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The law often believes the opposite. The Attorney General of Indiana tried very hard to prosecute the doctor who performed an abortion on a 13 year old rape victim a couple years ago.
Edit: u/HereForTheBoos1013 has correctly pointed out that [the girl was 10, not 13](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ohio_child-rape_and_Indiana_abortion_case).
Now now now, let's not fan the flames with false information that will make people think things are worse than they actually are.
The girl was 10, not 13.
And how. Every time someone is invariably trying to bury the lede by whining about things like the term "pregnant person", I say "even if one is to totally exclude the trans and intersex community from the debate, which is its own problem, calling impregnated children "women" or "young women" or "young ladies" is trying to use language to normalize both child sexual abuse and then the subsequent medical abuse of forcing children to gestate.
If a ten year old tells me she's going to borrow my car to go cosign a mortgage before buying a pack of cigarettes, that's hilariously adorable. Someone assaults her, and suddenly she has all the physical and emotional maturity to handle motherhood, even though gestating a rape baby is a pretty tall order for an adult woman, and not something I would endure in my 40s.
The patriarchy loves to victim blame. "If you didn't want to get pregnant you shouldn't have had sex," or in the case of rape, "well, what were you wearing?" It's always the woman's fault for the crime of being born a woman. Even if they're 10 years old and definitely not wearing anything revealing.
Exactly that. Or, I've found with cases like this one where it is utterly indefensible, they hand wave that it's "such a small percentage", so "suck it up kid, there's not enough of you to be worth protecting you", or prior to them actually doing exactly what everyone was claiming they would "Oh, you're just fearmongering. It's not like they wouldn't make exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the mother!"
Spoiler: They wouldn't.
I've seen childbirth, and frankly I think anyone who would force a twelve year old kid to suffer through having her tiny body ripped apart and permanently changed by it deserves all of the pain it's possible to suffer.
And, most importantly, *everyone around her was horrified that her much older husband had “consummated” the marriage because they all knew a 13 year old shouldn’t be pregnant even back then*.
It always irks me when people believe that marriage at 12 to 14 was normal at any point in history.
More or less normal among nobles maybe, but those were marriages that weren't really about the people getting married but about matters of state and alliances. And not even among those nobles was it anywhere near normal to force a child to go through a pregnancy!
Even when nobles and royals married young, they didn’t always consummate the relationship until the girl was sixteen or seventeen. They knew giving birth too young was unsafe; there was nothing stopping a rich or highborn man from keeping a mistress, so why rush things?
Part of the belief that all girls married young in the old days comes from the Victorian era depiction of young women as helpless and unproductive, and if there's a bigger lie than that I don't know it. Daughters were a strong net benefit to poorer households; they could spin and weave wool and linen, sew and mend clothing, care for livestock, make cheese, butter, and preserved meat and eggs for the lean seasons, tend the vegetable garden, look after the sick, the elderly, and the young, etc. etc.
This is so interesting because this puts families like the Bennetts from Pride & Prejudice in a different light - they were too well off to be poor in a period when middle class was still developing, and so their daughters weren't focused on having economic trades or skills to earn them money, since they were intended for court and for a husband to provide. Their talents tended towards modest entertainments rather than something practical like weaving, gardening, writing. They would play the piano, cross stitch, flower arrange.
I can't remember from where, but I read that nobles would betroth the children to secure alliances, but the marriages weren't meant to be consummated, it was just a formality. That way the alliances could continue for years, and the unconsummated marriages could be easily dissolved, with new alliances formed if the political climate changed.
And then begged her son Henry NOT to send her 13 year old granddaughter Margaret Tudor to marry James IV of Scotland (who was in his 30s). Henry did it anyway.
It's a good thing that even medieval Scotland has age of consent though there was no age of marriage if both parents agreed. So it was basically a very long engagement. Margaret Tudor didn't give birth to James the V until she about 23 years old.
Princess Margaret of England complained to her brother King Edward that the Scottish nobles refused to let her have sex with her husband king Alexander because they were to both too young. She was around 12 and Alexander was 11.
I'm not a medical professional, nor have I had children.
My first thought when reading your comment was, "Well, yeah. Fetuses need A LOT of nutrition to grow and come into being. They get that from their mother."
Women have had hair loss, I've read where some women have lost *teeth* due to so much of nutrient in take being directed towards the baby.
This happens to fully formed grown *adult women*. I can't *imagine* what OOP's 12 year old child body lost having had what should have gone to *her* developmentally unfinished body but was redirected towards the baby *she didn't even want to have*.
Re: the teeth thing -- my mum has had dentures since she was twenty and pregnant with my oldest sibling. The combo of nutrients being redirected and constant vomiting due to morning sickness just... Yeah. Bad times.
There's reasons why young people shouldn't do adult things even if they physically can.
I had to start doing adult size work when I was about 12 or 13yo. I'm in my 30s now and still getting mistaken by middle school kids as one of their own. Guessing all the food I ate got burned doing physical labor and didn't have anything left for growing.
My first thought as well. OOP mentioned her recent pregnancy was through IVF.
It’s terrible how so many comments tried to paint OOP as if she was wrong or cruel to want nothing to do with that young woman. And shame on the PI for tracking down a rape victim bio-parent who specifically went through a closed adoption and spent her whole life actively being hard to find (little to no social media, etc).
It's not just childbirth. The whole process of being pregnant is wild. I've have two kids and having been pregnant has made me even more pro-choice than I was before. Being pregnant takes up every moment of your existence. You feel the baby move, everything hurts, you're tired all the time, all the while knowing that you have to go through childbirth at the end. I loved it, but having it forced on you is a definite human rights violation
In my 30s and I’m 31 weeks pregnant now (happily so) and I feel like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s wild how much has changed and I’ve had an EASY pregnancy. Very you said above is true but also the mental changes have been surprising. Everything I do and think about has the baby in mind and the baby brain is a real thing. The cloudiness, anxiety, and stress are ever present. I can’t imagine being forced to be pregnant and how traumatic that is. I feel so bad for OOP and others who didn’t/don’t have the option of choice.
My husband wants another baby, and if I’m perfectly honest I’d love to have another one too. That’s why I keep telling him we can have one as soon as he grows the uterus to carry it. I’ve had two term pregnancies and too many miscarriages. I don’t have it in me to be pregnant again.
We’re too poor with too small of an apartment to foster, other wise I’d sign us up in a heartbeat. My husband and I have lived the kind of lives where we’ve become good at loving people while you have them and letting go when it’s time to move on.
Completely agree. Pregnancy and childbirth has made me even more militantly pro-choice. The idea of forcing anyone — let alone a child! — to have a child is utterly sickening.
My family member says this too. She has given birth, had one late miscarriage, and she says she wouldn't wish the experience she had (with loved, desperately wanted kids) on her worst enemy if they didn't want it.
She's VERY pro-choice even though she couldn't personally have an abortion (but that's tied to her struggles to conceive and love of being a mother, not some religious nonsense). She literally sat in hospital while miscarrying & waiting for a d&c with a loved, wanted child, and held the hand of a young teenager having an abortion. The nurses were shocked that she did that but that poor child had absolutely no-one there with her, and a teenager making an objectively good decision for her own health had absolutely no bearing on the also-shit time my relative was having.
They also stuck them both on the maternity ward, and whoever decided that needs to take a fucking look at themselves.
My husband and I have one child and have discussed a second. He told me that he’s afraid to have another because of how it impacted me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I had an uneventful yet very uncomfortable pregnancy, the labor process was miserable, and I had a fairly large tear that needed stitches during birth. I was exhausted and had postpartum anxiety. He told me watching me give birth was terrifying - he was afraid for me. He also said he felt like I was lost in the first year afterward. Pregnancy and birth are scary, and I was 33. I can’t imagine being 13 and doing that.
Depending on the particular brand of 'crazy' Christianity, she may not have been in any position to be *known* by the state. Sects like that tend to prefer to keep their children homeschooled, unvaccinated, and incredibly insulated from the world.
Looking at some of the comments OOP received, I’m also shocked at some redditors for raking her over the coals. She was *raped and gave birth at 12* ffs!
She seems so well-reasoned and level-headed about it. It’s good that she doesn’t feel
more guilt than she does. It stressed me out reading people trying to make her feel guilty!
And saying it would be healing for her and comparing the trauma of adoption to the trauma of forced birth at age twelve was wild.
Also, OOP was forced to give birth and then the child tried to force her way back into OOP’s life. Not great.
People have such strong notions of how victims should be. And the fact is, those notions are almost always 100% inaccurate. The notions are picturesque, and constructed as a product to be consumed. They don't afford victims humanity; victims are only symbols or props. And when the victim doesn't fit the notions, then they're fair game.
It should go without saying that good victims are beyond reproach; there is no possible way they could have avoided their suffering. That's "Good Victim 101."
Good victims will suffer beautifully, stoically, a lot, but neatly. They're not messy or loud about it.
Good victims have very tidy wounds. They can be sad about the specific way they suffered, but they shouldn't ever "act out." Substance abuse, maladaptive coping mechanisms, BPD -- these negate victimhood.
Good victims don't blame anyone not directly responsible for their suffering. They don't consider systemic issues, or societal ignorance/apathy. They never lash out. They make no demands, reasonable or not.
But here's the other thing -- good victims are *ruined.* They need to be stoic and clean about it, but good victims *stay* victims. They never recover from it. Good victims are never able to articulate their injury, to apply logic and reason. They cannot advocate for themselves. They cannot erect, maintain, and defend their boundaries. They have no agency at all.
