Adoptees: do your kids know more about the mother-child bond than you do?

SLY

I am a Mother who lost her son to adoption in 1967. I cannot answer as an adoptee, but I hope it is okay for me to add my viewpoint on the loss and the moment. Each of us finds our own moment of truth in all of this and our Epiphany Moment sometimes is a gradual enlightening, and for others it is like a High Beam in a football stadium. Mine was like yours, a sudden blinding flash that knocked the pins out from under me and left me gasping for air.

I understand what you are saying, and I am thrilled that you can feel that with your children. I wonder if the people who are saying that it is just your personality have just not had their epiphany moment yet. Because, I know that it isn't as simple as just the touching or even the cuddling you are talking about, but the right to ask for what you need.

LindseyTaylor

I think alot of it is based on personality...you may just not have been a cuddly child. Or maybe your amom wasn't a lovey dovey person so you never picked up on that.

My mom (she was my bio mom) wasn't a cuddly person so I just kinda learned to be very independent...on the other hand I am always showering my daughter with affection and she likes to have her hair stroked when she is tired..something that I would have never thought of or needed as a child..

No child is the same...no person is the same...

Allanas

I think that was an "A ha" moment in your own life, but I don't think it's an over all truth everyone in adoption.

My own mother (biological) is not a demonstrative person. I never knew the difference until I met a friend's mom who hugs and kisses everyone hello, good bye, and for any other reason. This woman cuddles everyone! Her kid's friends, her family, her friends, church members, neighbors, anyone who doesn't run away gets a hug and a kiss from her.

So, I'm thinking that your kid is a cuddly person and your amom may not have been.

FlyingMonkeySwatter

I am an AP-hope you don't mind the answer coming from an AP. We found just the opposite.

My daughter is adopted and super affectionate. My bio son--NEVER wanted to be held--even from infancy. He is more affectionate now as an 11 YO boy, but his affection is in more in a rough house kind of way with us. Always has been. She on the other hand just wants to sit in your lap, rub noses, kisses her dolly/Elmo and just wants to be in touching distance at all times. I love seeing her affection as a toddler as much as I loved seeing my son's independent streak at this same age.

I think it depends on the child's nature.

Johnsmuffinpie

I think that might have more to do with your personality than anything else. I LOVED to cuddle with my mom when I was a kid (I was adopted). I loved to have her run her fingers in my hair, rub my arms and back, and just hold me. I'm still very much a touchy feely cuddler. My 6 year old cousin, on the other hand, (who is his moms biological kid) doesn't like being touched very much. He's just not a cuddler. It's not that he isn't sweet and wonderful, that's just his personality.

AdoreHim

I am very sorry that you never felt that connection with your amom. It saddens me to see how many adoptees actually never felt like they bonded with their parents. If I had never bonded with my parents, I would never have chosen to adopt my children. I never felt for one moment that my parents were not my parents. I felt a bond instantly with them. I can understand though that you may have that feeling, and I am sorry. I am truly not sure if what you are saying actually has to do with adoption or just the way that your mom raised you, which seems differently than the way you desire to raise your children. I am adopted and I raised my children a bit differently than my mom and dad raise me, that is not to say I had no bond with them

My Mom was not a cuddlier and she was my bio Mom. I had a lot of health issues as a child and she was always there with me in hospital. I saw a lot of kids left alone. My children are adopted. I have one who is a cuddlier and wants to set by me on the couch when we watch TV and touches me the whole time. He will often yell from his room, Hey Mom and I will say what, and he will say I love you.
My other child does not need the constant touching that Dave does. But there are times he will come and be near me and talk about things, but never, I need some attention from my Mom. I just kind of figured it out.
While you can form a bond giving birth to the child. You can still form one with a child you did not give birth too.

bewildered

well, I for one have to agree with you. I was adopted at birth into a family that couldn't have kids. My mom was not a cuddly type mom EVER. I could probably count on 1 hand, the times I remember her hugging me throughout my entire life and I'm 45 now. They couldn't have kids but miraculously, when I was 2, my sister was born-their first of their bio kids, followed by another 2 years later and a brother when I was 16. There was definately a difference in the bond between me and parents vs. them and parents. I was the black sheep for sure. They (the family) always had different ideas of how things should be than I did too.
I have 2 kids of my own and I find that I have gone to the total opposite end of the spectrum from how I was raised. I hug and hold my kids way more than a lot of parents I see. My son eats it up but my daughter thinks I'm weird. And when I look at what is considered "normal" in other parent/child bonds, I am considerably excessive in my opinion. And that is because I really didn't know what that bond felt like I think. I have no real idea of what it is. I grew up in an environment void of it for the most part. Sometimes I wonder if my excessive clingyness to my kids is me trying to make up for what I didn't get as a kid?...
I met my bio mom and half bro for the first time in 2000. It was the first time in my life that I talked to anybody that I felt actually understood me and was on the same page as I was. It was soooooo erie for me to realize that I wasn't the only person on earth that thought and felt the way I did about most things. I finally found 2 people that were sooooo like me in soooo very many ways...it really freaked me out at first. I'm not weird or abnormal or anything in my thinking, it's just hard to explain... it was such a relief really. I could go on forever about this but you are right...at least with some of us adoptees anyway....

cathrl69

All kids are different. All mother-child bonds are different.

My 10 year old regularly comes for a hug and always has done. My 13 year old never does and never has done. I never did.

Don't assume that adoption is why you're not exactly like one particular bio kid. Bio kids are all different one from the other too.

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