As a birth mother whose birth daughter found her 24 years after she was born, I have a request to make, in behalf of those who are sought.

How can you ask the one you seek what SHE (or he) wants or needs from you? So many requests I am reading here say "This is what I want: to know who I am" or "to know about my medical history."

The birth daughter was advised by adoptee organizations of her "adoptee's rights." She broke several laws -- including cajoling someone to break into her county's archives and steal my name -- as well as lied to my friends and family about who she was, in order to find me.

Then, she acted as though it was a given that I knew all about my family medical history -- about which, in reality I know NOTHING. My family is highly secretive. I do not know anyone in my family as one human being to another, since the family refuses to open to one another as people; they are cardboard characters, posing as "perfect, beautiful people." What they don't like, they fix through various forms of cosmetics, including surgery.

Had she asked me what I needed and wanted from her, and given me the honor of what she was trying to "get" and "take" from me, we could have become real friends: namely, share of herself. But this, she refused to do. She hid behind a telephone, talking to her friends, when she was not grilling me about my genes, and laughing about my hair and voice qualities.

The whole experience was tacky and disrespectful and although I tried hard to wake her up to the fact that I was concerned about her, and open to a real relationship, I was soon glad to be rid of her and let her know there was no future, and not to contact me again. I felt like an object to be poked, questioned, and observed under a microscope. Had she handled things differently and been kinder to me, I believe this would not have occurred.

Elderberry

© 2003