On this Fathers’ Day weekend, I’m thinking about two gentlemen in particular.
Our children have access to their birth mothers. We feel it’s what is best for them. And besides, we like Crystal and Michele. A lot.
The reasons we welcome Crystal and Michele in our lives:
- to alleviate the rumored Primal Wound of adoption
- to have access to medical information
- so that our children will never have to wonder
- so that our children will never have to search
- so that our children will never have to begin a relationship with someone who is both a stranger and yet intimately necessary to their lives.
All these reasons also stand for birth fathers, yet we have no contact with either.
Tessa’s birth father is, according to Crystal, a wild card. He can be incredibly sweet and sensitive, or extremely manipulative and angry. Through the agency, we have invited him to introduce himself to us through letters, which could progress to telephone calls and maybe even visits, as his personality and intentions become clear. We have yet to get a response.
Reed’s birth father is just absent. Michele let us know about two years ago that he wanted our email address, and we wait to hear from him. He has moved out of state and may not know how to begin a relationship with us.
Even though the idea of a birth father is much more abstract than a birth mother, our children have begun to ask about the two male names we include in our nightly prayers. I ask that we soon have either faces to go with the names, or the guidance to answer the questions.
(Update)
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Lori Holden, mom of a teen son and a teen daughter, blogs from Denver. Her book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, is available through your favorite online bookseller and makes a thoughtful anytime gift for the adoptive families in your life.