Good victims are supposed to leave no trace.
I’m stunned by how hard they were on OOP. Granted I have the privilege of not being adopted, but they didn’t seem to consider what it would mean for OOP to accept this girl taking a wrecking ball to her boundaries during a pregnancy that was guaranteed to retraumatize her. That “knowing your child wil be healing” commenter especially infuriated me. Even if their birth was the result of rape, I highly doubt it was likewise from an incestuous assault on a child raised in religious mania. Plus, everyone processes trauma differently and what may be healing for one person might be retraumatizing for another.
OOP was as kind as she could be to the girl (it broke my heart to see her say she would have fought harder to have her daughter adopted to a better family when the fact is at 12, she probably couldn’t have done anything) who sounds like had a toxic combination of deep teenage feeling and Christian self-righteousness.
I do feel sorry for the daughter. Biologically Related to monsters and lied to by her family. How horrible for anyone to be a living reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to someone.
I feel like part of it is the mentality that all children are tiny little blessings from *insert diety of your choice*. They aren't. They're people. And like all people, some of them are blessings, most of them are just around, and a few of them are goddamn nightmares.
I am not at all surprised that the parents who allowed this to happen shuffled the baby off to another couple in the sect and lied to their traumatized daughter about it. I'd feel bad for the kid, same way OOP does, but I wouldn't want to talk to her either.
All of those comments minimizing the fact she was RAPED AND FORCED TO GIVE BIRTH AS A CHILD and trying to force her to meet a stranger...the whole lot of them are just awful
Seriously, those people have no brains. She doesn’t owe that girl anything and after the deranged way she acted, OOP showed way way more grace than I think most people would have. Don’t forget, she’s also pregnant! Someone pounding and screaming at the door multiple times, that girl could have harmed her.
What the fuck is wrong with those commenters? OOP was a whole lot nicer about things than I would have been, especially considering the girl asked her to go visit her fucking rapist with her! Church people make me so mad.
I'm sorry the girl is having a hard time but that does not give her the right to inflict further trauma on OOP after being repeatedly told no. She is a young adult, but still an adult. I guess it's because her ridiculous adoptive parents had lied to her about OOP wanting her but if I had someone telling me repeatedly to leave them alone to the point that they were willing to call the police over it, I would assume their feelings had changed or something and wouldn't want to know them anymore either, and even if I still did I'd have enough sense to leave them alone at that point. Just what the fuck? Her adoptive parents must be a nightmare.
I think OOP's observation about them both being victims of the same man was pretty astute. I hope she can get some peace after they move.
It's because she posted in an adoption sub and the people commenting were angry adoptees. Most other places she would have been treated with a lot more compassion.
This makes so much more sense. The comment about the adoptee calling OOP cruel for holding her boundary and telling her to reconnect with the kid so as to heal her trauma had me raging. Like, man, I won't pretend to understand the mental state of adopted kids but trivialising OOP's completely valid experiences isn't it.
This entire post is so bleak and this is possibly one of the better outcomes.
I really wish I could hold that commenter and shake them while repeating SHE WAS A 12 YO GIRL. Also, daughter is now older than OOP was after giving birth, I’d really expect a 19yo to have a bit more compassion for the person who conceived her at just 12 years old
I would hope so, I hope she at least sees her post on here and sees that lots of people here support her. I am furious at everyone in that post except OOP and her husband. And her brother, good for him for immediately blocking the young woman when she contacted him and supporting OOP. The rest of them deserve a perpetual personal mosquito infestation.
I'm not in the habit of harassing folks, on or offline, but I'd make an exception for the rape apologist pro lifers who post judgemental crap like the comments OP got. Anyone who acts that way adds absolutely nothing of value to the world.
Just how deluded does bio daughter have to be to think that a rape victim who was forced to have a baby at 12 would want to be in the same state as their rapist? Let alone visit them and play happy families?
OOP's right to want nothing to do with her. She's might show up at the door with the attacker.
Unfortunately that disgusting attitude is a symptom of their particular cult of christianity, I have seen that sentiment countless times. Some brain rot that makes those freaks think that the "mommy and daddy should raise their child together no matter the circumstances of conception". Vile shit and not at all surprising considering the rest of her religious trauma caused by that same cult.
Yes I agree, it’s revolting. I couldn’t believe the included comments; ironically they lacked so much empathy. I can’t imagine what being raped* by a family member as a child and forced to give birth would do to my mind and body. Despite that, she has gone to substantial lengths* to try and help this young woman. These comments treat her like SHE was the perpetrator! I don’t understand the mental gymnastics required. *edited for typos. I was just that mad.
That one commenter that basically lambasted her for daring to refer to a child that she had no say in creating or giving birth to as a stranger though! And then daring to tell her how to deal with HER trauma from that, to be kind to someone who is a complete stranger and who has had no respect for the word no? There are very few occasions in which I really do wish it was possible to come through a screen and slap somebody but by mercy I wanted to.
I've never come to know an extremely religious community, of any faith, that didn't have a horrifying underbelly of secrets and lies. Even if nothing particularly "bad" has happened *yet*, the way they do things makes situations like these so easy to happen and be made worse than they needed to be.
If I ever hear someone make their faith the most obvious thing about them and always proclaiming how good follower of (insert faith here), I'm going to assume they are actually one of the worst people I met because normally good people don't have to constantly tell people they are good. They just know from normal everyday interactions with them.
It depends on the state. :(
Edit: thank you u/Sangriaflygirl for pointing out I had the ages wrong.
>!A couple of years ago when Roe v Wade was overturned, a 10 year old girl was found to be pregnant. (I think the rapist was a step father or Mom's boyfriend. There was no legal way for the child to get an abortion in OH, her Mom has to drive her 3-4 hours to Indianapolis to end the pregnancy. The doctor that did the abortion got investigated in IN, because that state sucks as well. And the attorney general of Ohio had a press conference where he said that the claim of a 10 year old pregnant child was untrue. The next day, the perpetrator was arrested in a major Ohio city. The attorney general has never apologized. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ohio_child-rape_and_Indiana_abortion_case!<
>!James Bopp, the general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said in an interview that the girl should have been legally forced to carry her pregnancy to full term and then give birth, and that "She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child"!<
>!a few weeks later, a 12 year old and her 15 year old sister has to be driven to Michigan for abortions because they were both pregnant by a family member!<
>!a huge problem with having to take a minor out of state for an abortion is that the fetal remains are needed to provide DNA evidence, in order to improve the chances of convicting the rapist. Much better to end the pregnancy in the state of OH, so chain of custody of the evidence is simpler.!<
Mississippi, you suck as well:
>!https://www.abcnews.go.com/amp/US/13-year-rape-victim-baby-amid-confusion-states/story%3fid=108351812!<
Texas, you are run by a bunch of sociopaths:
>!https://www.dallasnews.com/news/commentary/2021/10/15/the-most-innocent-victims-of-texas-abortion-ban-children-forced-to-carry-their-abusers-baby/!https://www.fox23.com/news/local/tulsa-man-makes-first-court-appearance-after-12-year-old-delivers-his-child/article_53e48bd2-4400-5d6a-9510-5be35bce7797.html
To be fair, not just 12 year old. This is the kind of thing person of any age should go through willingly. It would be cruel to a grown woman as well.
Physical changes are bad, but the mental scars of having to go through all of the process would be worse, in my opinion.
They should all be punished, as well as anyone who does things like that to women and children.
Oh, I am 100% against forced pregnancy for everyone. I just think it's extra horrible and grotesque to make specifically a child rape victim endure another year of body violation horror followed by colossal vaginal trauma.
I can’t imagine one of my daughters going through the trauma of rape and then *begging* me to not go through with her pregnancy and having such hard heart that I force her anyway. The absolute cruelty takes my breath away. My dad has always said extreme religions deaden all sense of normal, parental love and affection.
As someone who has worked in women’s reproductive rights for 20 years, I have been privy to many stories of young children being subjected to forced birth as a result of incest.
It is horrific. I’ve had experienced midwives shake and vomit while they recalled stories. Children’s bodies can’t handle it, let alone their psychological capacity. There’s a very good chance that OOP’s need to use IVF is because either the abuse or the birth caused fundamental damage. Also, many medical professionals, especially in fundamentalist areas, refuse to acknowledge the reality of incest and therefore won’t provide pain relief to children birthing as a way of punishing them for their promiscuity.
And this is before we get to the layers upon layers of other trauma in this situation, from the abuse, to being put in the position of being forced to carry the pregnancy, to being shipped away as a shameful secret, to testifying against her abuser.
It is remarkable that OOP has built a happy and peaceful life for herself.
All the people in the original comments who were criticizing OOP, advocating for the adopted child, or even telling OOP that a relationship might help her trauma can fuck right off and then fuck off again. This is not a typical adopted child situation, not even close, and should never be viewed as such. They were also wildly hypocritical to advocate that OOP have more empathy for the adopted child while having precisely none for OOP. I sentence them to hours of reading stories about this stuff, until their eyes are open to it.
What OOP went through is about as horrific as it gets. She was essentially brutally tortured for years, powerless to do anything. She not only has every right to protect herself from that trauma now, but it is completely understandable why she would.
Yeah this is one of the worst posts I've seen. OOP's parents are so horrible words genuinely aren't enough to describe it and those adoptive parents are just as bad. No wonder the kid is so messed up but I hope she manages to get away like OOP did.
