A Woman Told Her Teen Sister They're Adopted After Their Parents Refused To — Now They Cut Off Contact & She's Worried It Was A Mistake
Their birth mother wants to reenter their lives and she believes her sister has a right to know her.
Fiskes/Shutterstock/Canva Elements With over 50,000 children adopted every year in the United States, families are becoming more and more about relationships we build and less about biology. Still, most kids who are adopted want to know who their biological family is whether they intend to have a relationship or not.
One woman took to the subreddit, AITA (Am-I-The-A—hole), to ask readers if she was wrong for telling her younger sister that they both were adopted. She explained that she and her sister have the same birth parents but were placed in the foster care system when she was seven and her little sister, Elizabeth, was still an infant.
Her adoptive parents never told her little sister the truth about their origins.
According to her, the first foster parents they were placed with ended up adopting them and they joined the household with them and Georgia, her adopted parents’ only biological child, who was 10-years-old at the time. She explained that her adoptive parents wanted to “pretend” they were the trio’s biological mother and father.
The woman said, “I was confused and didn’t understand why, but eventually agreed. Georgia was more willing than I was.” She didn’t believe she and her two siblings bore any resemblance to her new parents outside of their hair colors, race, and ethnicity.
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Her parents had no close family and they all ended up moving cross country so that chances of their secret being exposed were little to none. So the siblings and their loving parents went on with life, staying close to each other.
Over time, it became clear to the Redditor that Elizabeth was the favorite child. She claims: “My mom at one point admitted they suffered from secondary unexplained infertility after Georgia. They only wanted a baby, but Elizabeth and I were 'advertised' as a packaged deal.” The woman has never once felt like she was treated poorly by her mom and dad but says she simply knows her place.
Now she is 23 and her younger sister, Elizabeth is 16 years old. The woman recently reconnected with her birth mother, Danielle, and had really enjoyed rebuilding the relationship. Her birth mom had overcome the substance abuse problems that caused her to lose custody of her children in the first place.
Elizabeth is still completely unaware that her parents adopted her as a baby.
Her biological mother is unable to contact her legally since the adoption was closed. Nevertheless, the poster believed that her little sister had a right to know where she came from.
“Eventually, I gave my adoptive parents an out. I said Elizabeth needed to be clued in. They refused. I said if they didn’t, I would. They didn’t believe me. I went through with it. Elizabeth was in shock and has really struggled. I feel for her,” she said, detailing how her stable family erupted into chaos.
Now her adoptive parents have cut off contact with her, though they still ‘allow’ Elizabeth to speak to her sister. Georgia is angry about the exposure as well and has limited her interactions with the woman. But she feels justified since she has given Danielle no information that would endanger her sister and never intended on introducing them before the girl is 18.
Regardless of her intentions, her relationships with her parents and older sister are a complicated mess. On one hand, it’s totally natural for a mother to want to ‘meet’ her biological children but on the other hand, she took steps to forfeit her rights and shouldn’t be entitled to turn her daughters’ lives upside down because she finally got her life together.
As for the poster, it’s understandable that she would long to see her mother again, especially since she was old enough to remember her. Hopefully, the woman doesn’t let her down again.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle and entertainment and news, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.