Natural parents of children who were adopted or in foster care? Also adoptees or former foster children?

If you are/were given opportunities for regular contacts with your child, would you make an effort to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays with your child?
Would you give them a gift, even a small inexpensive gift or even just a card?

If you were adopted or spent time in care, would you have liked your natural parents to celebrate your birthday with you when/if you had contact with them?
Additional Details
Just to clarify: If you did have contact with your parents/child during special occasions such as birthdays, would you have liked to celebrate/have them celebrated?
How would you feel if your birthday was ignored by your natural parents?

realmom lese

As a natural mother that was promised open adoption, I was supposed to be part of my child's celebrations. It was promised to me, and something I very much wanted to be a part of. Unfortunately, I believed that open adoptions were legal. The adoptive parents closed the adoption as soon as the contract was signed. I never had any openness, and it literally broke me inside.

If I had the opportunity to celebrate the milestones in my childs life, I would have actively participated and been honored to do so.

ask & I will answer

I'm adopted, and I love my adopted family, I relize that it is best this way, because i'm in a better home, but I see my real parents at christmas and my birthday and I love it, & kinda reasures me that they do love me, and that they're sorry they couldn't have me as a child, and i've got to know my real parents, and I love them to death.

so the answer is yes, i love celebrating my birthday with my real paretns!

kateiskate

As an adoptee I would have treasured being able to be able to spend my birthday with the person who gave me life.

I still would. That would mean more to me than any gift I could ever be given.

Randy B

For me, I had my parents there for my on birthdays and such. They were the parents that adopted me but they were and are my parents. As for anyone else, I never had them there, never missed them being there so I doubt it would have made a difference for me.

cantstopLinnyG

I would have loved having them there to celebrate with me. It would have been really nice to share my special occasions with ALL of my family together.

Being an adoptee from the closed BSE, I felt like my birthday WAS ignored by my natural parents. I now know that was not the case.

Leah

I have never met my parents and I don't know who they are. I would have loved it if I could have had contact with them, even if it was something small like birthdays etc. But I'm afraid to find them, because I'm afraid they won't love me.

Sly

I have done a lot of thinking about this, since my son was lost to adoption during the EMS/BSE and the concept of being around the periphery of his life growing up was so foreign to me that I couldn't quite get a grip on it. I can only equate it to non-custodial fathers. They want to be involved in all aspects of their children's lives, but as time goes by, and the children live with another man who fills their shoes, it is increasingly painful to watch and only be around and involved on the odd weekend. It is less painful to just sort of ease on out, I think. I cannot imagine the pain of a mother who is involved in a detached way with her child, watching it grow from the outside, seeing another woman taking her place. To me that seems the most exquisite form of torture imaginable. I can not imagine being in that position. I don't think that I could endure it. Trying to imagine myself in that place is just too painful.

Maureen

My sister adopted all of her children. She invited their birthparents to join in on family celebrations. Two of the birthmothers did attend birthday parties, graduations, first communions, etc. One of them attended so often that she almost felt like one of the extended family. I don't know whether they brought gifts or not...

The third child, the one who's birthparents did not want to be involved, went through some hard times dealing with that. She's an adult, now and, I think, has come to accept her birthparents for who they are, faults and all, and has come to simply appreciate the good that is in her life. But, I don't doubt that she still feels a little rejected from time to time.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: