when the process doesn’t go the way it would with a friend.
When we tell a friend our secrets or feelings, he or she normally responds in some predictable ways. If we cry, the friend might cry too, or at least look sad. If we tell what someone else has done to us, the friend will usually speak up and say that we were in the right, our attacker in the wrong. And often a friend will respond to our problem by disclosing something similar, or at least equally secret and disturbing, in his or her own life. All those things are comforting and make us feel as if we have been heard and can trust this friend-- trust him or her to empathize, to take our side, and to share secrets with us.
Friends also sometimes do things that are predictable but not necessarily what we want. A friend may be embarrassed or annoyed by our emotion and try to change the subject. A friend may accuse us of making up part of the story, or state that until he or she hears both sides of a conflict, there will be no deciding who’s right. A friend may say “that’s nothing, listen to what happened to me!”. Those things are not comforting, and we may decide that while we can trust that person to do just what they feel like doing, we can’t trust them sometimes to give our needs first priority.
Talking to a therapist can feel very confusing because the therapist’s responses are pretty predictable, but they don’t follow either of those friend patterns. Well-trained therapists have learned that they need to empathize enough to know what you feel like, but that they should not become so “enmeshed” that your feelings seem like their own. If the therapist was that engaged, he or she could not think rationally or objectively about what’s going on with you and what approach should help you most. In the same way, if you’re talking about a conflict with another person, the therapist may want you to get better at understanding the other person’s perspective, so he or she is not going to tell you that you’re right and that’s all there is to it.
And the therapist is not going to try to win your trust by disclosing inappropriate matters from his or her own life. Therapists have been carefully trained to avoid telling personal secrets, and know very well that the whole point of therapy is to concentrate on what is happening with you, not to talk about their own lives, unless their stories can make a point that will really be helpful to you.
In all those ways, therapists are not supposed to act like friends, even friends who are being comforting. And of course they are not supposed to tell you off for what you say, or to insist on telling their own story to you, so they are also not to act like the kind of friend who does a poor job of listening.
There are also a number of things therapists are not supposed to do and can get into a lot of trouble for doing, even though there’s nothing to stop a friend from these actions. For example, if a therapist thinks you’re pretty attractive, he or she is not supposed to ask you out. If you live in the same neighborhood, the therapist is not supposed to ask you for a ride home if their car breaks down, or to take care of their cat while they travel. Above all, the therapist is supposed to keep everything you say, and the therapist’s opinions about you, perfectly confidential-- not to tell anyone or leave your file lying around where others can see it.
When you pay for therapy, part of what you’re paying for is a guarantee that your therapist will not take advantage of your emotional distress to behave in ways that exploit you. Another thing you’re paying for is that complete confidentiality which is so important. If the matters you disclose to the therapist were spread around, you could possibly lose your job, your spouse, or your children. When you disclose your concerns and history to your friend, you assume they won’t tell-- but people who have not been trained in confidentiality can let things slip quite unintentionally and cause catastrophes that they regret deeply but can’t repair.
Finally, when you pay for therapy, you’re paying for the fact that your therapist has a better understanding of how people usually feel and behave than your friends usually will. You go to the dentist rather than your friend, because the dentist has studied what teeth are like and how they should be treated. Similarly, good therapists have studied both common and unusual ways people feel and act, and how to tell the difference between sadness over a problem and serious depression, or between poor social skills and schizophrenia. In addition, where your friend might say “this is awful, but I don’t know how to begin helping you”, the therapist has studied ways to talk to you and to encourage you to talk, and can consult with medical colleagues if medication may help you. Therapists also have been trained to understand how uncomfortable it may be for you to do the work of therapy and how much you may want to quit at times.
Naturally, I don’t mean to say that all therapists do good jobs, or that every therapist works equally well with every patient, or that no therapist ever makes mistakes or even surprising ethical errors. But I do mean to say therapists play different roles in our lives than friends do, and their training allows them to do jobs for us which our friends can’t do-- jobs they deserve to be paid for, and which they could not afford to do without being paid.
