[GingerR]

We adopted our son a little over a year ago. His birthmom was TPRed about 6 months prior to that. She's incarcerated, and he's been with us since 3 days old, straight from the hospital and is only 2 1/2 now, so he knows nothing of his situation obviously.

She recently sent a 3rd party (non-relative, former foster parent to another one of her children) Christmas presents to pass along to us to give to our son. It's my understanding that once a parent has been TPR'ed, they are not supposed to attempt any form of communication, including "gifts." Is that correct?

I'm just trying to understand what the law states before I respond to this 3rd party. Thanks for any insight.

[stevenstwin]

If your son is adopted and that is all finalized, then it is up to YOU and you alone to decide how much or how little contact you want. It certainly isn't against the law for her to try to send gifts (unless you have a restraining order against her and you'd need to prove some sort of threat or danger to get one), but you have the right to weigh all the variables to decide if it is in your son's interests to accept them or not.

Originally Posted by GingerR

We adopted our son a little over a year ago. His birthmom was TPRed about 6 months prior to that. She's incarcerated, and he's been with us since 3 days old, straight from the hospital and is only 2 1/2 now, so he knows nothing of his situation obviously.

She recently sent a 3rd party (non-relative, former foster parent to another one of her children) Christmas presents to pass along to us to give to our son. It's my understanding that once a parent has been TPR'ed, they are not supposed to attempt any form of communication, including "gifts." Is that correct?

I'm just trying to understand what the law states before I respond to this 3rd party. Thanks for any insight.

[mrstkg1]

As far as I know, it would not be against the law. It is completely up to your discretion how you handle this.

[DianeS]

Having your parental rights terminated is not the same thing as having a restraining order filed against you. All TPR means is that the woman is no longer related to your son. Her rights have gone from being a mother's rights, to being the same as any random person who happens to know your son.

Since your son is now adopted by you, whether or not you pass on that gift is up to you. You get to decide whether to accept it or not based on whether it is healthy for your son to receive a gift from his bio mom, or whether it isn't, and any other factors you think are important.

There aren't any laws governing the relationship between a child and a bio parent who no longer has parental rights - it's all up to you as the parent to set boundaries you feel are appropriate for your minor son. And once he is an adult, setting appropriate boundaries will be up to him.

Hang in there!

[Boulderbabe]

Like everybody else has said, there's no law prohibiting her from contacting you or sending gifts.

I think she's approached you in a really great way: she picked somebody nonthreatening, and she did something that really showed care for her/your son. I think this could be a great opportunity to build some limited openness with her that might really benefit your son. If it were me, I would take the presents and send a nice thank-you note with some pictures of your son. She might not be able to parent him, but clearly she loves him---and that's something worth respecting and treasuring for your son.

[CaddoRose]

I would definitely take it as a sign that she wants some kind of contact even if that only means that you accept her gift for your son. She gets the knowledge that he will have something she gave him even if he doesn't know. Depending on how you plan to handle his knowing about his adoption in the future, this is the perfect opportunity to provide his birthMom with a pic of him and a note of thanks unless you intend for him to never have any contact or knowledge of her. This does not mean that you are opening any windows of open adoption or the like. It simply means that you can value her for who she is and let her know your son is safe and healthy.

[GingerR]

Thanks for the legal input. My husband and I had attended a class led by a 15 year-old girl who'd been adopted from the sytem. She made the statement that once TPRed, birth parents are not allowed to attempt to contact their children until they're 18, or they can get into "really big" legal trouble. Perhaps she meant if they attempt to contact the child directly, behind their legal guardian's or adoptive parents' back.

I appreciate the opinions on how we should respond but we see it differently and will handle it accordingly.

[Boulderbabe]

Ginger,

It sounds like you want your son's adoption permanently closed. It's your decision to make, at least until he's 18. But let me give you a few things to chew on.

Adopted kids often believe that whatever you tell them about their birth parents is what you think about them. If you tell them their birth parents are trash, they'll think, "Wow. I am part of my birthparents, I'm surely like them. Maybe my parents think I'm trash, too." I've seen it with little kids, and I've seen it with my adult adopted cousins. Their adoptive parents' disdain for their birth families has caused them lifelong pain. My 43 year old cousin was on the phone with me tonight, telling me that he doesn't believe his mother really loves him---how could she, when she thinks his bmom is garbage?

It might not be safe for your son and his bmom to have any contact. My son doesn't have any contact with his bdad for just that reason. But I take great pains to stay in touch with his bmom by phone, and to send cards and pictures when I know where she is. I make sure I speak respectfully---even warmly--about his birthparents to him often. My son knows that his parents were drug addicts, and he knows his bdad was in jail. But he also knows that his bmom has pretty brown eyes and that she's really funny and smart, and that his bdad is tall and handsome and loved him very much.

Please, give some consideration to how you treat your son's bmom. It's not about her---it's about him. When you treat her with honor and respect, you're honoring and respecting the part of her that's in him.

[GingerR]

Boulderbabe, with all due respect, you CAN have a closed adoption AND say nice things about the bp's when those hard questions start to surface. I don't know why so many open adoption advocates assume that if you choose to have a little more privacy, and choose to put a little bit larger hedge of protection around your kids, that you a) Must be planning to tell them their bp's are "trash," and b), Be completely incapable of making the connection between the bp's and your child's own self-perception.

[Kristin7]

I think this is an excellent thread. I am very open to hearing all the opinions on this. I have just spent the last three years getting to the point of knowing that my nieces are now safe and will be adopted by me. Now the hard part starts..............

My girls are 2(she knows nothing of this family mess) and 9 and 11. These girls have had weekly contact for three years with their mom and now its coming to an end. one more visit to go.

