Meeting the In-Laws: Mother In Laws Are No Joke

The part of Michigan that Ash is from reminds me a great deal of the part of Ohio that my aunt's farm is in. The same not-quite flat terrain, the same country roads lined with the same houses and small farms. There were even lots of soybean fields, just like the ones that surround (and make up part of) my aunt's farm. I actually slept through a lot of the drive from MSU, and Ash woke me up with about 15 minutes to go so that I could de-groggify and run a brush through my hair.

I was especially nervous about meeting Ash's mother, not because she's a bad person, or anything like that, but because, well, there must be a reason why there are so many mother-in-law jokes, right? Ash places such a high value on his family relationships, and I really wanted to get our relationship off to a good start. I must admit that I'd planned my wardrobe very carefully, asking myself exactly which sweater says "This is a lovely woman who will make my son happy, and who we would be thrilled to have in our family". Those carefully planned outfits were scuttled by the very cold weather, so I was wearing the only warm sweater I'd brought, which meant I couldn't really obsess over it the way I would have had I had a choice of sweaters. So I obsessed over my hair instead, fussing over the minor flattening caused by the very cute red hat I'd been wearing for our walk around the MSU campus. And then we were turning onto a street and into a driveway and we were there and the herd of butterflies in my stomach took off en masse.

Ash's stepfather came out to meet us as we walked in the door, and we made small talk for a few minutes before Ash's mom came in and joined us. In a stroke of good timing, we'd arrived just after they both got home from work, and after a short bit of "hello, how are you, nice to meet you, how was the drive?", we all piled into the car and headed out to dinner.

The drive took me through part of the actual town and I got my first real look at Ash's hometown. It's a small town. A really small town. I can't really wrap my mind around the idea of living in a small town. I grew up in a city, I live in a city now, and even though I lived in a couple of small towns in Germany, they were so connected to the areas around them that they seemed like part of the nearby large cities. My cousins grew up in an even smaller town, and I remember when the cousin closest to me was in high school, she was very into "cruising". I was (and still am) utterly mystified as to how someone could be so excited about the idea of driving a half hour to the next larger town so that you could spend two or three hours slowly circling the same two blocks, sipping on milkshakes from the local Rax's. I cannot conceive of a high school class where it's actually feasible to know everyone-- there were about 700 students in my graduating class.

As we drove through town, Ash's mom and stepdad kept up a steady stream of chatter, telling stories about things that were happening in town, occasionally asking us questions, and I started to relax. I am terrible at small talk, and I cannot tell you what a relief it was not to have to slog my way through awkward silence and stilted conversation. I don't know if they were conscious of it, but I cannot begin to express how grateful I was that I could just kind of ease into the flow of the talk, joining the family talk naturally. We ate at one of those timeless family restaurants that you find all over the country, in small towns and big cities alike, where the decor, menu, and clientele remain unchanged over decades. Ash had been talking about fried chicken from this place for weeks before the trip, and the family style chicken dinner was the special of the day, so of course that's what we ordered, and we ate and talked our way through the rest of the daylight. Apparently his family has a long history of eating at this particular restaurant, and they've got lots of memories of family dinners there. I really liked the idea that I was in a place and sharing an experience that played a large role in Ash's own childhood experience, like getting a window into the boy he'd been and how he's come to be the wonderful man that he is now.

Then it was back home for Ash's birthday cake and big glasses of milk, sitting out in the sunroom, laughing at the story of how their neighbors' dog got stuck in their backyard after it wandered in when the lawn cutters came while Ash's mom and stepdad were on vacation, and accidentally got locked in. After the sitcom-worthy rescue mission staged by the neighbors, which involved an eight year old scaling the fence and boosting the very fat beagle over to her waiting mother, the dog is apparently afraid to come over now.

