A woman wondered if she was wrong for not allowing her son’s ex-lover to meet their daughter after both parents decided they did not want to keep the baby. She turned to the internet for advice.A mother of an 11-year-old daughter and 33-year-old son turned to Reddit for advice on whether or not she should allow her son’s ex-lover to meet her daughter 11 years after she had said she didn’t want her.
Eleven years before the post, the woman’s son had gotten a woman named Erica pregnant. Neither Erica nor the woman’s son wanted to keep the baby, but since the woman and her husband had tried and failed to have more children, they decided they would raise the child as their own.For 11 years, the couple raised the daughter of their son and Erica as their own, never telling her they were not her birth parents and that her brother was her father. However, this all turned on its head when Erica changed her mind.
What Happened Between the Parents and Their Son
The woman shared that she and her husband did not have a good relationship with their son, as he had no interest in seeing or being around his daughter. However, they regularly texted and had phone calls with him.Although the woman and her husband paid Erica’s rent for two years while she was in college and helped her financially, they also had a strained relationship with her after she gave her child up to them.
One day, the couple’s son visited them. “He told us Erica had asked to see our daughter,” the woman recounted. While the woman’s husband had told Erica they might have allowed contact when she was pregnant, they didn’t feel it was appropriate then. This is when things went awry.
What Happened When the Woman Refused Erica’s Contact?
The woman and her husband decided that they would tell her when they felt their daughter was well enough to handle the news that her grandparents had adopted her from her father and his lover.However, with their daughter in therapy for anxiety, they decided it would not be the right time to drop that bombshell on her. The woman’s son thought she was being horrible to Erica.
Erica, who had since given birth to a boy who was two then, said she couldn’t imagine how the little girl would feel when she found out that her adoptive mother had been keeping a massive secret from her all these years.Erica’s parents, who the woman and her husband had known for 25 years and had been friends with when Erica fell pregnant the first time, refused contact with the couple and said they had “allowed” the adoption eleven years before.
The woman was confused at the reactions she received because they had been through something similar before. She revealed:
“Nobody had a problem [three] years ago when we went through this. Erica contacted us then, and we shot her down telling her that we weren’t comfortable until our daughter was an adult, but now suddenly everyone is losing their mind.”
Some people supported the woman, telling her she had every right to decide what was suitable for her daughter and when to tell her about the situation. Many said the woman was the girl’s mother for all intents and purposes, and those around her should accept it.
However, some users thought the woman was being unreasonable, not telling her daughter her true life story and denying the girl’s biological mother access, especially since they had implied she might have had contact when she was pregnant.Many said the woman’s daughter had as much right to know she was adopted as her biological mom had to request to meet her. Some advised that she tell her daughter what was happening and then find out if she would like to meet her biological mother.
Do you think the woman and her husband were right in not allowing their daughter to meet her biological mother? How would you have handled the situation if you were in their shoes?
Interfamily adoptions are not common, but they do happen. In the case above, the child’s grandparents adopted her, but in another family, the older brother wanted to adopt his little sister after his mother died and his father shut them out. Read the full story here.