My birth mother shared my dark secret of the past I knew nothing about with me when I was thirty-something. For me, it was a good age to have my world turned upside down. I had been a mother for a decade, a foster mom and adoptive mom before learning any of this. I know after learning that my birth father messed with children sexually (birth mother’s wording), in my wording, he is a predator that raped children, and that I questioned my own parenting abilities.

As some would like us to think, the apple does not fall far from the tree or genetics which can make anyone stop and think. Could I do these horrible things? Was I a bomb waiting to go off? I am thankful that I was already a mom, before learning this, because I could fall back on the fact that I had been a great mom to my children and never once thought of harming them. I know that I would die before I let anyone harm them. I do occasionally wonder if I will wake up one day and be a different person.

I am glad I did not know my dark secret until later in life. I became the mother I am without second guessing how or if my past would ever affect me, or me being a mom. This is also why I have been sensitive to remarks some birth mothers and others have made about genetics, birth parents, etc. to me.

It is easy to make blanket statements because it makes you personally feel better about adoption but there is also someone else on the opposite side of the fence from where you stand. While you feel that genetics in your situations is a positive when taken into account, it may not be so for others involved in adoption. Every adoption story and experience is unique with very different problems, emotions and outcomes. There is not one type of mother (birth, biological, adoptive, step) in this world and each one mother parents in her own way. Not right or wrong just different.

Adoptees are not the same. We are all different with different experiences, beliefs, thoughts, and struggles. The idea that adoptees are similar, and that there seems to be some box that we must fit into, is just that - an unrealistic idea, not truth. If you do not fit in the box, then something is wrong with you. This in one area that I have struggled with since writing here.

For information/instructions on how to subscribe FREE to your favorite AdoptionBlogs, please visit this link.

More reading:

An Adoptee Living With a Secret of The Past

Should Adoptee's Know Their Dark Secrets?

Adoptees and Dark Secrets