It's funny, because the more I was around Ash's stepdad, the more he reminded me of my own father. He has many of the same mannerisms, and makes many of the same corny jokes. He works hard in a factory job, putting in too many hours so that he can do nice things for the people he loves. He doesn't have the formal degrees or education or certifications, but when something breaks or goes wrong, he's the person they call to fix it, and he'll get it up and running, even if his methodology doesn't match what it says in the training manuals. And his mom, although utterly different in personality from my own mother, could have been part of my own family as well-- maybe another of my mother's sisters. In fact, if my mother had her druthers, I'd bet her house would look eerily similar to what Ash's mom has done with her own house-- except there would be rabbits everywhere instead of owls. And when we ended the evening watching "Deal or No Deal"-- which happens to be my own family's current obsession-- I felt like I'd wandered into a new branch of my own family.

We were, however, utterly shocked to find that we'd been put into the same room. I'd been warned-- and expected, honestly-- that we'd be sleeping in separate rooms. When we go to visit my parents, I assure you that will be the case. In fact, we'll be on separate floors, though that's actually due to the way the bedrooms are placed in the house, not so much to my parents' house rules. And I was perfectly okay with that, because first of all, when you are a guest in someone's home, you conduct yourself according to their house rules, and second, I'm a little weirded out by the idea of sort of... displaying our sexuality around relatives. I mean, it's not like we were announcing that we wanted to go off and do the nasty together, but sleeping in the same bed carries a certain assumption with it, you know? So I was a little weirded out by that, and I'm certain that I turned a rather deep shade of pink. I wonder if I'll feel the same way after we're married, especially at my parents' house. I mean, we'll be "legit" then, so really it shouldn't be a big deal, but I suspect that it will be.

The one thing I think I'd love about living in a small town is the silence. The constant noise of traffic and other people makes me uneasy, which is what I hated most about the place I lived with Hulio when we first moved to Our Fair City. My current place is mostly very quiet, though the occasional train or bus can be heard, and my downstairs neighbor occasionally plays Cher very, very loudly (thankfully only for a short time), while my upstairs neighbor walks like an elephant when she's home (thankfully not usually when I'm home). The utter silence of nighttime in the countryside was so restful and soothing, especially after the long work week I had just finished. I slept better than I had in days, feeling so very relieved that The Meeting, Version 1.0 had gone so much better than I'd dared hope. The Meeting, Version 2.0, was on the agenda for the next day, when we were scheduled to move on to Ash's dad's place.

Dirty Rotten Thieves

When my family arrived on Friday afternoon, I had a brand new, unopened bag of Milanos in my kitchen cabinet. Today, when I really, REALLY want a Milano? None in sight.

If I Might Be Serious For a Moment

This post is inspired by the comments to this post. And it’s going to be wishy-washy. I’m not likely to come to a proper conclusion. But it’s an interesting topic.

I remember when this referendum came up in Matt’s former home state. At that point, I was vehemently against it. You see, the secrecy requirement goes both ways. There are a number of birth parents whose parental rights were terminated for cause and others whose rights would have been terminated for cause had they not voluntarily surrendered those rights. And my birthmother is one of them.

How do I know this, what with all the secrecy and everything? Well, my sister is also my biological sister. And she tracked down our birthmother. There is a whole separate post possible for this topic, but the Cliff Notes version is that it was very traumatic for me in a way that I didn’t expect. You see, for me, my parents are the people who raised me. Period. I feel no particular tie to the people who contributed my DNA. I didn’t really care to meet either of them or find anything specific. I guess it’s because I never really felt like I was missing anything. Like I said, my parents are my parents. Period, end of story. Except that it’s not, when your sister is your sister is also your biological sister, and she feels like she’s missing something.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand adoptees who feel the way my sister did. And my (our) parents understood this, too. They never made us feel that searching for our biological parents would be a betrayal of our real parents. In fact, they were very open with us about being adopted and the always told us that, when the time came, they would do anything they could to help us search if we wanted to. So, it wasn’t a fear of hurting my parents that made me not want to meet my birth parents.