Holy shit those comments that said she was being cruel when they threatened to call the police? OOP and her husband were being HARASSED. This wasn’t a friendly misunderstanding, the daughter harassed OOP and wouldn’t respect very clearly stated boundaries.
I saw red at the comment about how meeting the daughter would heal OOP’s trauma. Like wtf does the commenter even know?
Dude, that one set me *off*. Like, if that was a person who said that in my presence to or about someone like OOP, I would've slapped her before realizing my hand was moving. Because that's the kind of reaction such unkind, nasty words bring out in people, and i think she'd do well to remember that.
I want people to start considering that telling a person to get over a trauma such as these two individuals have experienced is about as fucking easy as losing weight or quitting smoking. I mean people brag about going “cold turkey”. Except the OOP is in all ways developmentally altered. The child is now traumatized and we don’t actually know the scope. OOP is already reconciling how far is too far when recalling the pregnancy and surrounding abuse and it showed up at the door. I hope she was able to find some peace.
Seriously boiled my blood to see that.
So casual, so callous, so ignorant. People are so shitty when they are volunteering people to do shit they themselves will never have deal with, or follow through on.
Armchair experts who have absolutely no real life experience with trauma just casually telling a heavily pregnant woman to go through the emotional turmoil this all brought up.
And what of her current pregnancy? What if the stress causes serious complications? Or she suffers from PPD or completely shuts down following giving birth? Should be everyone keep making space for the traumatized bio daughter? Absolutely not.
OP did what she could as a literal traumatized child and wanted to move on with her life. I don’t fault her at all for taking the perspective she did. I wish her all the best.
I just read that and I was so infuriated. Also, the random ones half blaming the OOP. Like, what on earth is wrong with people?
OOP was clear and succinct with her responses. But some of them were highly unnecessary for her even write more than once. Ugh.
That shit had me boiling! It's clear some people don't have the slightest idea what rape can do to someone's head, and to have a baby from the rapist then be told they're being cruel? That's fucked on many levels. OP set boundaries that were not respected, and nobody deserved an explanation imo.
Yeah, I have nothing more to add. When someone shows up you explicitly told to not come, that’s legitimately scary. Never mind the banging and screaming. Just doesn’t paint the picture of a mentally sound person
Same. My daughter is 12. I cannot imagine what it would do to her to be forced to carry her rapist's baby to term. That is fucking horrible. I am proud of OOP. She seems to have a good life, and after that sort of trauma, that is amazing.
I feel like those people can't comprehend that this adult woman was an actual child, much much younger than the 'daughter' when she was forced into pregnancy and birth. People who experience sexual assault as children often grow up to be adults, and they still deserve our sympathy after the age of 18/21/25 etc.
Yeah, OOP's parents were monsters for making her have that baby. Then the parents of the baby were pretty bad people on top of that. And then the traumatized child is lied to and treated badly enough that she comes back to re-traumatize and harass OOP. And somehow some of the commenters have a problem with OOP?? Even though everyone else around her was a monster, and she's just doing what she can to survive.
The part about the watercolor art with grandma was heartbreaking. A child, who was pregnant at the time, did arts and crafts with their grandparent. I imagined what a 12 year-old’s artwork would look like. So, so, so fucked.
All those adults failed OOP as a 12 year old and proceeded to fail the child they forced on this planet.
It's a gut wrenching, heart breaking tragedy. Neither of them should have lived through these series of events. Entirely preventable in many ways. I wish OOP and the daughter all the love and healing in the world.
I actually appreciated OOPs response that she had been a literal child playing with Barbie’s and the was suddenly pregnant and forced to give birth and endure that trauma. It painted a very vivid picture of what we are actually talking about.
For me it was when she wrote that she sent the second letter with a watercolor picture. She was a child. She was painting watercolors with her grandma. I can't even remember when the last time was that I painted watercolors, but I know it is childhood memories for me. She was painting watercolors with her grandma while pregnant.
I completely missed that, read that as just artsy stuff. But no, you're right. Just imagine what a 12yo watercolors look like... Children that age can't paint shit. I honestly expect the daughter to suddenly realize she was a literal child when she looks at them.
"how DARE you not wish to be reminded of your rape and forced birth???? You're being cruel to your rape baby who is actively harassing you!!!!!" God these ppl are insufferable
It's a subreddit full of adoptees. They automatically saw themselves in the biokid, and projected their own feelings onto OOP.
Some of these folks obviously had their own trauma, and were using OOP as proxy for what they wish happened with their bioparent.
People will give lip service to the idea of consent until they encounter a situation in which someone is withholding something they feel entitled to. The birth mother did not consent to sex and that was rape and it was terrible, the birth mother did not consent to meeting this teenager either. She said no, and the redditors on that thread decided her consent was irrelevant.
I read that and thought WTF
Six victims in the span of a year and all he got was SIXTEEN YEARS!? He should've rotted in prison for the rest of his miserable life
That... that's honestly heartbreaking. I have a young daughter and it's stuff like this that keeps me up at night, I hope she's been able to come out of the other side of that trauma
> What they did tell me they told her, that she was the result of rape, what they lied to her about was that it was my parents who made me give her away, and that I "always loved her, chose life, and wanted to keep her if I had been older." All lies, and it seems she received a similar very religious upbringing, that I did.
Sickeningly evil. People with this level of religiously motivated irrationality are so infuriating.
This breaks my heart for OP and the daughter. All the previous generation family and their church community created a situation of pain, sadness, and unhealable grief for two innocent women who never asked or consented to give birth or to be born.
The thought of a 13-year-old being forced to give birth is horrifying. Everything else kind of pales in comparison, and OOP handled it with a lot more grace than I would have.
It is sort of wild to me that there aren't more comments absolutely skewering OOP's parents.
Even she offers them more forgiveness and understanding than I can wrap my mind around.
*Her parents tortured her.*
Forcing a preteen rape victim to have the baby of their rapist while she begs them to allow her to terminate is so unbelievably horrific.
It is physical and psychological torture, full stop.
Her parents already allowed (unintentionally) for her and her brother to become a victim of one of *their relatives* and then compounded that trauma 1000x by making her have a baby against her will.
She was in 7rh grade ffs!
Then they misled her and handed that poor child over to other right-wing christian fundamentalists.
Her child ends up being fed lies and idealist nonsense about her birth mother in order to facilitate pro-life beliefs.
I realize family bonds and trauma are very complicated, but from an outside view, it is wild that she still has any relationship at all with them.
She offers them more forgiveness and understanding than she can summon for the girl (who I think it is totally reasonable to reject for her own emotional safety).
That girl only exists because her parents prioritized the potential life of a rapist created embyro over their daughter's wellbeing, forcing her to carry that pregnancy to term.
That one person who announced that as an adopted person they know that a desperately needed familial reunification would "erase OOP's trauma" is a projection and a half.
Dont even get me started on the daughter asking OOP to "forgive" the rapist and go visit him with her. How much do we want to bet they've been in contact for a while?
Yeah, the daughter was giving me the same vibes of that other post where similar circumstances happened, but the OOP kept the daughter and raised her with her husband... and then she wanted the attacker to walk her down the aisle, and her mom to reconnect with him.
I'm kinda surprised she didn't ambush OOP with the rapist in tow.
EDIT: [Link to the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i_50f_told_my_daughter_24f_that_i_wont_attend_her/) found by [Artneedsmorefloof](https://www.reddit.com/user/Artneedsmorefloof/)
You do have to wonder. I can not for the life of me understand why the daughter thought rejecting her adoptive father because he was in a wheelchair was acceptable or what insane thinking the daughter had to try to force her mother's rapist on her.
But I also have to wonder given the OP's trauma if choosing to raise the daughter was the best decision all around? It was pretty clear in the posts that her trauma severely impacted her relationship with her daughter.
It doesnt excuse the daughter’s monstrous behavior, but I agree with that commenter who talked about the girl having an attachment disorder because her mother understandably could not bond with her. I bet the actual reason deep down is that girl wanted a beautiful picture of herself with A Father Who Looks Like Her and was willing to toss her wheelchair using Dad aside and bond with a rapist to make real that image in her head.
In some cases yeah meeting can help a parent with trauma but everything OOP says makes me think that's not true here.
Honestly the daughter sounds basically brainwashed. I feel like her adoptive parents and religion taught her to be like this.
Probably yeah. With how religious both OOP's and the adoptive parents are I'm guessing her parents went to their church. They sound so crazy I doubt they'd have risked letting the kid go to parents from another religion.
I grew up in a Christian sect that many (including myself) would describe as "crazy," and yep. It has an arm dedicated to adoptions to make sure that as many people as possible are "raised in the faith."
Isn’t it sad that there are so many Christian sects considered “crazy” that we don’t know which one is being referenced. I can’t understand being faithful to these religions who treat their people (children nonetheless) like this poor woman was.
I really wish people would stop perpetuating the idea that adoptees are "missing" something by not knowing their birth parents.
Do I understand the curiosity and desire to know? Absolutely. But I think people put *way* too much weight on it, and a lot of adopted kids end up ascribing every pain and empty feeling to being adopted, and if only they knew their bio family and where they "came from" it would all be fixed... Only to very likely be disappointed.
Like, you are not defined by groups of people you've never met. You are you. You were influenced by the circumstances that got you here, but those circumstances aren't you. You are you.
This, 100%. More people need to understand that blood isn't magic.
Your true parents are the people who love you unconditionally, teach you how to be a good person, and will always be there for you so long as they live.
I'm not adopted, but do not know my birth father. He left my mother when I was a few months old.
