039 – I’m An Adult, But They’re Acting Like Children

12/21/19 • 43 min

Mitch’s parents adopted his older brother, then him. Then they got a surprise addition to the family. They had a great life outside of Chicago, but Mitch did feel somewhat sidelined by the attention paid to his youngest sibling. He learned as a teen that not everyone in his family was supportive of adoptions, and his attempts at reunion have been a frustrating set of rejections.

The post 039 – I’m An Adult, But They’re Acting Like Children appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Mitch (00:03):

And I pulled up my shirt and I pointed to my belly button and I said, I don't know who this was attached to you do. You can look at yours and you know exactly who yours was attached to. I have never, in 45 years been in the same room as the woman that mine was attached to. I don't know who she is.

Damon (00:27):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show is Mitch who spoke with me from Chicago. He grew up in a rural area outside of the city, which can be great for a kid to be outdoors, but tough. When you're trying to make friends with the neighbors. Mitch grew up feeling like his adoption was just fine, but soon he realized that not everyone in his family truly believed that throughout his life he's been reminded of his position as an adoptee, from painful visits to the doctor's office, with his wife to hurtful comments by family members. Mitch has struggled to make connections with his biological family. And ultimately he just wishes people could own up to the past and face the present because he is here because of them. This is Mitch's journey, Mitch's parents adopted his older brother and they already knew that they would adopt again. So they made the arrangements. When they brought Mitch home, they didn't realize they were already adding a third baby to their family

Mitch (01:44):

as happened, um, with women who have had such difficulties that once in the act of parenting, it seems to help regulate whichever hormones were out of whack and causing the miscarriages. And so when they brought me home, I don't think they quite realize that my mom was pregnant. Um, I have a younger sister who was their biological child who has eight months younger than I am. Wow. So it was like the Irish twins. You know, my mom has joked about how people would give her just the dirtiest looks. And I'm like, what do you mean the dirtiest? Cause you had two kids. And she said, no, because you could tell that they weren't twins because they were obviously different sizes. And it was a look like you just couldn't keep your knees together for two minutes.

Damon (02:32):

she was being judged.

Mitch (02:34):

Oh wow. Yeah, there was a little bit of that.

Damon (02:37):

The family moved out to what was at the time, a rural part of Illinois. He grew up on a huge plot of acres of land, which is a great environment for exploration, but lonely. When it comes to having friends your age,

Mitch (02:50):

I grew up on five acres with hundreds of trees and a pond. Um, it was absolutely bucolic and we had horses and motorcycles and snowmobiles and you know, you walk outside and...

The post 039 – I’m An Adult, But They’re Acting Like Children appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Mitch (00:03):

Damon (00:27):

Mitch (01:44):

Damon (02:32):

she was being judged.

Mitch (02:34):

Oh wow. Yeah, there was a little bit of that.

Damon (02:37):

Mitch (02:50):

I grew up on five acres with hundreds of trees and a pond. Um, it was absolutely bucolic and we had horses and motorcycles and snowmobiles and you know, you walk outside and...

Previous Episode

027 – I Got A Picture Of My Mother’s Sadness Though Other People

As a kid, Rebecca was considered quirky. Unbeknownst to her, that quirkiness was an after effect of fetal alcohol syndrome. She tells the story of learning her birth mother’s lonely and troubled past, and the closure she finally got after she learned of her mother’s death.

The post 027 – I Got A Picture Of My Mother’s Sadness Though Other People appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Rebecca (00:03):

I went to bed that night and I woke up and I went back to the picture and I'm like, Oh my God. I was like, that's exactly how I looked in high school.

Voices (00:16):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:28):

This is Who Am I Really, a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show you'll hear the story of Rebecca. She's one of my people from Columbia, Maryland. She went to a rival high school Centennial, but that's okay. Everyone knows Wilde Lake is the best. Rebecca's parents told her very early that she was adopted and she loved it. As a kid, Rebecca was considered quirky. Unbeknownst to her, that quirkiness was an aftereffect of the alcoholism that plagued her mother's life. She tells her story of learning her birth mother's lonely and troubled past and the closure she finally got after she learned of her mother's death and her quest to find answers about her paternal side of the family. Rebecca was adopted as an infant and she lauds her adoption as a positive experience with her family. But she had challenges with her brother, her parents' biological son. And he admitted his feelings about Rebecca the night before her big day.

