Is It Wrong To Deny A Child The Chance To Find Her Biological Parents?

Adoption is a beautiful way to build one’s family and bring love into the life of a child.

It’s also complicated and can be messy, and for the child involved, usually involves a whole lot of questions that never really go away.

OP and her husband adopted their daughter nearly a decade before in a closed adoption. Her birth parents were young, just out of high school, and the mother wanted what was best for her baby girl.

I (40 female) and my husband (42) have a daughter (9). She was adopted when she was born by myself and my husband and she knows she’s adopted.

Her biological mom was a very sweet 17 year old girl who wanted to give her the best life she could. I don’t know if her father knows she was ever born. (There was no drug issues or anything like that.)

Now, their daughter wants to contact her birth mother to ask some questions about her family for a school project, and OP’s knee-jerk reaction was ‘no.’

Recently, she had a school project where she was supposed to write about where she comes from. She is determined to find her biological mother and father to find out. I offered for her to write about our family instead.

My husband and I don’t want her reaching out to them.

The adoption was closed per my husband’s and I’s request.

The birth mother did give us her contact information in case our daughter ever wanted to find her.

She does have a letter from her birth mother explaining why she was adopted and that it wasn’t because she didn’t love her.

They didn’t want their daughter thinking of anyone else as her parents, but when they said as much to their daughter, she lashed out in anger.

We told her this and she’s upset saying we don’t understand and that she’ll always wonder about them. She said we’re being selfish and keeping her from finding out who she is. We obviously just want what’s best for her.

AITA?

After reading some replies OP reached out to the birth mother to ask some questions, but maintained that she did not want the two of them to speak or form a relationship.

I took some peoples advices and called the phone number I have. To my surprise she returned my voicemail.

So I did get her age wrong she was 18 when we adopted our daughter and is now 28. Not married and no additional children.

She did confirm the biological father does not know my daughter was born.

I let her know why I was calling but that I truly did not want them to have communication. I explained my reasoning and that we’re her parents and are only doing what we think is best. She let me know that when my daughter and I are ready she’ll be there to answer any questions.

I should also add her biological mother did offer to do an interview by sending a video answering my daughters questions or an email.

After reading some more replies, she did let the two of them speak.

We had a long conversation with our daughter last night about the reasons she’d like to talk to her biological mother and father. My husband and I had a long conversation after that.

Today we called her biological mother. They had a conversation over face time with our supervision. Our daughter did ask about her biological father and her biological mother did ask my husband and I if it was okay to talk about. She told our daughter his name but doesn’t know how to contact him. They were high school sweethearts and haven’t talked in a couple years.

I did promise my daughter we’d help find him. Maybe he’ll see this here. Our daughters name is Aubrey and we’re hoping she’ll find him.

Was she wrong and selfish to want to keep her daughter insulated and to want to cut the biological family out of her life entirely?

Let’s see what Reddit had to say that changed her mind!

The top comment pretty much said it all.