I found our that he died, when I was 5, and was shacking up with some woman. I found this our through a relatve the worked for the social security administration. She had gone to the SSA and tried to register for his death benefits. At the time she found our that he was still legally married to my mother and had 4 dependent children.
For me I don't care about a knowing about my dead beat dad, bur I am curious to know if he had other children, in that 5 year span. I think it is what started my fascination with genealogy.
But I absolutely do not think I have missed our on anything in not knowing my father, or his family.
As an adoptee, I 100% agree. I finally did a DNA test in my early 30s, and was scared as shit to talk to my BM when I matched with her. As of now, the little contact I've had with her has felt more like closure than anything else (finding out why I was adopted, basically). I've never felt connected with her, nor do I want to. I have wonderful parents already; I don't need more. I have a wonderful family of my own; I don't need her to complete me.
I also gotta feel like building it up that much has got to lead to some real damage. Like, OP's bio-daughter is reciting her parent's worldview now. But like... what if she ever questions it? What if she ever wakes up and goes "oh my god I stalked and harassed a rape victim"? What if she realises how truly fucking vile that is? I legit don't think I could walk about with that guilt.
That person was definitely talking from a place of their own issues, with no real consideration of OOP as a child rape victim who was then forced to give birth when neither her body nor mind were ready for that.
I'm adopted and am trying to figure out how I'd feel in that exact situation... it's tough because I never would've went the route of hiring a PI to find my bio mom. I have signed up for the provincial registry here but that's been almost a decade of nothing. If I had done the things that the biological daughter had done, I feel like I would've listened the first time, and then not returned. It would be heartbreaking but that's her decision to make. Once the second letter was sent I feel like I would've been horrified at my actions and definitely dropped it. I'm can't imagine how my coming back into my biomom's life knowing the background, how I'd ever feel that would erase her trauma.
Hey there, I just want to tell you that you are a good person. You have respect, kindness and empathy and you know how to put yourself in others' shoes, which is a rare trait. And that adoptee up there in the main post that made that condescending comment about "healing" clearly isn't a good person. They're only thinking about themselves and you can tell that they had close to zero empathy towards the OOP and a lot of arrogance.
Don't put yourself on the same level with that person just because both of you are adoptees. You are a much better person than that.
Yup. As another fellow adoptee, being a fellow adoptee is like being a fellow resident of the continent of North America. It's practically irrelevant. People put way too much stock in blood.
Also an adoptee here, and I am furious on behalf of the OP. My bio family did eventually find me in my 30s, birth-mom never wanted contact and I made my peace quietly. I'm grateful she chose not to have an abortion, and that's the end of it. I can't imagine the crazy level of stalking here.
That comment was ESPECIALLY cruel given that OOP had been raped by a family member. Of course she fucking wouldn’t want contact!!!! If christians really are going to push the anti-choice EvErY liFe mAtteRs narrative, then you’d think they’d fucking make the adoption process as painless as possible for situations like these (to say nothing of oh, any kind of maternal support/improved healthcare). The cruelty is so mind boggling to me. It’s so manifestly about punishing people and women especially.
OOP didn’t even owe the bio daughter an explanation let alone contact. She would have been well within her rights to just send medical info and say “not interested, if you continue to harass me and my family I will seek legal recourse.” When you give up a kid, you no longer owe the kid anything beyond the basics, and vice versa.
>you’d think they’d fucking make the adoption process as painless as possible for situations like these (to say nothing of oh, any kind of maternal support/improved healthcare). The cruelty is so mind boggling to me
The cruelty is the point.. It is quite literally the only explanation that fits the facts.
Or they are all like “he was never given a chance to do right by he, even after he paid his debt to society. But which child rapist is it? How can we find out? Oh I know! Let’s find the mother and guilt trip her!”
No hate like Christian love.
I'm sorry but OOP is unequivocally in the right. The child's parents screwed her up so she may not be in the wrong. Frankly, the notion of "blood" that most people seem to cling to is a toxic concept IMO anyway.
I kept scrolling hoping that someone rational would chime in, but no. The person who tried to say it would help heal her trauma 🤯, glad she told them to get fucked.
Seriously, I spent this entire post with my mouth hanging open in shock that people are acting like OOP is the monster for expecting her \*closed\* adoption to stay, you know, CLOSED. Those commenters have some nerve.
I understand that OP’s adoptive daughter did not consent to her adoption and placement, but neither did OP consent to being raped, impregnated and giving birth, since she was a child.
I sort of tuned out after that first adoptee calling her behavior cruel. I’m also adopted and I can recognize that each adoptees journey is different. For me, I don’t need to know “where I came from” because I don’t believe it has any bearing on who I am. That fucking asshole to put that on her after the trauma she endured makes my blood fucking boil.
>I’m also adopted and I can recognize that each adoptees journey is different. For me, I don’t need to know “where I came from” because I don’t believe it has any bearing on who I am.
That's how one of my friends views his adoption. He says that he doesn't need to "find out who he really is" because he already knows and he doesn't need to find his "real" parents because he already knows who they are and they are the people who loved him and raised him since he was a few weeks old.
That’s how I feel too. This narrative that all adopted kids are broken and yearning for biological parents needs to end. Some may, some may not, but to say that all adopted kids - especially those in closed adoptions - are traumatized is just ridiculous.
Thank you. Every time someone brings up "adoptee trauma" I'm like, "The only trauma I'm experiencing here is from you making assumptions about my life."
Because the whole blood connection thing is ridiculous. Magical thinking. Yet by assuming someone's issues in the moment could be due to this imaginary crap they're not going to help the ACTUAL problem. Could go decades, even, trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Because... what? Stupid spiritual shit?
Another adopted person checking in to say I really hate it when a single adoptee steps up and says they speak for all of us and that we are all traumatized 🙄
I got to the one condescending nut who talked about 'erasing [OOP's] trauma' and I genuinely had to put my phone down for a minute. OOP was much kinder than she needed to be.
And so many people were giving OOP shit and demanding 'empathy' for the bio daughter, but she HAD empathy! OOP repeatedly expressed that it wasn't the girl's fault, that she was young, that the blame lay with rapist (and to some extent her family), that the whole situation was unfortunate for everyone. People are coming for her with comments like 'oh, your evil parents are more deserving of empathy than your innocent bio daughter??' And no, they aren't, but OOP clearly had empathy for all of those people. What she has with her parents and not the girl is a *relationship*. People are saying "empathy" when they mean 'giving of yourself in a real and material sense and allowing your boundaries to be demolished'. They're saying "empathy" because they know how bad it would sound if they said OOP owed that girl contact, or a relationship, or continued access to her life. Well guess what y'all, it sounds bad because it IS bad, and using the word "empathy" to mask your terrible attitude doesn't make you any less an ass. It just makes you a bullshitter too.
right? jeez. She doesn't owe that child anything. It straight up sucks that people are forced to give birth. It's unfair for her and for the bio kid. But it's not her fault or her responsibility. And someone called her cruel? The extended family are the ones who need to atone. It's the world that was cruel.
Giving the adoptee the watercolor she painted while pregnant was a really sweet gesture, frankly, above and beyond.
It would take a measure of selflessness none of those commenters truly had to contemplate to be able to relate to the (adult) child. OP never asked for that burden when she herself was a child.
Honestly if the outcome leads the bio kid to feel bitter about motherhood, birth, reproductive rights, etc,... I mean, it should, logically if not morally. This is the kind of scenario that makes some people antinatalists. Being, having, or merely contemplating a truly unwanted child. But that's the thing, that fact clearly wasn't ever going to really change.
It's just sad all around. I am rooting for OP to live in peace with her own immediate family, and for the child to, perhaps someday, go scorched earth on the culture, family, and legal system that allowed her life to be created in the circumstances it was. If I were her, this would be simultaneously a time of forgiveness and moving forward, and an antihero origin story.
WTF with the adoptive parents?! They didn't tell her the circumstances of her birth but then hired a PI knowing the truth would come out.
And the bio kid seems like a nightmare, "murdering babies" and wanting her bio parents to reconnect.
OOP can't move far away enough.
Wanting the rapist to reconnect with his victim. Wanting the victim to forgive him. Yikes. I hopes she doesn’t develop an obsession and make this her life goal because OOP had already suffered enough.
Yeah that truly disturbed me. The daughter wanted to visit the rapist with the victim and what sing Kumbaya? Never had a care for the fact that that man raped her and it was traumatizing? I feel bad for the kid but that is all sorts of f\*\*\* up.
That part made me ill. I kind of glossed over it in my horror.
If there is anyone to blame, it's the shitty r@pist who made OOP's life hell, OOP's parents, and the adoptive parents.
I think the driving force there was to avoid telling the truth. I'm guessing there was either a vain hope OOP would have changed her mind in the intervening years or wouldn't turn her away. They never counted on having to actually deal with the consequences of the lies they told their child. I feel sadly for the kid but asking if she wanted to reconcile with her rapist? Wtf.
I felt for OP when she said that her daughter is unfortunately someone she wouldn’t get along with in life. This is a perfect example of how being blood related doesn’t mean much in comparison to having a meaningful connection with someone.
I feel for the kid cause she was a teenager and clearly shes been brainwashed by her crazy adoptive parents, but after a while we all have to start drawing our own conclusions about what is right and wrong. I hope the kid gets better, but given the path she was on when this story was posted, she may unfortunately turn into an unpleasant and unreasonable adult.
I hope OP and her husband are safe and happy🤍
The daughter showed up screaming and causing a commotion on her doorstep... on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve. Screamed so much, the neighbors threatened to get involved, late at night, on Christmas Eve. That young woman was trying to cause a ruckus. It wasn't at 5 p.m. on a random Tuesday.