So what do i do with contact afterwards? Sis is not healthy whatsoever. So continued visits in my opinion aren't healthy for them, yet stopping contact isnt' exactly healthy either in my opinion. So what do I do?

I love my sister very much and I talk very positively with the girls about her and their father....yet we also discuss the difficult issues as well. These girls were abused in all ways......

How do you go from weekly visits to no visits....how do you explain that? Maybe this needs to be a seperate thread. Sorry Ginger for posting here....if this is the wrong spot for this.

THoughts?

[Boulderbabe]

Ginger,

I understand that there are valid safety-related reasons to close an adoption. But to be honest, I have a hard time figuring out (for myself, even) how to say "well, we don't want to see your birthparents or even let you get a card from them" and then say "but they are fine and dandy people" at the same time.

If it's not a safety issue, I can't understand why taking presents or sending a picture is a big deal. The idea that this is about "privacy" is hard for me to handle. How much "privacy" can there be? My son's bmom is already in our lives, in the most intimate and meaningful way I can imagine. She's there whether or not I let her contact my son. Just freezing her out doesn't remove her from my son's heart, his self-perception, or his imagination. Personally, I think I'm better off letting him understand the reality--the good and the bad--than having him imagine that she's a wonderful goddess and that I'm the horrible person that is keeping them apart.

I guess what I'm saying is, Ginger, I don't think that totally excluding a child's birthmother, and threatening legal action against her for sending a Christmas present, is a neutral action. It's up to you to decide what you'll do, but seriously----I think this could really come back to bite you when your son is older.

Have you read Joyce Maguire Pavao's book "Family of Adoption"? It's a wonderful book, with lots of great advice about birthfamily/adoptive family relations.

[Boulderbabe]

Kristin,

I think there might be a lot of middle ground between weekly visits with an unsafe or traumatizing bmom, and no contact whatsoever. How about cards and letters (prescreened by you)? Quarterly supervised visits with boundaries around her actions put down in writing beforehand? Telephone calls, with bmom on speakerphone?

I know your situation is really complicated because this is an intrafamily adoption. What are you leaning toward, and what do you think would help the girls most?

[GingerR]

Boulderbabe, why don't you just drop it, OK? We did not threaten legal action against anyone nor were we planning to. I simply came here to find out if SHE was legally allowed to attempt contact post-TPR since I'd heard otherwise.

This wasn't supposed to turn into a lecture about how I should raise my son and why he's going to hate me if I don't agree with your point-of-view. My son almost died at the hands of his birthmom, so the fact that I still plan to muster warm words about her to help preserve his self-worth says it all.

Kristin, please discuss away! You are in a really tough position with the 9 and 11 year-old, but ultimately it will come down to asking yourself what is healthiest for them... perhaps there can be some middle ground there with your close supervision. Best of luck to you!

[Sooner]

boy this has been a difficult one for me too. My step daughters rights were terminated in July after a really hard process of trying to help her & her boyfriend be the parents they were just not able to be. They have made no effort to see Will for over a year, even prior to TPR. She dropped off some gifts at my in-laws for his bday in June. She hadn't spoken to them in well over a year at that point & has chosen to remove herself from our family. They are both on Cocaine. Bio Dad was even on the local news recently for selling stolen goods to under cover police & the guy with him had meth on him.

She did the same at Christmas. 11pm on Christmas night drops a battery powered 4 wheeler off in the front yard. No charger, no manuals, I think it is stolen personally but the rest of the family thinks we should just tell him it is from Santa & let him enjoy.

There is simply a lot of water under the bridge and it makes it very difficult for me to think any kind of positive thoughts toward them. Don't get me wrong I am very thankful that they were able to give birth to this wonderful gift that I have in my life & he is healthy. I can't thank them enough for that. We have had him since he was 2 weeks old, he thinks we are his parents but we plan to be very open with him about the adoption when he is old enough to process it & starts asking.

I just have to get through the anger I guess so that I can talk positively to him about his bmom when he is ready. She had brought more drama & difficulty into our lives over the years it is just hard. She abandoned this wonderful little boy. She has cussed me, hit me, lied to and about me & even attacked her father after he had neck surgery & flat out broken his heart. Life is much more peaceful without contact.

I have said for a long time I will not allow them to come & go from Will's life. If they want contact in the future they will have to prove to the adults in his life that they are committed to being a positive influence in his life before they will see him. He deserves that much.

So like I said I have to figure out how to get to a point of not being so angry when ever they decide to pop in.

Thanks for listening, didn't mean for this to get so long.

[hkolln]

Originally Posted by GingerR

Boulderbabe, with all due respect, you CAN have a closed adoption AND say nice things about the bp's when those hard questions start to surface.

I have to agree here. As adults and parents we have to realize what we say and do reflects directly on our kids and their feelings too. If you say terrible things about your child's bioparents then they will feel like trash. There is positive ways to handle this type of thing.

From day 1 we have made a conscious choice to let our daughter know her biomom and biodad made the wrong choices in regards to parenting her. That doesn't make them bad people but people that made the wrong choices. We are now taking over to protect her and keep her safe.

And we as parents have to decide what type of contact will occur after adoption. It's best to set boundaries and rules so everyone is aware of them. We did that in the beginning and so far it's going well. Only thing I'm finding is biomom has now lost contact with us. We have not received a card or letter from her since June but keep the PO box open just in case. She was supposed to call twice a year (one of those days was Xmas) and she never called on Xmas. We don't let Alexis know that is what we have setup. She has been so disappointed before it's just not right to let her be disappointed again. If biomom calls then fine but she knows how to reach out at this point in time and she has chosen not to in the past 6 months.

Maybe go to the adoptees area here on adoption.com and read how other adoptees feels.