In this week's column, an adoptive parent writes in regarding her adult daughter, who she feels betrayed her by establishing a relationship with her birth mom. She asks: "How do I get my daughter to cut off her birth mom?" https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/04/ew-kids-gross-care-and-feeding.html

"betrayed" is her word, btw: "I never expected to feel betrayed by my own daughter."

(adoptees, birth/first parents, this one is a doozy; please take care when you read)

Notice that the letter writer claims her daughter never experienced any adoption-related loss; never cared at all about her birth parents. Of course it's clear why she wants to believe this was true & would always remain true.

A social worker I spoke with noted, "parents are never expected to choose which child to love" (!!), yet adoptees are often pressured to make some kind of false, unfair choice between our birth and adoptive families & identities. I want to be clear: this is cruel.

As @shrinkthinks put it: “There can be more than one ‘real’ mother. You are real, and so is your child’s biological mother. There is room for both of you to be essential in your child’s life—and the more people that love and support her, the better.”

could have said this part to a lot of other LWs, tbh

"Our children, adopted or not, are neither our possessions nor our puppets, forever wanting precisely what we want for them and nothing more. Nor do they exist to affirm us, to make us feel good as their parents."

also in this week's column: an accidental mentor, a LW whose parents want them to travel abroad OR make their baby more...interactive? over zoom??, and someone who is horrified that their friend might be having a baby (it'll be fine) https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/04/ew-kids-gross-care-and-feeding.html

also it feels gauche to my mention my book in the advice column so I never do, even when I get the wildest questions about adoption, but if you'd like to read about my experience as a transracial Korean adoptee & my search for my birth family: https://bookshop.org/books/7308470/9781948226370

also we were so busy yelling about this adoptive parent we did not even talk about the LW who is already horrified by her friend's hypothetical kid! If you want to "express ambivalence" about your friend's baby, sorry, you gotta TELL SOMEONE ELSE, NOT HER https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/04/ew-kids-gross-care-and-feeding.html