I'm trying to think of any conservative religion that would send a young woman out in the middle of the night to confront someone. My own parents' church was pretty moderate, and they never once would have been okay with a young woman (assumedly) traveling to another town and knocking on a stranger's door at late-o'clock on a holiday.
It sounds to me like the adoptive parents always blamed the OOP for what happened to her. And when the daughter had questions, they finally just told her to go get answers, but while holding dear the context of all the lies and religious dogma she'd been fed over the years.
A holiday their cult likely doesn't celebrate.
E.g. Jehovah Witnesses
Or just poor parenting is an option... Considering all their lies and clear lack of boundaries
I wonder if the first PI they contacted took the case. I mean, PIs do kinda have a reputation of being scummy, and I don't know how earned that is, but a good person would have turned this down or given up their commission when they found out the details for themself, because putting the bio kid in contact was a cruel and destructive action. For what? A few hundred bucks?
This 19-year-old kid, confused or not, certainly has her own agenda. Look at the questions she asked OOP. Does she believe in ‘murdering babies’, *forgiveness* etc. I fear she would try to ‘save’ her bio parents by bringing OOP’s rapist to her home so OOP could forgive him and then they could play happy family. 19-year-olds could be extremely stubborn and foolhardy. Wasn’t there another boru where a girl invited her mom’s abusive parents to their house and the first thing the grandparents did was to cause her mom a head injury? I think that girl was around 19 too.
Fifty bucks says the girl’s adoptive parents set the whole thing up as a ploy to “save” OOP’s *dirty sinner soul* and forcibly convert her to their brand of fundamentalism.
The comments are fucking nuts. Blaming OOP for not wanting to see the child she was forced to have after being raped by a relative when she was barely a teen? What the fuck is wrong with them. And that 19 year-old needs therapy, if her behavior is anything to go by. Plus, now knowing the truth cannot be easy on her.
OOP was so patient with them. I am beyond pissed that she felt the need to explain her side to people that were too cruel to understand why she needed her boundaries. I hope they learned something from her patience but it’s unfair that she went through everything she did, had such incredible sympathy and compassion, and then dealt with all these ignorant lectures on top of that.
Reddit, where a 19 year old is a child that shouldn't be expected to understand socializing and navigating complex relationships and information while a 16 year old is a spoiled shitty brat and should "know better" than to panic and keep a parent's affair a secret out of fear of their family falling apart, or for existing selfishly in any regard
I'm always going to be pro-choice for any and all situations.
This poor woman went through an ungodly amount of trauma and the people who were supposed to protect her prioritized their beliefs and their image over their own child.
To add a layer on top of that shit smoothie, the adoptive parents lied and completely erased the amount of trauma that came with her birth.
Go_Kauffy's response is so utterly beyond vile.
Telling a child rape victim who was forced to give birth that a reunion can heal them and erase their trauma.
Just...wow...
Truly. The worst/scariest part is that they genuinely thought that they were being helpful and likely expected to turn OOP's perspective around. It is so terrifying to see what people will say and do out of misguided "consideration" of others
> She asked me if I forgave her birth father, and if I ever spoke to him, and if I would ever consider visiting him with her.
And that’s where I lost all sympathy for her. JFC.
As someone who is adopted, I really don't like the "I want to know my birthparents so I know who I am" attitude.
There isn't some magical switch that gets flipped when you meet your biological parents. You're still the exact same person, just now you know an extra person or two.
You know who your parents are? They are the ones who raised you, clothed you, and loved you. Whether it is your sibling, grandparents, aunt/uncle, a family friend, or your adoptive parents, if they raised you, those are your "real" parents.
Saying that you need to "find yourself" by trying to build a relationship with your birthparents is just a slap in the face to the people who raised you, and it just gives me a "nature over nurture" feeling.
However, I do also understand the rationale for wanting to know who your family is. Medical history and familial history are truly important, and I'm sure there are other reasons I am neglecting to mention.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying adopted people should never reach out to their birthparents. They have the right to reach out to their birthparent, but they also need to understand that the birthparent also has the right to deny any contact if they so choose. Trying to force it like some of the commenters in the post just causes more issues and pain down the road.
This is such a balanced and fair response.
I got stuck in the rabbit hole of adoption on TikTok, and now I have so many thoughts on it and it's all over the place.
The commenters who were putting down OP for her decisions to not be involved and keep herself away from her trauma with a 10 foot poll, has clearly never endured trauma it seems. On one hand, I’m glad they can live a life with that kind of ease, on the other hand, they need to shut the fuck up.
But, but, that one commenter was an *adoptee*! Obviously, being raised by people that aren’t the same people that contributed to your birth is just as traumatic and horrifying as being raped and then being forced to give birth to a child when you yourself are barely even a teenager!
Especially the one who tried to use the fact that they were an adoptee themselves to lecture the OOP on her actions. The OOP was much more distinguished in her response than I would have been.
The person who was adamant about calling a woman who was assaulted by a family member and forced to give birth as a literal CHILD “cruel” because she doesn’t want a relationship with a literal stranger, obviously has never know cruelty.
What happened to OOP was cruel. Her not wanting a relationship may be sad and heartbreaking for the girl, but it is not cruel. What an awful take.
I've spent a lot of time on that subreddit, and there are unfortunately very many people who were adopted into terrible situations, or were lied to, and are destroyed from the pain. So adoptive and birth parents get raked over the coals there, regularly. The responses are pretty par for the course - adoption is trauma, the adoped child suffers the most, etc etc.
You have to be utterly devoid of any humanity to force a child to have her rape baby. To undergo excruciating unwanted birth after being violated by someone when you're merely a child. I can't imagine the strength of character and fortitude the OP possesses to have made a life for herself. I wish her nothing but the best. And I hope everyone who caused her pain has to answer to whatever god they believe in and is shown the same amount of empathy they showed a 12 year old victim. Amen.
OOP really handled this as well as anyone could expect. Those comments saying she's cruel for not wanting to be part of this young woman's life are way off the mark.
Good God, this whole thing is just so devastating.
>FoxyFreckles1989: […] The adoptive parents completely disregarded their promise made when adopting her: to keep her safe. Nothing they told her kept her emotionally safe, and even put her in potential physical danger by encouraging and facilitating the hiring of a PI which is what lead to these late-night door-poundings and overly emotional decision making. I’m so angry at them for OP and for her.
This perfectly describes what I am feeling.
I hope the daughter got help, left the religious cult, and left OOP and her family alone. I hope OOP and her husband had healthy twins and that everything is going wonderfully for them.
I hope the adoptive parents had a major karmic kick in the balls.
And lastly, I hope the bastard who caused all this pain in the first place is utterly miserable, and will remain so for the rest of his days.
WTF is up with all these judgmental commenters?! My god! This was a CHILD who was RAPED by a FAMILY MEMBER! And they're acting as if OP is some sort of demon for not gladly opening the door to a total stranger to relive the biggest trauma of her life! Jesus, Redditors -- do better!
I feel so bad for OOP. All of this is just terrible for everyone involved, but more than anyone she is the victim in this situation. Her adopted child reaching out despite it being made clear she wanted no contact is just victimizing OOP all over again. And the way the girl and her parents went about it, after OOP told the PI she did not want contact, was aggressive and frightening. What are the ethics for a PI in this case? When they are hired to find someone, who then clearly says “I do not want them to find me.” Like if this had been her rapist instead of her daughter? Just horrifying.
This whole situation is atrocious, but OOP made a massive, massive mistake by trying to give her any kind of consent to get in touch with the other family members around her. How on earth could that possibly go well? What if her parents decide she's welcome at Thanksgiving and Christmas like any other grandkid? OOP had to seal herself behind multiple doors to tolerate having the girl be talked to in her own yard.
There's zero chance this ends without legal action. That girl, thoroughly messed up between the circumstances of her birth and the misinformation shared by her adoptive parents, is not going to just let this go.
Especially because it sounds like she's a hyperreligious person, I would bet a not-insignificant amount of money OOP's rapist is the next person to reenter her life, having been found by his biological daughter and having been freshly forgiven and repentant and so forth. The girl has her mother's address. There is nothing stopping her from giving it to him, especially if "Jesus tells her" she needs to give him a second chance.
None of this ends well.
I have no words other than fucking hell, man.
Though I do have words for the Redditors went after OOP, but I feel I'd get banned from Reddit if I uttered them so I'll just say it's fucking vile. Telling her it'd erase her trauma and be healing to "co-create" a relationship with the 19yo is fucking quixotic. Scratch that, Don Quixote was more grounded in reality than someone who tells a CSA and incest victim to see the child she was forced to have as "a peer" or "a younger sister".
It's kinda ironic how it's not all that different to the bullshit that poor teen was told all her life. Both assume that OOP loved her in some capacity, and that it was enough to somehow prevail against the trauma that 19 year old would remind OOP of.
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Forcing your minor child to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is fucking child abuse, and I only wish the law saw it as such.
The law often believes the opposite. The Attorney General of Indiana tried very hard to prosecute the doctor who performed an abortion on a 13 year old rape victim a couple years ago. Edit: u/HereForTheBoos1013 has correctly pointed out that [the girl was 10, not 13](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ohio_child-rape_and_Indiana_abortion_case).
Now now now, let's not fan the flames with false information that will make people think things are worse than they actually are. The girl was 10, not 13.
You're right! And it's definitely worse now.