What upset me so much about the fact that my sister tracked down her (our) birthmother was that it took away my choice. By meeting my sister, she got to find out about me, whether I wanted her to or not. I felt so incredibly violated. Even now, 6 or 7 years later, I can remember the feeling of powerlessness so clearly that it makes my stomach roil. I had nightmares and anxiety attacks for months before and after the meeting (in which I did not take part. I still have not met our birthmother and do not plan to do so.).

And so, I think to myself, if I (who had nothing to “hide”) was so traumatized by being forced to meet my birthmother, however vicariously the meeting occurred, how horrible is it to expect a woman who gave up a baby for adoption, expecting to have her identity and location kept secret for whatever reason, to just up and reveal herself?

“But Katze!”, I hear you say, “What about getting your medical information? Surely this is so important that it justifies the invasion of the birth parents’ privacy!”

Well... I don’t know. Maybe.

I know that my PCP has a special sticker on my file, indicating that no family history is known and extra testing/screening is indicated. Knowing my genetic history might help to focus or even eliminate this extra screening. However, it might not. Forcing birth parents to file a medical history if the child they gave birth to requests it is not a very sensible solution, though. Putting aside issues of psychological damage or invasion of privacy, there are several downsides. There is no guarantee that the histories are accurate—and an inaccurate or incomplete medical history is just a useless as a blank one. The administration of the requirement would be burdensome on someone, probably the state. Who is going to pay for the costs of enforcement? Who will pay for the services of an investigator to find those biological parents who have moved or even left the state? What about people who give their baby up in a state that does not have such a requirement and then the child moves to a state that does have such a requirement? Can you imagine the number of court cases that would arise under such legislation? And guess who the burden of paying for the cost of those cases would fall to... that’s right, the state. Attorney fees aside, the state would need to pay the costs of maintaining the docket, paying the judges, the clerks, the bailiffs, the stenographers, etc., etc. And I think that it’s likely that, if the issue were pushed, the courts would eventually hold that, as in proceedings regarding the termination of parental rights, there is a right to court appointed (and state-paid) counsel.

And just in case anyone needs this to be pointed out, “the state” means “you” in the form of the taxes you pay.

Given the developments in technology, perhaps some kind of genetic testing would be preferable. Perhaps a test is (or will soon be) available that would be performed on the adoptee to see if there is a pre-disposition to certain diseases. Perhaps a test (such as is already performed on some parents whose families have a history of certain genetic diseases) would be done on the birthparents at the time of adoption (or at the time of the birth, just in case the birth parents decide not to show up for any future proceedings) and attached to the files at the adoption agency or to the birth certificate retained on record by the clerk of courts.

In our case, we were each given a 8 ½ x 11 page with a short summary of the known medical history at the time of our birth (“Your maternal grandmother was 61 years old at the time of your birth. She was diabetic, but otherwise healthy...” etc, etc). In my case, there was not much information because everyone was still quite young when I was born. In my sister’s case, there was a little more information on the maternal side, but nothing at all on the paternal side. As a child, my sister had numerous medical and mental health problems that defied diagnosis. We spent hours and hours in hospitals and doctors’ offices. There were psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors galore. Nothing seemed to help and no one seemed to be able to pinpoint a cause for her problems. My mother contacted the adoption agency that we came from (heh. Like the stork, but different...) to request an updated medical history and was shot down because she had no standing to make such a request. How crazy is that?

When my sister and parents started searching for our birthmother, they turned to just such a dual key registry as Matt proposes in his comment. My sister registered her name. If the birthmother also registered her name, the registry would notify both of them and they could be put in contact with each other. My parents also requested an updated medical history minus any identifying factors, should the birthmother not want to meet her or be contacted.

In meeting my(our) birthmother, we discovered almost nothing about family medical history, except that the birthmother had some problems verrrry similar to those my sister had. It turned out that between me and my sister, there was another sister who the birthmother kept. She came along for the visit (I have not met her either, but might consider it in the future, for reasons that I’ll come to in a moment). My sister met with the sister a few times after that and we learned some interesting things about the birthmother, including the fact that the birthmother eventually abandoned the other sister to be raised by her grandmother. We also learned that she tried to keep my sister, too, but was unable to care for her properly and eventually gave her up. There is some drama involving domestic violence and alcohol (or possibly drug use). In short, this woman’s parental rights would probably have been terminated eventually. I do not desire to have a relationship with her... so why should I have to?

