First I have to say that I try not to say the words stupid (or hate) very often. They’re words that come out so easily, yet when I hear my daughter (or other children) use them, I cringe. So I wrote this post title with hesitation. However . . .
Last night I was having dinner with a good friend whose husband was adopted. In the course of our commiserating about husbands, my friend casually threw out that she knew her husband was an “adoptive pleaser”. I had never heard that term before but I immediately got the drift - it’s not a good thing to be an “adoptive pleaser”.
Was it a stupid thing to say to an adoptive mom, an insensivite thing to say to an adoptive mom, or am I over reacting? It went through me like a sharp knife.
My friend’s mother-in-law (her husband’s adoptive mother) recently passed away, and from all indications, she was a mean, angry, bitter person who treated everyone in her path with contempt. I can well understand that her husband has spent most of his life trying to recover – but would it be different if she had been his biological mother? Would less damage have been done? Would she have treated biological children differently?
When I googled “adoptive pleaser”, I could barely bring myself to read the results. I feel like this description, this idea, is somehow my daughter’s fate – according to some. One website which claims to be an Adoption Dictionary says that adoptees are often pleasers (and fixers!) because they fear being rejected by their adoptive family and “abandoned” once more.
I don’t know if I’m living in denial about the depth of feelings regarding abandonment that adoptees have, or if these are sweeping generalizations that simply can’t apply to every adoptee or adoptive family.
I can say that Vintage Girl shows no signs of being a “pleaser” in any negative way. She’s proud when she does something well, but I see her taking her own path with great confidence and often not caring what “everyone else” is doing.
So although I’ll now have this worry permanently planted in my brain – and my heart – I do feel better now for venting and I welcome your thoughts.
June 10th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (4)