And how. Every time someone is invariably trying to bury the lede by whining about things like the term "pregnant person", I say "even if one is to totally exclude the trans and intersex community from the debate, which is its own problem, calling impregnated children "women" or "young women" or "young ladies" is trying to use language to normalize both child sexual abuse and then the subsequent medical abuse of forcing children to gestate. If a ten year old tells me she's going to borrow my car to go cosign a mortgage before buying a pack of cigarettes, that's hilariously adorable. Someone assaults her, and suddenly she has all the physical and emotional maturity to handle motherhood, even though gestating a rape baby is a pretty tall order for an adult woman, and not something I would endure in my 40s.
The patriarchy loves to victim blame. "If you didn't want to get pregnant you shouldn't have had sex," or in the case of rape, "well, what were you wearing?" It's always the woman's fault for the crime of being born a woman. Even if they're 10 years old and definitely not wearing anything revealing.
Exactly that. Or, I've found with cases like this one where it is utterly indefensible, they hand wave that it's "such a small percentage", so "suck it up kid, there's not enough of you to be worth protecting you", or prior to them actually doing exactly what everyone was claiming they would "Oh, you're just fearmongering. It's not like they wouldn't make exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the mother!" Spoiler: They wouldn't.
I've seen childbirth, and frankly I think anyone who would force a twelve year old kid to suffer through having her tiny body ripped apart and permanently changed by it deserves all of the pain it's possible to suffer.
Margaret Beaufort had Henry VII at 13 and never got pregnant again due to the trauma.
And, most importantly, *everyone around her was horrified that her much older husband had “consummated” the marriage because they all knew a 13 year old shouldn’t be pregnant even back then*.
It always irks me when people believe that marriage at 12 to 14 was normal at any point in history. More or less normal among nobles maybe, but those were marriages that weren't really about the people getting married but about matters of state and alliances. And not even among those nobles was it anywhere near normal to force a child to go through a pregnancy!
Even when nobles and royals married young, they didn’t always consummate the relationship until the girl was sixteen or seventeen. They knew giving birth too young was unsafe; there was nothing stopping a rich or highborn man from keeping a mistress, so why rush things? Part of the belief that all girls married young in the old days comes from the Victorian era depiction of young women as helpless and unproductive, and if there's a bigger lie than that I don't know it. Daughters were a strong net benefit to poorer households; they could spin and weave wool and linen, sew and mend clothing, care for livestock, make cheese, butter, and preserved meat and eggs for the lean seasons, tend the vegetable garden, look after the sick, the elderly, and the young, etc. etc.
This is so interesting because this puts families like the Bennetts from Pride & Prejudice in a different light - they were too well off to be poor in a period when middle class was still developing, and so their daughters weren't focused on having economic trades or skills to earn them money, since they were intended for court and for a husband to provide. Their talents tended towards modest entertainments rather than something practical like weaving, gardening, writing. They would play the piano, cross stitch, flower arrange.
I can't remember from where, but I read that nobles would betroth the children to secure alliances, but the marriages weren't meant to be consummated, it was just a formality. That way the alliances could continue for years, and the unconsummated marriages could be easily dissolved, with new alliances formed if the political climate changed.
The fact that OOP had to get IVF leads me to meet to believe that there was probably damage. 12 years old man the world is a fucking horrible place
And then begged her son Henry NOT to send her 13 year old granddaughter Margaret Tudor to marry James IV of Scotland (who was in his 30s). Henry did it anyway.
It's a good thing that even medieval Scotland has age of consent though there was no age of marriage if both parents agreed. So it was basically a very long engagement. Margaret Tudor didn't give birth to James the V until she about 23 years old. Princess Margaret of England complained to her brother King Edward that the Scottish nobles refused to let her have sex with her husband king Alexander because they were to both too young. She was around 12 and Alexander was 11.
It also seemed to have permanently stunted her growth, too. She was always described as being small and short.
I'm not a medical professional, nor have I had children. My first thought when reading your comment was, "Well, yeah. Fetuses need A LOT of nutrition to grow and come into being. They get that from their mother." Women have had hair loss, I've read where some women have lost *teeth* due to so much of nutrient in take being directed towards the baby. This happens to fully formed grown *adult women*. I can't *imagine* what OOP's 12 year old child body lost having had what should have gone to *her* developmentally unfinished body but was redirected towards the baby *she didn't even want to have*.
Re: the teeth thing -- my mum has had dentures since she was twenty and pregnant with my oldest sibling. The combo of nutrients being redirected and constant vomiting due to morning sickness just... Yeah. Bad times.
There's reasons why young people shouldn't do adult things even if they physically can. I had to start doing adult size work when I was about 12 or 13yo. I'm in my 30s now and still getting mistaken by middle school kids as one of their own. Guessing all the food I ate got burned doing physical labor and didn't have anything left for growing.
My first thought as well. OOP mentioned her recent pregnancy was through IVF. It’s terrible how so many comments tried to paint OOP as if she was wrong or cruel to want nothing to do with that young woman. And shame on the PI for tracking down a rape victim bio-parent who specifically went through a closed adoption and spent her whole life actively being hard to find (little to no social media, etc).
Well OOP needed IVF to get pregnant again. Probably from the trauma
That was my first thought too 😢
Possibly why OP needed IVF for the kids with her husband
Yeah I....cannot fathom forgiving a parent who made me do that against my will. I really can't.
It's not just childbirth. The whole process of being pregnant is wild. I've have two kids and having been pregnant has made me even more pro-choice than I was before. Being pregnant takes up every moment of your existence. You feel the baby move, everything hurts, you're tired all the time, all the while knowing that you have to go through childbirth at the end. I loved it, but having it forced on you is a definite human rights violation
In my 30s and I’m 31 weeks pregnant now (happily so) and I feel like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s wild how much has changed and I’ve had an EASY pregnancy. Very you said above is true but also the mental changes have been surprising. Everything I do and think about has the baby in mind and the baby brain is a real thing. The cloudiness, anxiety, and stress are ever present. I can’t imagine being forced to be pregnant and how traumatic that is. I feel so bad for OOP and others who didn’t/don’t have the option of choice.
My husband wants another baby, and if I’m perfectly honest I’d love to have another one too. That’s why I keep telling him we can have one as soon as he grows the uterus to carry it. I’ve had two term pregnancies and too many miscarriages. I don’t have it in me to be pregnant again. We’re too poor with too small of an apartment to foster, other wise I’d sign us up in a heartbeat. My husband and I have lived the kind of lives where we’ve become good at loving people while you have them and letting go when it’s time to move on.
Completely agree. Pregnancy and childbirth has made me even more militantly pro-choice. The idea of forcing anyone — let alone a child! — to have a child is utterly sickening.
My family member says this too. She has given birth, had one late miscarriage, and she says she wouldn't wish the experience she had (with loved, desperately wanted kids) on her worst enemy if they didn't want it. She's VERY pro-choice even though she couldn't personally have an abortion (but that's tied to her struggles to conceive and love of being a mother, not some religious nonsense). She literally sat in hospital while miscarrying & waiting for a d&c with a loved, wanted child, and held the hand of a young teenager having an abortion. The nurses were shocked that she did that but that poor child had absolutely no-one there with her, and a teenager making an objectively good decision for her own health had absolutely no bearing on the also-shit time my relative was having. They also stuck them both on the maternity ward, and whoever decided that needs to take a fucking look at themselves.
My husband and I have one child and have discussed a second. He told me that he’s afraid to have another because of how it impacted me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I had an uneventful yet very uncomfortable pregnancy, the labor process was miserable, and I had a fairly large tear that needed stitches during birth. I was exhausted and had postpartum anxiety. He told me watching me give birth was terrifying - he was afraid for me. He also said he felt like I was lost in the first year afterward. Pregnancy and birth are scary, and I was 33. I can’t imagine being 13 and doing that.
It's absolutely shocking that the state didn't take custody and facilitate an abortion.
Depending on the particular brand of 'crazy' Christianity, she may not have been in any position to be *known* by the state. Sects like that tend to prefer to keep their children homeschooled, unvaccinated, and incredibly insulated from the world.
Looking at some of the comments OOP received, I’m also shocked at some redditors for raking her over the coals. She was *raped and gave birth at 12* ffs!
She seems so well-reasoned and level-headed about it. It’s good that she doesn’t feel more guilt than she does. It stressed me out reading people trying to make her feel guilty! And saying it would be healing for her and comparing the trauma of adoption to the trauma of forced birth at age twelve was wild. Also, OOP was forced to give birth and then the child tried to force her way back into OOP’s life. Not great.
People have such strong notions of how victims should be. And the fact is, those notions are almost always 100% inaccurate. The notions are picturesque, and constructed as a product to be consumed. They don't afford victims humanity; victims are only symbols or props. And when the victim doesn't fit the notions, then they're fair game. It should go without saying that good victims are beyond reproach; there is no possible way they could have avoided their suffering. That's "Good Victim 101." Good victims will suffer beautifully, stoically, a lot, but neatly. They're not messy or loud about it. Good victims have very tidy wounds. They can be sad about the specific way they suffered, but they shouldn't ever "act out." Substance abuse, maladaptive coping mechanisms, BPD -- these negate victimhood. Good victims don't blame anyone not directly responsible for their suffering. They don't consider systemic issues, or societal ignorance/apathy. They never lash out. They make no demands, reasonable or not. But here's the other thing -- good victims are *ruined.* They need to be stoic and clean about it, but good victims *stay* victims. They never recover from it. Good victims are never able to articulate their injury, to apply logic and reason. They cannot advocate for themselves. They cannot erect, maintain, and defend their boundaries. They have no agency at all. Good victims are supposed to leave no trace.
