Photo: Pexels / Anastasia Shuraeva
Why hasn't she told her yet?
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Nov 11, 2022
A mother on Reddit found herself in a tricky situation when her adopted daughter’s biological mother reached out to try and make contact with the daughter she couldn’t afford to keep.
Unsure of what to do, she decided to make a post on Reddit’s “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA) subreddit in order to ask for advice and see if she would be in the wrong for disallowing contact.
Her daughter is actually a child her son had with a family friend’s daughter.
At the very beginning of the post, she reveals that her 11-year-old daughter is the biological daughter of a woman she dubs “Erica,” who is now 29 years old.
“My son (33M) got ‘Erica’ pregnant, who we knew as a daughter of a friend and she decided she didn’t want the baby, my son didn’t want the baby either,” she wrote.
She claims that she and her husband had always wanted another baby, but were never able to conceive, so they offered to support Erica financially if she allowed them to adopt the baby as their own.
11 years later, the couple’s relationship with their son has soured because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with his daughter/sister, but he visits from time to time and texts.
Eventually, one day, he told them that Erica had asked to meet her daughter.
She wrote, “My husband had told her when she was pregnant that we MAY allow contact, but honestly we don’t think that’s best for our daughter at this stage.”
“It’ll be confusing and upsetting,” she continued, “I told her when our daughter is emotionally well enough we’ll tell her, but right now she’s going through therapy for anxiety.”
After refusing to let Erica meet her daughter, everyone turned against them.
“My son thinks I’m [the a--hole], Erica has a 2-year-old now and said she ‘couldn’t even imagine’ how our daughter will feel when she does find out that Erica has a family.”
Erica’s parents, whom they’ve known for over 25 years, are now refusing contact and badmouthing them to mutual friends.
“Nobody had a problem 3 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,” she explains.
She forgot to mention in the post that her daughter doesn’t know she’s adopted.
In order to get a little more context on the situation, someone asked in the comments “why don't you ask your daughter if she wants contact? It should be her decision.”
She replied, “Because at that stage I’d have to tell her she’s adopted, which I don’t want to do right now.”
Immediately, everyone criticized her for not telling her daughter that she was adopted as many people have pointed out, should have been old news for her.
“Originally was going to go with [No A--holes Here] until I read that your daughter doesn’t even know she’s adopted,” one user wrote. “That is an important fact that every adopted child should know from the beginning.”
“Talk this through with a therapist specializing in adoption,” one person wrote. “Reddit is not qualified for this. At a minimum take this to an adoption sub and not AITA.”
Considering the girl is already in therapy for anxiety, many suggested that she ask her therapist for advice on what to do, and since she hadn’t already told her daughter the truth, she was declared the “a--hole.”
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.