ADOPTIVE PARENTS

I just love my adoptive parents. My natural mother gave me life but my adoptive parents taught me how to live. My mother was married to another man when they adopted me. That relationship did not work and ended in divorce. It was years later that my mother remarried to my step dad. He is my real dad in so many other ways than blood. I can't remember when my mother told me that I was adopted. I really didn't care for years. I was a kid who just had too many things going on in her life to worry about such details. My first A father remarried two weeks after the divorce was final. He even adopted that woman's daughter. That little girl's name was Amy. She was little Amy and I was big Amy. That situation was enough to screw with anyone's mind. That is another topic for another day.

My mom is insecure about me finding my adoptive family. You know what, though, I don't mind reassuring her that she will always be my mother. It is worth for her to feel safe. Yes at times her insecurity gets on my nerves but I have learned to accept it for what it is. I love her all the more for it.

My step dad is another story too that needs telling. My father was 27 years old when he met and later married my mother. She was 34 years of age with three kids. It takes a strong man to take on that responsibility. I guess for the most part he was a strong man. A couple of years after their marriage they had a child together. I remember one Christmas in particular. We barely had enough money. We weren't going to have a big one that year. Dad had gotten laid off from UPS. My first A father shows up in a 280Z. Back in those days that was a real fancy and expensive car. My dad is working on our old beatup VW super beatle. I believe he was replacing the brakes. My first A father says hello and walks up to the door. I watch my dad look at him and shake his head. You see, my first A father was a dentist but he couldn't afford his child support payments. That Christmas tree was the best for me. It was tall but the back was half dead. We just put the back of it toward the wall. We were careful with the lights. It turned out to be the best ever. I got my yearly supply of Barbie dolls, stuffed animals and my own loaf of bread. I loved bread passionately when I was a kid.

As time went on, my first A father stopped paying his child support. He even went as far as moving out of state to avoid paying it. Yet he was still paying child support for his other adopted kid. My mother did not have the heart to screw him over. By the time I am a freshman in high school. My dad steps up to the plate again. He is tired of watching his kids get disappointed by the this man over and over, of his not paying child support, and of him not visiting his kids. So he adopts all of us girls. I was the only one who gave written consent. I honestly thought that my first dad just didn't love me. After all he literally replaced me right. So I signed that consent form in front of a judge. It is still one of the proudest days of my life.

Now we have hard times. My dad drank when he went fulltime with UPS. He was also very abusive. I learned with help that he loved me for me and that he had wanted me for me. Our relationship was hard and rocky to the point of love and hate. One thing that I know from the depths of my heart I am his daughter and that he is proud of me no matter how badly I screw up. I also knew that he loved me passionately. Unfortunately I lost him over three years ago. His spirit lives on though through me and my sisters.

I have visited many adoption chatrooms. I have discovered that many people blame the adoptive parents for the adoption system. I am so angry about that one. Adoptive parents are not the problem. It is the adoption system. It is based on lies and secrets. Our adoptive parents jumped at the chance to have a child that they could love. It is not their fault that their bodies did not function properly. Ridiculing and humiliating them is the wrong way to handle things. God did bless them with us adoptees. Thank heavens for that. So if we are to get angry, all of us (adoption triad - adoptees, natural parents, and adoptive parents) should contact the people that put these horrible laws into place. OUR GOVERNMENT! ITS TIME WE CHANGE THE LAWS SO THAT THEY NO LONGER HURT US.