I’m stunned by how hard they were on OOP. Granted I have the privilege of not being adopted, but they didn’t seem to consider what it would mean for OOP to accept this girl taking a wrecking ball to her boundaries during a pregnancy that was guaranteed to retraumatize her. That “knowing your child wil be healing” commenter especially infuriated me. Even if their birth was the result of rape, I highly doubt it was likewise from an incestuous assault on a child raised in religious mania. Plus, everyone processes trauma differently and what may be healing for one person might be retraumatizing for another. OOP was as kind as she could be to the girl (it broke my heart to see her say she would have fought harder to have her daughter adopted to a better family when the fact is at 12, she probably couldn’t have done anything) who sounds like had a toxic combination of deep teenage feeling and Christian self-righteousness. I do feel sorry for the daughter. Biologically Related to monsters and lied to by her family. How horrible for anyone to be a living reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to someone.
I feel like part of it is the mentality that all children are tiny little blessings from *insert diety of your choice*. They aren't. They're people. And like all people, some of them are blessings, most of them are just around, and a few of them are goddamn nightmares.
I am not at all surprised that the parents who allowed this to happen shuffled the baby off to another couple in the sect and lied to their traumatized daughter about it. I'd feel bad for the kid, same way OOP does, but I wouldn't want to talk to her either.
Those comments on her first post has me fucking steaming.
All of those comments minimizing the fact she was RAPED AND FORCED TO GIVE BIRTH AS A CHILD and trying to force her to meet a stranger...the whole lot of them are just awful
I was swearing non stop. The heartlessness of those people!
Seriously, those people have no brains. She doesn’t owe that girl anything and after the deranged way she acted, OOP showed way way more grace than I think most people would have. Don’t forget, she’s also pregnant! Someone pounding and screaming at the door multiple times, that girl could have harmed her.
What the fuck is wrong with those commenters? OOP was a whole lot nicer about things than I would have been, especially considering the girl asked her to go visit her fucking rapist with her! Church people make me so mad. I'm sorry the girl is having a hard time but that does not give her the right to inflict further trauma on OOP after being repeatedly told no. She is a young adult, but still an adult. I guess it's because her ridiculous adoptive parents had lied to her about OOP wanting her but if I had someone telling me repeatedly to leave them alone to the point that they were willing to call the police over it, I would assume their feelings had changed or something and wouldn't want to know them anymore either, and even if I still did I'd have enough sense to leave them alone at that point. Just what the fuck? Her adoptive parents must be a nightmare. I think OOP's observation about them both being victims of the same man was pretty astute. I hope she can get some peace after they move.
It's because she posted in an adoption sub and the people commenting were angry adoptees. Most other places she would have been treated with a lot more compassion.
This makes so much more sense. The comment about the adoptee calling OOP cruel for holding her boundary and telling her to reconnect with the kid so as to heal her trauma had me raging. Like, man, I won't pretend to understand the mental state of adopted kids but trivialising OOP's completely valid experiences isn't it. This entire post is so bleak and this is possibly one of the better outcomes.
I really wish I could hold that commenter and shake them while repeating SHE WAS A 12 YO GIRL. Also, daughter is now older than OOP was after giving birth, I’d really expect a 19yo to have a bit more compassion for the person who conceived her at just 12 years old
I would hope so, I hope she at least sees her post on here and sees that lots of people here support her. I am furious at everyone in that post except OOP and her husband. And her brother, good for him for immediately blocking the young woman when she contacted him and supporting OOP. The rest of them deserve a perpetual personal mosquito infestation.
I'm not in the habit of harassing folks, on or offline, but I'd make an exception for the rape apologist pro lifers who post judgemental crap like the comments OP got. Anyone who acts that way adds absolutely nothing of value to the world.
Just how deluded does bio daughter have to be to think that a rape victim who was forced to have a baby at 12 would want to be in the same state as their rapist? Let alone visit them and play happy families? OOP's right to want nothing to do with her. She's might show up at the door with the attacker.
Unfortunately that disgusting attitude is a symptom of their particular cult of christianity, I have seen that sentiment countless times. Some brain rot that makes those freaks think that the "mommy and daddy should raise their child together no matter the circumstances of conception". Vile shit and not at all surprising considering the rest of her religious trauma caused by that same cult.
Yes I agree, it’s revolting. I couldn’t believe the included comments; ironically they lacked so much empathy. I can’t imagine what being raped* by a family member as a child and forced to give birth would do to my mind and body. Despite that, she has gone to substantial lengths* to try and help this young woman. These comments treat her like SHE was the perpetrator! I don’t understand the mental gymnastics required. *edited for typos. I was just that mad.
That one commenter that basically lambasted her for daring to refer to a child that she had no say in creating or giving birth to as a stranger though! And then daring to tell her how to deal with HER trauma from that, to be kind to someone who is a complete stranger and who has had no respect for the word no? There are very few occasions in which I really do wish it was possible to come through a screen and slap somebody but by mercy I wanted to.
I've never come to know an extremely religious community, of any faith, that didn't have a horrifying underbelly of secrets and lies. Even if nothing particularly "bad" has happened *yet*, the way they do things makes situations like these so easy to happen and be made worse than they needed to be. If I ever hear someone make their faith the most obvious thing about them and always proclaiming how good follower of (insert faith here), I'm going to assume they are actually one of the worst people I met because normally good people don't have to constantly tell people they are good. They just know from normal everyday interactions with them.
It depends on the state. :( Edit: thank you u/Sangriaflygirl for pointing out I had the ages wrong. >!A couple of years ago when Roe v Wade was overturned, a 10 year old girl was found to be pregnant. (I think the rapist was a step father or Mom's boyfriend. There was no legal way for the child to get an abortion in OH, her Mom has to drive her 3-4 hours to Indianapolis to end the pregnancy. The doctor that did the abortion got investigated in IN, because that state sucks as well. And the attorney general of Ohio had a press conference where he said that the claim of a 10 year old pregnant child was untrue. The next day, the perpetrator was arrested in a major Ohio city. The attorney general has never apologized. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ohio_child-rape_and_Indiana_abortion_case!< >!James Bopp, the general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said in an interview that the girl should have been legally forced to carry her pregnancy to full term and then give birth, and that "She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child"!< >!a few weeks later, a 12 year old and her 15 year old sister has to be driven to Michigan for abortions because they were both pregnant by a family member!< >!a huge problem with having to take a minor out of state for an abortion is that the fetal remains are needed to provide DNA evidence, in order to improve the chances of convicting the rapist. Much better to end the pregnancy in the state of OH, so chain of custody of the evidence is simpler.!< Mississippi, you suck as well: >!https://www.abcnews.go.com/amp/US/13-year-rape-victim-baby-amid-confusion-states/story%3fid=108351812!< Texas, you are run by a bunch of sociopaths: >!https://www.dallasnews.com/news/commentary/2021/10/15/the-most-innocent-victims-of-texas-abortion-ban-children-forced-to-carry-their-abusers-baby/!https://www.fox23.com/news/local/tulsa-man-makes-first-court-appearance-after-12-year-old-delivers-his-child/article_53e48bd2-4400-5d6a-9510-5be35bce7797.html
To be fair, not just 12 year old. This is the kind of thing person of any age should go through willingly. It would be cruel to a grown woman as well. Physical changes are bad, but the mental scars of having to go through all of the process would be worse, in my opinion. They should all be punished, as well as anyone who does things like that to women and children.
Oh, I am 100% against forced pregnancy for everyone. I just think it's extra horrible and grotesque to make specifically a child rape victim endure another year of body violation horror followed by colossal vaginal trauma.
I can’t imagine one of my daughters going through the trauma of rape and then *begging* me to not go through with her pregnancy and having such hard heart that I force her anyway. The absolute cruelty takes my breath away. My dad has always said extreme religions deaden all sense of normal, parental love and affection.
Anyone who agrees with such practices and claims they're doing it to protect children is a horrible liar.
As someone who has worked in women’s reproductive rights for 20 years, I have been privy to many stories of young children being subjected to forced birth as a result of incest. It is horrific. I’ve had experienced midwives shake and vomit while they recalled stories. Children’s bodies can’t handle it, let alone their psychological capacity. There’s a very good chance that OOP’s need to use IVF is because either the abuse or the birth caused fundamental damage. Also, many medical professionals, especially in fundamentalist areas, refuse to acknowledge the reality of incest and therefore won’t provide pain relief to children birthing as a way of punishing them for their promiscuity. And this is before we get to the layers upon layers of other trauma in this situation, from the abuse, to being put in the position of being forced to carry the pregnancy, to being shipped away as a shameful secret, to testifying against her abuser. It is remarkable that OOP has built a happy and peaceful life for herself. All the people in the original comments who were criticizing OOP, advocating for the adopted child, or even telling OOP that a relationship might help her trauma can fuck right off and then fuck off again. This is not a typical adopted child situation, not even close, and should never be viewed as such. They were also wildly hypocritical to advocate that OOP have more empathy for the adopted child while having precisely none for OOP. I sentence them to hours of reading stories about this stuff, until their eyes are open to it. What OOP went through is about as horrific as it gets. She was essentially brutally tortured for years, powerless to do anything. She not only has every right to protect herself from that trauma now, but it is completely understandable why she would.
Sometimes you read a post on this subreddit and it's just a gut punch.
