Hey there, wait a minute Mr Postman
In the afternoon session on the third
Prep Day we started to broach the thorny subject of “contact”.
The group seemed to go into the discussions rather polarised in their
attitudes. For us, the idea of an open adoption had been liberating
when it was first mentioned at the Open Evening and Orientation Day.
Rather that sort of honesty rather than having a deep, dark, dirty
secret hanging over the family. The sort of thing that Auntie Agatha
would let slip over Christmas dinner during the teenage years. Light
blue touch paper... Was it something that we were actively looking
forward to? No. Of course there would be baggage which went with that
and we’d just have to deal with those downs if we were to enjoy the
upside.
For others they clearly hadn’t
reached that point. They were still openly horrified at the idea of
spending time and energy on the evil birth parents for time
immemorial. After all, they were sufficiently bad people that they
had their child taken away in the first place... And what about all
those neglect and abuse horror stories? We shouldn’t be worrying
about how they felt. Did I mention before that our group was a little
feisty and had some strong opinions they weren’t afraid to voice?
So there was clearly an uphill struggle
for Maureen and Doreen to get the rest of the group at least partly
onside.