When people say they don’t trust their therapists, it’s possible that they should go to different therapists. But it’s also possible that they should ask themselves, “trust the therapist … to do what?” To keep our secrets in confidence? To know how our problems can best be helped? To persuade us to keep working when we feel like giving up? If any of those points are of concern, certainly a client should make sure before going on with that therapist, and in fact should talk to the therapist about the concerns. But if the question is, “can I trust the therapist to do what a friend does?”, the answer should be “no”. Therapists should not do what friends do, and if they did, this would be clear evidence that we should not trust them.
Jean Mercer
11/21/10
I asked Dr. Jean Mercer at CHILDMYTHS about this and she kindly agreed to share her thoughts here with me so that I could share them with you.
How can you, or why should you, trust a psychotherapist? I know many people wonder about this, and although I can’t completely answer the questions, I want to make a few comments. Before I do that, though, I need to say that I don’t speak as a therapist. I’m not trained or licensed as a therapist. I do have a doctorate in psychology, so I’ve studied a lot of material connected to psychotherapy; I’ve been in therapy myself; I was trained and worked dealing with telephone calls at a suicide prevention center; and I led therapy groups under the supervision of a licensed therapists. So, I speak as somebody with some experience of the field, but as it’s not a main part of my professional life, I don’t speak of therapy as a person would who is deeply identified with that kind of work.
I understand the real confusion between the therapist as a professional helping person and the therapist as a possible friend. When we tell therapists our deep feelings, we can’t help being reminded of the way we’ve done this, or wanted to do it, with friends, and it can feel very strange when the process doesn’t go the way it would with a friend.
When we tell a friend our secrets or feelings, he or she normally responds in some predictable ways. If we cry, the friend might cry too, or at least look sad. If we tell what someone else has done to us, the friend will usually speak up and say that we were in the right, our attacker in the wrong. And often a friend will respond to our problem by disclosing something similar, or at least equally secret and disturbing, in his or her own life. All those things are comforting and make us feel as if we have been heard and can trust this friend-- trust him or her to empathize, to take our side, and to share secrets with us.
Friends also sometimes do things that are predictable but not necessarily what we want. A friend may be embarrassed or annoyed by our emotion and try to change the subject. A friend may accuse us of making up part of the story, or state that until he or she hears both sides of a conflict, there will be no deciding who’s right. A friend may say “that’s nothing, listen to what happened to me!”. Those things are not comforting, and we may decide that while we can trust that person to do just what they feel like doing, we can’t trust them sometimes to give our needs first priority.
Talking to a therapist can feel very confusing because the therapist’s responses are pretty predictable, but they don’t follow either of those friend patterns. Well-trained therapists have learned that they need to empathize enough to know what you feel like, but that they should not become so “enmeshed” that your feelings seem like their own. If the therapist was that engaged, he or she could not think rationally or objectively about what’s going on with you and what approach should help you most. In the same way, if you’re talking about a conflict with another person, the therapist may want you to get better at understanding the other person’s perspective, so he or she is not going to tell you that you’re right and that’s all there is to it.
And the therapist is not going to try to win your trust by disclosing inappropriate matters from his or her own life. Therapists have been carefully trained to avoid telling personal secrets, and know very well that the whole point of therapy is to concentrate on what is happening with you, not to talk about their own lives, unless their stories can make a point that will really be helpful to you.
In all those ways, therapists are not supposed to act like friends, even friends who are being comforting. And of course they are not supposed to tell you off for what you say, or to insist on telling their own story to you, so they are also not to act like the kind of friend who does a poor job of listening.
There are also a number of things therapists are not supposed to do and can get into a lot of trouble for doing, even though there’s nothing to stop a friend from these actions. For example, if a therapist thinks you’re pretty attractive, he or she is not supposed to ask you out. If you live in the same neighborhood, the therapist is not supposed to ask you for a ride home if their car breaks down, or to take care of their cat while they travel. Above all, the therapist is supposed to keep everything you say, and the therapist’s opinions about you, perfectly confidential-- not to tell anyone or leave your file lying around where others can see it.
