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Originally Posted by EZ2Luv
I think all to many times Bmoms still envision their bchildren as babies/children and forget that they are all grown up with lives of their own. Even still that doesn't make that behavior acceptable.
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EZ2Luv, you are so right about this. Have you ever read any of Betty Jean Lifton's books? She's an adoptee and therapist who wrote some of the very first books on adoption and reunion. Anyway, she talks a lot about what she calls the "ghost kingdom". And she talks about how a lot of bmoms go thru life thinking of their relinquished children as eternal babies.
I am so grateful to my son's parents because they helped me with this issue. We all knew we were going to reunite when DS turned 18 years old, so his parents started sending me packets of photographs when he turned 14. They would send one packet at a time, focusing on certain ages. That way I got to see him grow up thru the photos. They sent the packets spaced quite a while between each other, so I would get used to the different ages and developmental stages DS went thru. The first packet was infancy thru age 4; the second was age 5 thru 7; etc. So I got used to seeing my son as being someone other than a little infant in my mind's eye. It really helped.
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Originally Posted by EZ2Luv
Also, remember that you are not reponsible for anyone elses happiness or emotional health. Whatever expectations your bmom came into the reuinion with are strictly hers to sort out.
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Total agree with EZ on this one. We can only own up to our own feelings and emotions. We are not responsible for anybody else's.