I Needed Your Permission to Love Her

One thing I like about becoming more and more comfortable with talking about adoption with my adoptive mother is the adoption-related memories we are able to reminisce over and learn from now that I am an adult.  Lessons are learned throughout life and it can really help to sit down and review sometimes.  One memory we compared recently was her telling me of my conception circumstances.  It's good we talked about this.  For one, we both realized the need for this type of discussion in the adoption community.  Secondly, I was a little shocked that she had remembered something that I had forgotten.  This was something I had said to her that I was not self-aware enough at the time, perhaps, to know why I was asking.  My mom didn't miss it though; she never forgot about it either.  Readers might notice it too while reading along.


You already know my version of the story of being told my conception that I previously wrote about.  I said:

I clearly remember the day I found out about my conception circumstances. I was fourteen years old and about to deliver some type of pro-life debate at my Conservative Christian school, of course, using myself as an example of "choosing life" (I wasn't a feminist or an adoptee rights activist back then). Part of the "personal experience" I planned on using in the debate was the story I thought of how my original parents screwed up, got pregnant as teens, and how they "did the right thing" and gave me up for adoption. Up until that point, I assumed this was my story because of stereotypes. I had never been told about my biological father, probably because it wasn't age appropriate until that time, and because I never honestly cared about him. This sounds terrible and I don't know why this was but I was never concerned about who my father was. I was curious and concerned about my original mother and sometimes about one of my original aunts and maternal original grandmother. I hardly ever wondered about my paternal side.  This could be  explained by my connection with my original mom from pregnancy and birth, because my agency narrative centered around her, or  because I identify with her as a woman.  I simply don't know. 

At any rate, my adoptive mom, a devout Christian, couldn't bear me getting up there and telling this story I somehow made up and thought was true because she didn't want me to lie. She doesn't lie to me and didn't want me passing on a false story. So, she being the secretary at the school at the time, decided to tell me right before my speech/debate. 

There was not much I could do with that information at that point. I just blankly said "OK" and walked out of her office. I did not have time to be emotional or react because then people would have asked me what was wrong and I did not want to tell them. I quickly adjusted my speech by simply taking out anything where I might have mentioned "father" in it and went on about my day.  I remember asking myself "do you want to think about this now? Nope. Ok then." And I went on as if I had never been told.

My adoptive mother emailed me her recollection so that I could quote her for this blog:

"One day Amanda came rushing into my office and said 'mom, tell me how I was conceived.'  I don’t remember her exact words, but understood what she needed to know and was in a hurry for the information.  

I just gave her the quick version from the information I had.  I told her that it was a forced relationship and that her [original] mother was very young. 

Her response was, 'we like her don’t we?'  I said, 'yes, we do.  I think she was a very brave young woman.'  

That was about it, she ran off to her class and she never asked about anything more pertaining to her conception or adoption."

I was shocked when I got the email.  I said that, I thought to myself.  I really said that?


I am an adult adoptee who was adopted through closed, private, domestic, infant, same-race adoption in the 1980's.  I grew up with knowledge only of my adoptive parent's side of my adoption's overall narrative and a Swiss-cheese-at-best agency narrative for my origin's specifically.  I knew I was surrendered to adoption by a very young mother.  I knew a little bit of non-identifying sociodemographic information.  There were lots of holes in my narrative that left questions that I sought to fill.  It is hard to decide what is right to think and feel when your questions cannot really be answered in order to do so completely.  What was perhaps even harder for me was the fact that there were other people, my adoptive family, I loved involved.  I wanted what meaning and feelings I gave to my adoption, of course, never to hurt their feelings.


Not hurt anyone and come up with the right opinion with little-to-no information to do so with?  Now there's a tall order to fill.


Not that any order was assigned to me by anyone else, except perhaps the inquisitive people adoptees typically encounter who push and probe for more information the second they find out we are adopted, perhaps out of curiosity; perhaps out of the desire to learn.  I felt the need to make sense of my adoption; to give meaning to this very real, tangible yet intangible, mystery that surrounding my very existence on this earth.  


Needing permission to love my original mother was not something imposed on me or implied by anything my parents did or said.  It was very simply a rule I had made for myself.  I suppose it was the most logical choice at the time: to make a decision on how to feel by asking someone I trusted how they felt--the person who I most wanted to avoid upsetting.  If I felt how they felt, no one could get hurt by my feelings.  I did not recall voicing that out loud or asking so directly.  I remember now why I asked when I did, because I had decided to talk publicly about being adopted for my school where everyone would hear aloud what I thought.  I needed to know what was OK to think and I suppose, in that moment, I had been to timid about it to use the word "love."


I needed her permission to love her.


As a reunited adult adoptee, it is liberating to realize that I do not need anyone's permission to love my mother or any other human being on this planet.  It is empowering to know that my adoptive mother supports me too.