When you pay for therapy, part of what you’re paying for is a guarantee that your therapist will not take advantage of your emotional distress to behave in ways that exploit you. Another thing you’re paying for is that complete confidentiality which is so important. If the matters you disclose to the therapist were spread around, you could possibly lose your job, your spouse, or your children. When you disclose your concerns and history to your friend, you assume they won’t tell-- but people who have not been trained in confidentiality can let things slip quite unintentionally and cause catastrophes that they regret deeply but can’t repair.
Finally, when you pay for therapy, you’re paying for the fact that your therapist has a better understanding of how people usually feel and behave than your friends usually will. You go to the dentist rather than your friend, because the dentist has studied what teeth are like and how they should be treated. Similarly, good therapists have studied both common and unusual ways people feel and act, and how to tell the difference between sadness over a problem and serious depression, or between poor social skills and schizophrenia. In addition, where your friend might say “this is awful, but I don’t know how to begin helping you”, the therapist has studied ways to talk to you and to encourage you to talk, and can consult with medical colleagues if medication may help you. Therapists also have been trained to understand how uncomfortable it may be for you to do the work of therapy and how much you may want to quit at times.
Naturally, I don’t mean to say that all therapists do good jobs, or that every therapist works equally well with every patient, or that no therapist ever makes mistakes or even surprising ethical errors. But I do mean to say therapists play different roles in our lives than friends do, and their training allows them to do jobs for us which our friends can’t do-- jobs they deserve to be paid for, and which they could not afford to do without being paid.
When people say they don’t trust their therapists, it’s possible that they should go to different therapists. But it’s also possible that they should ask themselves, “trust the therapist … to do what?” To keep our secrets in confidence? To know how our problems can best be helped? To persuade us to keep working when we feel like giving up? If any of those points are of concern, certainly a client should make sure before going on with that therapist, and in fact should talk to the therapist about the concerns. But if the question is, “can I trust the therapist to do what a friend does?”, the answer should be “no”. Therapists should not do what friends do, and if they did, this would be clear evidence that we should not trust them.
Jean Mercer
11/21/10
Sunday
A comment too long, and likely off topic
I was reading a blog I always read and started to comment and it got out of control. The comment grew long, it may have strayed from what my point was, and likely didn't end up relating properly to the post at all.
But, I like the comment, so am posting here. Take it or leave it.
I think I actually understand what you're saying here. It's this weird thing between wanting to be strong, sparing others what's really going on, protecting yourself from being viewed as damaged and whatever goes along with that, shame, embarrassment, but also wanting people to know it's not easy to not be a total fuck up in life, how much effort it takes or has taken. That what's going on on the outside is not what's going on on the inside.
I kind of compare it to doing the right thing or being honest when nobody knows about it. You want to do the right thing because it's the right thing, because it's good for our souls/spirits whatever to just be good and decent, take the high road for the sake of another BUT...we're human. There's a small part of us that wants someone to notice or care that what we're doing isn't easy, that we're going against what we feel like doing, what we would really prefer to do, what would be easier.
I think the key is to truly figure out how to just do it for one's self. How to get pleasure from not being a total fuck up in spite of all the reasons why we should be. That the pride comes from how we feel about our self instead of how we think we're impressing others in an "I'll show them" fu kind of way because what if they don't notice? Then it's all for nothing. If it's just for our self, we'll always notice, be impressed, be proud.
This is all easier said than done, but, it's doable. For me it's easiest when it comes to my son. I can do anything for him with no recognition. I sometimes wonder if people actually know or care how difficult it can be taking the high road in the breakdown of a marriage, but ultimately it doesn't matter. I know what I've done, for my boy, for me, and it helps me sleep easy at night, helps me look him in the face and see complete trust, total confidence in my dedication to him, that I am a safe place to land, no matter what.
But, I like the comment, so am posting here. Take it or leave it.
I think I actually understand what you're saying here. It's this weird thing between wanting to be strong, sparing others what's really going on, protecting yourself from being viewed as damaged and whatever goes along with that, shame, embarrassment, but also wanting people to know it's not easy to not be a total fuck up in life, how much effort it takes or has taken. That what's going on on the outside is not what's going on on the inside.
