- A Question of Trust
- Intro: The Birth of a Blog
- You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance: Part I
- Bad Romance, Part II: The Couch
- Bastard Package #1
- Hallelujah
- Born This Way
- Baby Girl X
- Another Victim of Love
- True Life
- The Girls Who Went Away
- Love and Other Drugs
- 11 Things Adoptees Love to Hear
- Uh, Never Mind
- Adoptee Kid Lit
- Bastard Princess and the Search for the Holy Grail
- MYOFB
- Awkwardness
- Baby Steps
- Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
- Special Delivery
- Green-eyed Monster
- !@#$
- Pandora
- Fantasyland
- Adoptees You May Have Heard Of
- Big MAC Attack
- Material Girl
- VISA and Mastercard Accepted
- Don't Hold Your Breath
- Our Love is Like a Constipated Cat
- A Question of Trust
- Adoption, Hollywood Style
- All in the Family
Fantasyland
From what I’ve recently learned in my research, almost all adoptees who haven’t yet reunited with their biofamily have created some kind of private fantasy about them. Some are hopeful, others pessimistic. They serve the necessary function of helping us process our feelings about our sketchy origins. Even nonadopted people fantasize about having a family other than their own—you’re probably guilty, too.
My favorite: That my beautiful, brilliant teenaged biomom returned to her upper-middle-class home, went on to complete college, married a wonderful, caring, and intelligent man, and has a successful career, and a wonderful family, which includes a handful of open-minded, welcoming half-siblings for me. And a highly lucrative family business breeding, training, and showing horses. Or maybe my biodad came back to make amends with her, and they ended up living happily ever after and are searching for me to complete their family portrait.
I’m currently rereading The Girls Who Went Away, a collection of interviews with young women who, umarried and pregnant, were forced into exile during the preabortion era to have their babies in distant maternity homes. They were then forced to give up those babies for adoption. Most of the interviewees are very articulate and thoughtful and still suffering the effects of those losses. Most of them seem to have welcomed or sought contact with the grown-up babies taken from them so long ago. Lately I’ve been hoping that my biomom is as well-spoken and in touch with her feelings as most of the women quoted in the book.
Several years ago, I met a woman at work who couldn’t get over how strongly I resembled her gynecologist’s daughters. That got me thinking…northern Illinois—close to the Wisconsin border… my interest in medicine, especially women’s health… but… what were the odds? If their daughters had been interested in horses, I’d have really obsessed. But why couldn’t my biological father have gone on to complete medical school and given me some half sisters? Not impossible.
The B side of that fantasy is more sordid. In it, my biomom is an ignorant, toothless WalMartian--collecting welfare, swilling lukewarm Redbull and chainsmoking in a double-wide on the wrong side of the tracks. Which means that, if she’d kept me, I would have had a very different life—then and now. Who or what would I be today? Would I have ended up in the same cycle of teen motherhood? Adoptees are vulnerable to repeating their history. At the very least, I can only assume that my teeth would still be crooked and I likely wouldn’t have a postgraduate degree. Why is this version of my potential origins so dark? I need to prepare myself for the worst; better to be pleasantly surprised than terribly disappointed. A family reunion at a monster-truck rally or barehanded catfishing party would simply sap my will to live.
If I did find my biomom to be from a completely different walk of life, I obviously wouldn’t have much superficially in common with her or be able to tolerate or relate to her for long. Frankly, our incongruence would spook me, especially at a time when I’d be desperate to see similarities. It’s taken me over 40 years to figure out who I really am—I don’t need someone I’d never otherwise associate with giving me yet another inferiority complex. As shallow as it sounds, that would make it harder to want to keep in touch with her, maybe even provide me with an escape hatch from a prickly situation (it happens). It would probably also color my reaction to her at our initial meeting. I hope I’d at least be able to hide my disappointment well enough to not offend her and give her a chance to get to know me, too, since she’d probably be dealing with some insecurities of her own. We’ll see if I ever get the opportunity.
My favorite: That my beautiful, brilliant teenaged biomom returned to her upper-middle-class home, went on to complete college, married a wonderful, caring, and intelligent man, and has a successful career, and a wonderful family, which includes a handful of open-minded, welcoming half-siblings for me. And a highly lucrative family business breeding, training, and showing horses. Or maybe my biodad came back to make amends with her, and they ended up living happily ever after and are searching for me to complete their family portrait.
I’m currently rereading The Girls Who Went Away, a collection of interviews with young women who, umarried and pregnant, were forced into exile during the preabortion era to have their babies in distant maternity homes. They were then forced to give up those babies for adoption. Most of the interviewees are very articulate and thoughtful and still suffering the effects of those losses. Most of them seem to have welcomed or sought contact with the grown-up babies taken from them so long ago. Lately I’ve been hoping that my biomom is as well-spoken and in touch with her feelings as most of the women quoted in the book.
Several years ago, I met a woman at work who couldn’t get over how strongly I resembled her gynecologist’s daughters. That got me thinking…northern Illinois—close to the Wisconsin border… my interest in medicine, especially women’s health… but… what were the odds? If their daughters had been interested in horses, I’d have really obsessed. But why couldn’t my biological father have gone on to complete medical school and given me some half sisters? Not impossible.
The B side of that fantasy is more sordid. In it, my biomom is an ignorant, toothless WalMartian--collecting welfare, swilling lukewarm Redbull and chainsmoking in a double-wide on the wrong side of the tracks. Which means that, if she’d kept me, I would have had a very different life—then and now. Who or what would I be today? Would I have ended up in the same cycle of teen motherhood? Adoptees are vulnerable to repeating their history. At the very least, I can only assume that my teeth would still be crooked and I likely wouldn’t have a postgraduate degree. Why is this version of my potential origins so dark? I need to prepare myself for the worst; better to be pleasantly surprised than terribly disappointed. A family reunion at a monster-truck rally or barehanded catfishing party would simply sap my will to live.
If I did find my biomom to be from a completely different walk of life, I obviously wouldn’t have much superficially in common with her or be able to tolerate or relate to her for long. Frankly, our incongruence would spook me, especially at a time when I’d be desperate to see similarities. It’s taken me over 40 years to figure out who I really am—I don’t need someone I’d never otherwise associate with giving me yet another inferiority complex. As shallow as it sounds, that would make it harder to want to keep in touch with her, maybe even provide me with an escape hatch from a prickly situation (it happens). It would probably also color my reaction to her at our initial meeting. I hope I’d at least be able to hide my disappointment well enough to not offend her and give her a chance to get to know me, too, since she’d probably be dealing with some insecurities of her own. We’ll see if I ever get the opportunity.