Unwanted Children

I came across this it appears to be a site maintained by an adoptee. She refers to herself in many places as an unwanted.

My experiences with adoption are not limited to wanting to become an adoptive parent. My first husband (whom we'll call B)was adopted as a child. He was initially placed in a foster home, but went home with his parents at two weeks of age. He knew that he had been adopted his entire life. His birth parents were teens and decided they were unable to properly care for a child. They provided a lot of information as well as gifts. This does not indicate to me that he was unwanted. He did not feel the same.

B blamed himself for his parents divorce, what kid doesn't, he would often say 'my real parents left me, my adoptive parents left me, you're going to leave me' he beat me to the leaving.

I frequent a lot of blogs written by parents who want so badly to have a child. I know several people personally who have adopted. If there is any child in the world that should feel loved and wanted it should be a child of adoption. Biologically speaking having a child can take almost no forethought. Not so with adoption. There are no adoption "accidents". Oops we adopted.

At the very least there are hundreds of papers to sign. Travel is often involved. Someone is writing a check somewhere along the way, and at the end of it all you have to raise your right hand and promise to be the parent forever and ever amen.

So, I guess I want to know where these very wanted children get the message that they are not wanted. Is it innate? Is it conveyed? Is it that they like so many other kids have parents that are human and cannot fully convey the love they have for their children?

If you asked me today if my parents loved me I could answer a thousand different ways. Yes. Period. I don't know. Who knows what is in anothers heart? What I do know is that there are times I felt loved, and times I did not feel it. I do know that my Dad worked about a thousand hours a week and didn't do the hands on parenting of the house. I know that my mom hands on parented seven kids who aren't in prison and for the most part are productive members of society. All of us have great potential. I would suspect that there were times that my dad would have rather been in our warm, loud, crazy home than on top of an oil derrick in the middle of a Wyoming winter. I know that my mom went to bed most nights alone. I know that I had breakfast everyday, a packed lunch when I wanted it and dinner around the table every night. I suppose that more care could have been taken in some matters, but also realize that my parents meant me no harm. I would say my parents love me the way they know how. My feeling it or not does not take it away.

I also know that being a parent is exhausting, whether it is one or eight. I've done both and both are hard. There are some kids I connect better with than others. Sometimes Princess and I are oil and water. Oedipus maybe, who knows. I also know that I don't understand why Radical is at times so emotional. I don't always know what to say to Big Boy when his MySpace emotican is blue or mad, or when he loses a robot fighting match, or when he wins one for that matter. I know that Lil Middle announces that he sometimes loves me and he sometimes doesn't. Big Girl is leaving for college on Thursday, I don't have a lot to say. Booger is the most giving of love and affection and also the most receiving.

You can feel love, you can feel the absence of love. Can you feel love that is not there? Can you not feel love that is there? That is the problem with feelings.