I kind of compare it to doing the right thing or being honest when nobody knows about it. You want to do the right thing because it's the right thing, because it's good for our souls/spirits whatever to just be good and decent, take the high road for the sake of another BUT...we're human. There's a small part of us that wants someone to notice or care that what we're doing isn't easy, that we're going against what we feel like doing, what we would really prefer to do, what would be easier.
I think the key is to truly figure out how to just do it for one's self. How to get pleasure from not being a total fuck up in spite of all the reasons why we should be. That the pride comes from how we feel about our self instead of how we think we're impressing others in an "I'll show them" fu kind of way because what if they don't notice? Then it's all for nothing. If it's just for our self, we'll always notice, be impressed, be proud.
This is all easier said than done, but, it's doable. For me it's easiest when it comes to my son. I can do anything for him with no recognition. I sometimes wonder if people actually know or care how difficult it can be taking the high road in the breakdown of a marriage, but ultimately it doesn't matter. I know what I've done, for my boy, for me, and it helps me sleep easy at night, helps me look him in the face and see complete trust, total confidence in my dedication to him, that I am a safe place to land, no matter what.
Wednesday
Spare the rod ..... pleeeeease
So, a local radio station discussed this article in Time on "a new study published in Pediatrics, researchers at Tulane University provide the strongest evidence yet that children's short-term response to spanking may make them act out more in the long run."
The first woman who called in was a retired school teacher who gave parenting classes. She was against spanking but went further to say that parents have abandoned all discipline. That they were spending too much time reasoning with their kids instead of just being in charge. Saying no and meaning no. Being consistent. She said lots more, all of which was pretty on target and sensible, kind of made me smile to listen to her great advice.
And then....THEY started calling. Those people who think spanking is necessary. That they were spanked and they turned out just fine. Know what? Me too. I was spanked, I think I turned out fine too.
So has my son. In fact, turned out real good, without ever having been spanked once.
We actually had a pretty big fight yesterday, well, for us it was massive because we just don't fight or raise our voices. Needless to say we were both very upset after. We discussed what happened later in the evening, why it had escalated to what it did and just exactly what each of our roles were in the argument, and then we went for sushi (I paid). But, before we did, my son said it's lucky we're able to fix things like we did, that we can get back to where we were in our relationship, that we'd done no permanent damage. I told him we could do that because we've established respect and trust.
I don't think spanking is respectful. I don't think spanking instills trust.Yet, I know those are 2 of the most important ingredients in a successful child/parent relationship.
I don't believe there's even one valid reason to spank, to hit a little kid cause they did something you don't like. And you don't hit big kids...'cause, well, they're too big, and they might hit you back.
The first woman who called in was a retired school teacher who gave parenting classes. She was against spanking but went further to say that parents have abandoned all discipline. That they were spending too much time reasoning with their kids instead of just being in charge. Saying no and meaning no. Being consistent. She said lots more, all of which was pretty on target and sensible, kind of made me smile to listen to her great advice.
And then....THEY started calling. Those people who think spanking is necessary. That they were spanked and they turned out just fine. Know what? Me too. I was spanked, I think I turned out fine too.
So has my son. In fact, turned out real good, without ever having been spanked once.
We actually had a pretty big fight yesterday, well, for us it was massive because we just don't fight or raise our voices. Needless to say we were both very upset after. We discussed what happened later in the evening, why it had escalated to what it did and just exactly what each of our roles were in the argument, and then we went for sushi (I paid). But, before we did, my son said it's lucky we're able to fix things like we did, that we can get back to where we were in our relationship, that we'd done no permanent damage. I told him we could do that because we've established respect and trust.
I don't think spanking is respectful. I don't think spanking instills trust.Yet, I know those are 2 of the most important ingredients in a successful child/parent relationship.
I don't believe there's even one valid reason to spank, to hit a little kid cause they did something you don't like. And you don't hit big kids...'cause, well, they're too big, and they might hit you back.
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