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I found this thread doing a google search but I hope some that have commented in the past might still read my post.
I am a child produced by rape. I am proud of who I am. And I know that God took a terrible thing that happened and allowed something good to come from it. Not being told the truth has completely destroyed my relationship with my adoptive family. My birth mother is severely disabled, was raped by a care giver and I was adopted by my aunt (birth mother’s sister). Obviously every situation is different and every child of rape will deal with things differently. I was already a stable person when I found out the truth; however, I feel it would have been less traumatic had I grown up knowing edited versions that progressively became more until I was allowed to know the amount of truth I asked to know. Granted my situation is a little different because my adoptive family did go as far as to not even tell me I was adopted. I hope known of you took the step of not telling a child they were adopted and/or that a birth parent was a family member, if any did here are some of the biggest reason I am resentful. One I was deprived of knowing my birth mother; she is severely disabled and has become a very enriching part of my life and family (I was almost 28 when I found out the truth). I grew up thinking that I did not have blood relations to family members that I am related to. My great-grandmother had tons of pictures and family history that was thrown away, had I known I would have made sure I got these items. I came from a family that had huge family reunions and my adoptive mother never took me because she was worried someone would tell me. My adoptive mother prevented me from seeing my great-grandmother before she died I feel because she was worried with her dementia she would tell me the truth. I had been close to my great-grandmother and my adoptive mother wouldn’t give me the address to her nursing home. There was a lot of tension between my adoptive mother and her mother (my grandmother) and sister (my aunt) so I had very little contact with them growing up.
The best advice I could give is raise your child to love themselves, believe in themselves, to know they are wanted and strongly loved by you. A child that has a strong sense of who they are will rebound fine to being told a horrible truth because they will know they are loved and supported. I loved the posts from birth mothers that remarked positively to having the baby. I am not ashamed of who I am; nor should any child of rape be. I do not feel I am in any way responsible for what my predatory sex offender biological father did. I know I am a blessing, I know my children are a blessing, and I know I am a blessing to my birth mother. Sadly I am the only family my birth mother has, the family has never had contact with her. I found out because of living in an open adoption state, assistance from amazing people, and investigating on my own, so had my adoptive mother had her way I never would have known. My adoptive mother treats this all like a dirty family secret, a child is always a blessing not a dirty family secret. My adoptive mother went as far as to tell me my birth mother is dead, which she is not. My adoptive mother told me they didn’t know who my father was, despite his name being published in a newspaper saying he had raped two severely disabled women resulting in pregnancies. I was denied having a cultural identity and my adoptive family is racist so I’m unsure why they adopted me. I never felt loved as a child and had I known the truth I believe I would have at least then understood why they didn’t love me. I had no way of knowing my medical history, sadly the only pieces I know on my biological father’s side are from court documents, but I do have a slight case of his disease. But the number one reason I should have been told the truth is that what if my biological father had found me, and I didn’t even know that he was a disturbed sex offender. He is currently incarcerated for raping an 11 year old girl and I hope he never lives to see a day outside of those bars. Being lied to all these years made me lose all respect for my adoptive mother, I feel betrayed, I feel cheated and she still refuses to acknowledge that I am the product of rape and have a relationship with my biological mother. I have not spoken to her in 1 ½ years.
Sometimes we think we are protecting people when we might actually be causing them more damage. For me it is important to know where I came from, only you know your child well enough to know whether they want to know or not.
Please feel free to PM me. I am now almost 30 and the mother of 4 children.
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08-07-2009, 10:50 PM
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