Rebecca (01:34):

I was adopted at one month old, so my parents told me, I think when I was five or six, like as young as I could understand and um, they didn't hide it from me and it was.. I mean I always felt like I belonged to them. I never felt different. Like I, I had written that I was quirky, but that turned out to be something totally different. So, um, it was cool. Like I loved it cause I loved the attention. Like my mom would tell the, you know, how they adopted me to her friends when they would go out and I just, it was awesome. And like nobody ever, from what I remember, nobody ever looked at my parents like, Oh poor you, you know, you had to go the adoption route. It was a very positive experience. My brother was biological and he was four years older than me.

Damon (02:26):

He was biological to them?

Rebecca (02:28):

Yeah, yup. So him and I constantly butted heads. I don't know. I think part of that's because my parents, after they had him, they had a daughter and she passed away at a week old due to being a preemie. So, um, that's why they looked into adoption after that. So I think my brother felt a little like I replaced her, which I get. I get it.

Damon (02:55):

Yeah.

Rebecca (02:55):

I had asked him at one point, the night before my wedding actually, I had asked him if he ever resented me and he said there were times when he did. So I got it. I mean it's...

Next Episode

062 – One Month Of Bonding Helped Me With A Lifetime In Adoption

Tim was adopted into a Lutheran family and his curiosity about his roots started when he was very young. When he met his biological mother, she portrayed her husband as Tim’s father, but the truth came out when her daughters suggested a different version of the truth. It wasn’t until Tim’s early 70’s that he made paternal links and solved the mysteries of his life

Read Full TranscriptTim: 00:01 So they were staying with me and then they brought me along to the convention, into the Party afterwards and brought me to the party and these are old friends of theirs saying, well, who is this? Who is this? And again, they played the kind of joke routine, oh, he’s the, he’s relative doesn’t he, look like us, don’t you think he looks like us then. And then there was a lot of laughter and that crossed the line. That was one of the lower points of this whole thing for me.

Intro voices: 00:36 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:48 Who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis, and on today’s show you’re going to be Tim who called me from Brooklyn, New York. I asked him if he was a native New Yorker and he said, no, I’ve only been here 50 years. He was born and raised in Minnesota. You’ll hear him describe a life where he was allowed to bond with his birth mother early, which he feels made a huge difference in his adoption. Later. His faith, which he followed a long way, turned out to be quite different from his heritage. Tim shares how his birth mother first didn’t want to meet, but was convinced to do so by Tim’s father or so he thought many decades later, Tim searches over as he’s found the missing pieces in his seventies. This is Tim’s journey....Tim was born in St Paul, Minnesota in 1944 at booth memorial hospital run by the Salvation Army in connection with a home for unwed mothers.

Tim: 01:50 I like to say I think it was significant that my birth mother kept me for a little over a month. I don’t know if that was a policy back then, but uh, I look back and think... I’m not a bitter person. I think the fact that she. She nursed me and she kept me for a little over a month. I think that... That helped in this whole adoption process.

Damon: 02:15 What did you mean by that?

Tim: 02:18 I’ve read a couple books. “Primal Wound” being a being a pretty significant book and it just feels to me like I had that connection. I had that bonding with, uh, with my mother, with my birth mother and as a primal wound refers to the sounds and the smells and all that of the woman whose body you were in for nine months. But I... that remained for at least a month, a little longer than a month. I think it might’ve even been the policy at the salvation army back then. I’m not sure, but she kept me there at the home for four or five or six weeks. And so to me it feels like that helped. Uh, I think then I’m sure there was a trauma who really knows, but when I left that and was placed in basically an orphanage for five or six months, um, I’m sure that was traumatic on some level, but at least I had that one month of uh affection and closeness and bonding that I could relate to. And then, and from what I can figure, of course, who knows when we’re that young. But, uh, when I was adopted by my adoptive parents, I seem to cling to my adoptive mother affectionately for actually the rest of my life.

Damon: 03:57 What you’ve said is really interesting. You’re probably right if you were born and bonded to your mother for a month and then you know, separated when she left you to be adopted, the next person that you would have gotten a hold of with your tiny little baby hands would be somebody that you cling to. That’s really interesting.

Tim: 04:23 I mean I just have a vivid memory as does my adopted mother of me just being beyond affectionate with her her whole life.

Damon: 04:33 After that first month of bonding, Tim’s mother transferred him to Lutheran social services where he stayed for five or six months. At some point, he developed either measles or mumps, which held up his adoption. Then he was placed with his family. Tim’s adoptive mother had been a social worker at the very agency through which he was adopted. He figures that professional experience made her particularly sensitive to the needs of adoptees. She quit the social work job five years before bringing him home. After adopting their first daughter, his older sister, he was placed in 1945, but since then he’s found out that he was officially adopted in 1949, asking others about the fiv...