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#3 — Give up the guilt.
When it comes to making decisions about growing your family, guilt is a useless emotion. Meddlers love to throw a little guilt into the mix to get you to do what they think you need to do. Don’t give them that power. Only you have the power to make yourself feel guilty.
I have had people try to guilt me into adding another child to my family. I have been told that my son will be spoiled, that he will be lonely, that he will never learn to share, and other equally incorrect assumptions. I could choose to feel guilty and second guess my decision, but I don’t. I choose not to give another person the power to make me feel guilty about the decisions I have made for my family.
#4 — Decide ahead of time what you want to keep private.
Before dealing with meddlers, it is important that you decide what information you want to share publicly and what information you want to keep private. Meddlers are masters in getting people to reveal more than they intend to share. Your life is none of anyone else’s business. You get to choose what is shared and what is not.
Some people love to grill me about my son’s birthmother. I don’t mind sharing some general information, but the specific details are my son’s business and nobody else’s. Often people are just curious, wanting to know things like if she had other children or her specific reasons for placing her baby for adoption. Whether or not my son has birthsiblings is an interesting tidbit to a meddler; it is HUGE information to my kid. If the answer is yes, that opens up the question of why she chose to parent his birthsibling(s) and placed him for adoption. It opens up the question of whether he wants to meet his birthsibling(s) when he is grown. This kind of information should not have the potential of being dropped into his life by a gossip.
The same holds true for why his birthmother chose to place him for adoption. There are many reasons why women make this grueling decision, and the reasons are none of anyone’s business. I shudder when I hear about a friend-of-a-friend who adopted a baby who was the product of rape. Why is that very personal information “out there” for anyone to hear? It only takes one big-mouthed person to drop a huge bomb into a child’s life. It is the adoptive parents’ place to decide when (or even if) to tell a child that he was conceived in this manner.
Before you share personal information about your life, think through the long-term consequences of having that information circulating. Be prepared to say, “That is private information” to anyone who crosses the line.
Comment from: johnrodergi [Member]
A recent author of Filipino origins, Augustus Ouano, has published a book entitled “Motivation and Opportunity”, supposedly as a tribute to his birth land and even promotes it with the advertisement of his concern for the “promise of future generations.” I was prompted to read it as a family member had just informed me that this author had just given his second wife the ultimatum of either 1) “giving back” or making other living arrangements for her adopted 15 year old son whom she has had since birth or 2)divorce. Apparently a loving woman with a long history of donating time and money to social programs, she turned her back on the security this man could offer and chose to stand by her child.I researched these facts, and, surely, she filed for divorce in the Pima County Superior Courthouse on October 6th. As a Filipino man, I am ashamed of the actions of Mr. Ouano. May God forgive you for placing the value of a free lifestyle above the feelings of an orphaned child from an impoverished country.
10/20/06 @ 16:48
I am confused about this comment, particularly this part of it:
In what way is my post encouraging a “free lifestyle above the feelings of an orphaned child from an impoverished country”? Was this comment intended for another blog?
- Faith