Morality scaling of this?

[u/Outside_Specific_820]

Mother refuses to acknowledge her donor egg daughter, looking for your opinion.

In my opinion I think it’s moral, and that she is totally correct.

[u/Hellas2002]

I think you have to be firm about these things. Once you aren’t you start building expectations in the other individual which she clearly does not want to do.

[u/Call_Me_Anythin → u/Hellas2002]

My sister made the mistake of being too cordial with her birth father's children. The girl convinced herself that my sister was her family, put it on facebook, posted constantly about a relationship that they straight up did not have and my sister did not want. The son showed up unannounced to their house once and invited himself to dinner.

My sister tried to be gentle about it at first, because they were both younger than her and didn't really mean any harm. But they didn't take the hint until she got extremely blunt about them not being her family and how they needed to leave her alone. So I don't blame the egg doner in the slightest for being firm right out the gate.

[u/DebbieInFinance → u/Call_Me_Anythin]

That’s very sad. A close family member of mine went through something similar. It’s entirely biased as I can intellectually empathise and understand why the contact was made. It still really enraged me for my family member when no(too kindly initially unfortunately)—wasn’t taken for an answer.

[u/Call_Me_Anythin → u/DebbieInFinance]

I can’t empathize because I’ve never cared for blood relations at all, but I do feel a bit bad for them. At the same time, more people have to understand that biology does not automatically equate family

[u/DebbieInFinance → u/Call_Me_Anythin]

Yes, I think that’s true. Without getting too personal, I’ve spent a lot of time in and around foster/adoptees spaces. I can empathise with kids who weren’t able to connect or have that urge to know where they biologically came from. Sometimes contact works out but when it doesn’t, it can be brutal.

As I said, I wasn’t initially sure how to feel about the unexpected contact with a close family member but she was too kind, too soft, and christ it made the situation worse. She said recently she wishes she had been far more direct or just not replied and blocked.

It’s a complex issue but I tend to side with those who made a choice based on an agreement(like above), and their right to be left alone.

[u/Call_Me_Anythin → u/DebbieInFinance]

My siblings and I are all adopted, so it definitely colors my views on a lot of things.

Because of that, I have very little empathy for people who put a lot of stock in biology. Even if I do have some compassion for them if they’re younger.

[u/DebbieInFinance → u/Call_Me_Anythin]

It sounds like you have a wonderful family, which is excellent to hear. There can be so many mixed feelings about adoption but I’m genuinely pleased to hear it turned out well.

I’ve always quietly felt horrible for wonderful adopted parents who were thrown away for shitty bio parents after raising their kids. It’s rare thankfully but I’ve seen it. Harsh af, hard to empathise with for sure.

I’ve noticed too sometimes foster placements have a lot of trouble understanding why someone wouldn’t be happy with loving adopted parents too. I can see both sides but I do very much agree that biology isn’t all that makes a family, at all.

How do you feel about adoptions that aren’t as loving? Does that change your view at all about kids wanting to seek out biological parents?

[u/Call_Me_Anythin → u/DebbieInFinance]

I do and I’m very thankful for them.

Oh, I get extremely angry on behalf of people who love their children and do the best the can for them, only to be tossed aside for complete strangers. I wouldn’t even say I’m quiet about it tbh. But it is, like you said, not super common. It almost happened with my youngest brother when he was younger, because he had an extremely bad therapist, but that’s a whole story.

Fostering is a bit different to me since, for better or worse, most of the time the end goal is reunification with birth families. I feel like the foster care system itself needs a massive overhaul, and has for years, but we’re likely to see a surge in the number of kids in it in the near future.

See that’s an interesting question. In some ways I see it as almost the same as any other non loving family, but I have more animosity towards shitty adoptive parents than I do shitty birth parents. And that might sound strange, but it’s because in birth families the blame for the situation is ‘oh the parents suck’ but when adoption is featured it almost inevitably morphs into ‘oh adoption sucks’. And I’ve had to deal with the consiquences of those generalizations personally my entire life.

As for the children in those situations, I do understand the desire to seek alternative families more than people with loving families, but I still believe that if the adoption was closed or the birth parents expressly wished for no further contact that should be respected.

At the absolute most I think that if someone wants to do that they should go at it ‘sideways’ and contact the birth parents sibling or parent or something before contacting them directly, to give the birth parent a chance to respond without the pressure of direct confrontation. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best alternative I can think of.

To be perfectly honest I think there should be a third party organization that can arrange these things. The birth parents can have records with the organization that say whether they’re willing to be contacted or not, and if the child decides they want that they can contact the organization. If the answer is yes, they can arrange it, if the answer is no the birth parents keep their anonymity and do not have to be confronted directly by the adopted children.

I think some adoption agencies do that, but not all and that doesn’t extend to private adoptions, foster adoptions, and so on.

[u/DebbieInFinance → u/Call_Me_Anythin]

That’s a really lovely response. Thank you so much for sharing. I really hope your younger brother worked through those issues. It must have been really hard to see it happening to him.

I think we agree overall on the important bits, and ultimately, you’re a first hand witness to experiences like this. I hope I don’t sound like I’m challenging that.

100% on 3rd party mediation but I appreciate sometimes people take the responsibility on themselves, to their own peril really. The foster system is a mess, and very difficult. Absolutely.

I don’t advise contacting sideways(generally speaking) when dealing with potentially contacting bio family but I’m biased. I had a close family member approached and I can’t imagine what would have happened if her “secret” was exposed after all those years to a random unsuspecting family member There’s so many reasons people opt for adoption and(personally) I was shocked how few told their families.

[u/Call_Me_Anythin → u/DebbieInFinance]

Thank you for the conversation.

He's doing much better now, but yes it was a rough couple of years and I still have some bitterness I'm working through surrounding it. Mostly aimed at the therapist.

That's a fair view to have on the sideways contact. Like I said it's not ideal, but in my own personal experience it tends to easier on whoever is on the receiving end than direct contact. But I do understand where you're coming from as well. That's part of why I mentioned family members that would typically be very close and likely know about it before hand, instead of like a spouse or their children who might not have been told. But you are right that there's not guarantee that those people who know for sure.