And if I have a choice, why shouldn’t she?

You know how, at the end of a horror movie, you have the exhausted and bloodied heroes limping off into the sunrise after vanquishing the horrible monster to the pits of hell... and then the camera pans over to a shot of the hand of the supposedly vanquished monster breaking through the dirt on its grave, signaling that a sequel is in the offing?

Well, a few months after all of this happened, we got a call from the adoption agency. It seems that another “sibling” had contacted them, looking for information about his birth family and would we be willing to let him contact us? My sister agreed immediately, as did my parents (although he probably could have cared less about meeting them). My first reaction was to say no, for the same reasons that I didn’t want to meet the birthmother and the other sister. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the situations were not at all the same. This kid had no more choice about all of this than I. And if I’m going to stand here and say that I understand why other adoptees want to find their birth families, then I have to realize that it would be unnecessarily cruel to deny him the chance. So I agreed, on the conditions that a) he understand that I did not meet the birthmother, didn’t want to, and would not want to hear about her (should he meet her first) and b) we meet separately from my sister. I wanted him to meet me, not me and my family. I am very different from my family in some important ways and I wanted to make that clear.

One of the most common explanations that adoptees give for wanting to find their birth families is: “I just wanted to see someone who looks like me”. People who are not adopted generally take this for granted. You have your mother’s eyes or your father’s nose. Some people look eerily like a younger version of one parent or another. Or maybe you look like your grandmother did when she was your age. I never really felt this need. Maybe I’m strange or something, but there you have it. I don’t look like either of my parents, but I don’t look really dissimilar, either. If you didn’t know that I am adopted, you might think that I have my dad’s hair color and my mom’s body type. The eye color and skin tone might come from my mom’s dad.

Prior to meeting my “brother”, if I were forced to guess, I would have said that I probably look a lot like my birthmother. My sister and I have some very similar characteristics (although different hair, skin, and eye colors make us look more dissimilar than you might think), and we have different birth fathers. Plus, I know my birth father was blonde and had blue eyes, which is about as different from me as you can get. When I opened the front door to my apartment that night, I was floored. He looks exactly like me—except a lot taller. We have the same eyes—same shape, same color, same set. We have the same skin and hair color (ahem. That is, if I still had my natural hair color. Which I think I actually had at the time, for a change.) In taking that evening, it came out that we have similar medical issues with asthma and allergies. It was very, very strange for me to sit across the table from someone who looks exactly like me.

I disagree entirely with the premise that re-uniting adopted children and their birth families is desirable. It works in some cases. But in many cases, especially now, where the vast majority of domestic adoptions are older children—many of whom were involuntarily removed from the birthparents-- there are reasons why the birth parents were removed from the picture to begin with. And even beyond that, what happens to people who meet with differing expectations for the future? At the end of the evening, I told the “brother” that I didn’t expect us to start behaving like brother and sister, but that if he wanted to contact me again, I would like that, and if he never wanted to talk to me again, I would understand and would not be offended. But what if all I wanted was to meet once and he wanted to be my brother—with all that entails? What if, after being told “no”, he refused to take “no” for an answer?

It is my opinion that the current system, which in most states is one variant or another of the dual key system, while not perfect, is the best. This allows all parties to maintain their privacy if they so desire. After meeting with the “brother”, I allowed my name to be entered into the registry, but only for other siblings who had been adopted. We know that there is at least one more, but my mother suspects three more (based on her conversations with the other sister and the grandmother who raised her). So far, I haven’t been contacted by anyone else. I’m comfortable with being in the registry because I got to choose who could contact me and because I’ll be asked again if and when someone asks to contact me to see if I’m still willing to be contacted.

But, as with most of life, I may change my mind.