If you were abandoned by your family in foster care, would you ever want to have a relationship with those people later on in life? Or would you feel too hurt to manage?
This 20-year-old man was only two when his dad passed away, and he landed in foster care. His biological parents were no longer together, and his mom dumped him on his dad to raise all alone.
“She was the other woman, and my father was married at the time I was conceived. And when he didn’t want her, she didn’t want me, and neither did her family,” he explained.
“My father raised me for two years [before] he was killed in a car crash. At the time my mother was tracked down, and she still refused me, and so did all her family members. My father’s family [was] next, and they also refused to take me.”
“The reason they gave at the time was that my father’s other children would not want a relationship with them if they had anything to do with me. I was never adopted, and I bounced from foster family to foster family and had zero contact with any bio family.”
On a couple of occasions, he was informed of why he landed in foster care in the first place, but he was given different information.
Finally, he was sent to a group home for children with behavioral issues, and he had a tough time. When he turned 18, he aged out of the system and managed to receive a scholarship to go to college.
He requested his foster care file and got to see all of the notes about him. He also discovered through reading it that there were multiple attempts to place him with his biological family.
He saw the notes about how his dad’s parents were not willing to have a relationship with him for fear of losing out on their other grandkids.
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He also learned that his dad’s wife refused to let him see his half-siblings and that his half-siblings wanted nothing to do with him.
“Because of everything I read, I decided not to try and find or contact my bio family and just build a family for myself. Then, a few months ago, one of my bio aunts reached out, and she told me that she, her parents, and sisters wanted to get to know me,” he continued.
“I talked a little to her and then to the others as well. It was all reluctant on my part, but I heard them out and asked some questions.”
“They didn’t seem to regret letting me go completely at the time because it allowed for contact with them and my father’s other kids, but they wanted to know me as well.”
His half-siblings are still completely opposed to meeting him and even told his biological family that they’re hurting their bond by speaking to him in the first place.
He’s been slow to open up to his biological family, but they keep on trying to reach out to him. He’s doubting this is a good idea, because he doesn’t believe they deserve to be in his life, considering they dumped him in foster care, which was a nightmare for him.
He’s wondering what he should do because he’s about to tell his biological family to take a hike.
His family robbed him of having a normal, safe, loving childhood, so why do they get to drop in now and have a bond with him? He should stop speaking to them, because what is he getting out of this?
All of these people let him down, and he can easily keep on happily living his life without any of them in it.
What advice do you have for him?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