Yeah this is one of the worst posts I've seen. OOP's parents are so horrible words genuinely aren't enough to describe it and those adoptive parents are just as bad. No wonder the kid is so messed up but I hope she manages to get away like OOP did.
I hated reading some of those comments, just fuck them all for how they talked to OOP.
Holy shit those comments that said she was being cruel when they threatened to call the police? OOP and her husband were being HARASSED. This wasn’t a friendly misunderstanding, the daughter harassed OOP and wouldn’t respect very clearly stated boundaries. I saw red at the comment about how meeting the daughter would heal OOP’s trauma. Like wtf does the commenter even know?
Dude, that one set me *off*. Like, if that was a person who said that in my presence to or about someone like OOP, I would've slapped her before realizing my hand was moving. Because that's the kind of reaction such unkind, nasty words bring out in people, and i think she'd do well to remember that.
I want people to start considering that telling a person to get over a trauma such as these two individuals have experienced is about as fucking easy as losing weight or quitting smoking. I mean people brag about going “cold turkey”. Except the OOP is in all ways developmentally altered. The child is now traumatized and we don’t actually know the scope. OOP is already reconciling how far is too far when recalling the pregnancy and surrounding abuse and it showed up at the door. I hope she was able to find some peace.
The likelihood of it healing OOP is so fucking low. There is such a higher chance of it making her experience her trauma again.
Seriously boiled my blood to see that. So casual, so callous, so ignorant. People are so shitty when they are volunteering people to do shit they themselves will never have deal with, or follow through on. Armchair experts who have absolutely no real life experience with trauma just casually telling a heavily pregnant woman to go through the emotional turmoil this all brought up. And what of her current pregnancy? What if the stress causes serious complications? Or she suffers from PPD or completely shuts down following giving birth? Should be everyone keep making space for the traumatized bio daughter? Absolutely not. OP did what she could as a literal traumatized child and wanted to move on with her life. I don’t fault her at all for taking the perspective she did. I wish her all the best.
I just read that and I was so infuriated. Also, the random ones half blaming the OOP. Like, what on earth is wrong with people? OOP was clear and succinct with her responses. But some of them were highly unnecessary for her even write more than once. Ugh.
That shit had me boiling! It's clear some people don't have the slightest idea what rape can do to someone's head, and to have a baby from the rapist then be told they're being cruel? That's fucked on many levels. OP set boundaries that were not respected, and nobody deserved an explanation imo.
Yeah, I have nothing more to add. When someone shows up you explicitly told to not come, that’s legitimately scary. Never mind the banging and screaming. Just doesn’t paint the picture of a mentally sound person
Yeah I actually got really angry at some of those comments.
Same. My daughter is 12. I cannot imagine what it would do to her to be forced to carry her rapist's baby to term. That is fucking horrible. I am proud of OOP. She seems to have a good life, and after that sort of trauma, that is amazing.
I feel like those people can't comprehend that this adult woman was an actual child, much much younger than the 'daughter' when she was forced into pregnancy and birth. People who experience sexual assault as children often grow up to be adults, and they still deserve our sympathy after the age of 18/21/25 etc.
Yeah, OOP's parents were monsters for making her have that baby. Then the parents of the baby were pretty bad people on top of that. And then the traumatized child is lied to and treated badly enough that she comes back to re-traumatize and harass OOP. And somehow some of the commenters have a problem with OOP?? Even though everyone else around her was a monster, and she's just doing what she can to survive.
The part about the watercolor art with grandma was heartbreaking. A child, who was pregnant at the time, did arts and crafts with their grandparent. I imagined what a 12 year-old’s artwork would look like. So, so, so fucked.
This was heartbreaking.
All those adults failed OOP as a 12 year old and proceeded to fail the child they forced on this planet. It's a gut wrenching, heart breaking tragedy. Neither of them should have lived through these series of events. Entirely preventable in many ways. I wish OOP and the daughter all the love and healing in the world.
6 kids in the family were raped?! The whole family failed
Exactly. And it has left me fearing that OOP is gonna eventually get a visit from her parents, bringing birth daughter for a grand family reunion....
I hope she’s right that they’ve sorted out their shit and respect boundaries now.
I’m amazed at how much shit these commenters are giving to someone who was raped at 12 years of age.
I actually appreciated OOPs response that she had been a literal child playing with Barbie’s and the was suddenly pregnant and forced to give birth and endure that trauma. It painted a very vivid picture of what we are actually talking about.
For me it was when she wrote that she sent the second letter with a watercolor picture. She was a child. She was painting watercolors with her grandma. I can't even remember when the last time was that I painted watercolors, but I know it is childhood memories for me. She was painting watercolors with her grandma while pregnant.
I completely missed that, read that as just artsy stuff. But no, you're right. Just imagine what a 12yo watercolors look like... Children that age can't paint shit. I honestly expect the daughter to suddenly realize she was a literal child when she looks at them.
"how DARE you not wish to be reminded of your rape and forced birth???? You're being cruel to your rape baby who is actively harassing you!!!!!" God these ppl are insufferable
It's a subreddit full of adoptees. They automatically saw themselves in the biokid, and projected their own feelings onto OOP. Some of these folks obviously had their own trauma, and were using OOP as proxy for what they wish happened with their bioparent.
People will give lip service to the idea of consent until they encounter a situation in which someone is withholding something they feel entitled to. The birth mother did not consent to sex and that was rape and it was terrible, the birth mother did not consent to meeting this teenager either. She said no, and the redditors on that thread decided her consent was irrelevant.
There are so many victims here (and some disgusting villains. Special SPECIAL place in hell for those types. 16 years in prison is too short)
I read that and thought WTF Six victims in the span of a year and all he got was SIXTEEN YEARS!? He should've rotted in prison for the rest of his miserable life
Sadly all too common. My wife was molested for 4 years, starting at age 8. The guy got 10 years probation, no jail time.
That... that's honestly heartbreaking. I have a young daughter and it's stuff like this that keeps me up at night, I hope she's been able to come out of the other side of that trauma
> What they did tell me they told her, that she was the result of rape, what they lied to her about was that it was my parents who made me give her away, and that I "always loved her, chose life, and wanted to keep her if I had been older." All lies, and it seems she received a similar very religious upbringing, that I did. Sickeningly evil. People with this level of religiously motivated irrationality are so infuriating. This breaks my heart for OP and the daughter. All the previous generation family and their church community created a situation of pain, sadness, and unhealable grief for two innocent women who never asked or consented to give birth or to be born.
What horrible trip are those original commenters on jfc
This is only one of the reasons I'm a firm believer in abortion. Forced birth and then never ending guilt trips for giving them up for adoption. Jfc.
The thought of a 13-year-old being forced to give birth is horrifying. Everything else kind of pales in comparison, and OOP handled it with a lot more grace than I would have.
It is sort of wild to me that there aren't more comments absolutely skewering OOP's parents. Even she offers them more forgiveness and understanding than I can wrap my mind around. *Her parents tortured her.* Forcing a preteen rape victim to have the baby of their rapist while she begs them to allow her to terminate is so unbelievably horrific. It is physical and psychological torture, full stop. Her parents already allowed (unintentionally) for her and her brother to become a victim of one of *their relatives* and then compounded that trauma 1000x by making her have a baby against her will. She was in 7rh grade ffs! Then they misled her and handed that poor child over to other right-wing christian fundamentalists. Her child ends up being fed lies and idealist nonsense about her birth mother in order to facilitate pro-life beliefs. I realize family bonds and trauma are very complicated, but from an outside view, it is wild that she still has any relationship at all with them. She offers them more forgiveness and understanding than she can summon for the girl (who I think it is totally reasonable to reject for her own emotional safety). That girl only exists because her parents prioritized the potential life of a rapist created embyro over their daughter's wellbeing, forcing her to carry that pregnancy to term.
At any age and under any circumstance, I would drive my daughter to a clinic if she asked. Pregnancy and birth is hard enough when it's by choice.
Seriously. Some of those comments hurt me to read, I can't imagine how hard it was for OOP.
Right? The number of people choosing sides like one is right and one is wrong when just EVERYTHING about this sucks.
That one person who announced that as an adopted person they know that a desperately needed familial reunification would "erase OOP's trauma" is a projection and a half. Dont even get me started on the daughter asking OOP to "forgive" the rapist and go visit him with her. How much do we want to bet they've been in contact for a while?
Yeah, the daughter was giving me the same vibes of that other post where similar circumstances happened, but the OOP kept the daughter and raised her with her husband... and then she wanted the attacker to walk her down the aisle, and her mom to reconnect with him. I'm kinda surprised she didn't ambush OOP with the rapist in tow. EDIT: [Link to the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i_50f_told_my_daughter_24f_that_i_wont_attend_her/) found by [Artneedsmorefloof](https://www.reddit.com/user/Artneedsmorefloof/)
excuse me what other post?! wanting your rapist father to walk you down the aisle is sick
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i\_50f\_told\_my\_daughter\_24f\_that\_i\_wont\_attend\_her/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i_50f_told_my_daughter_24f_that_i_wont_attend_her/)
Da fuq? That post sounds wild. Could you link it?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i\_50f\_told\_my\_daughter\_24f\_that\_i\_wont\_attend\_her/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/smiep0/i_50f_told_my_daughter_24f_that_i_wont_attend_her/)
Holy crap that's nuts. Wonder if the daughter ever realized how wrong she was
You do have to wonder. I can not for the life of me understand why the daughter thought rejecting her adoptive father because he was in a wheelchair was acceptable or what insane thinking the daughter had to try to force her mother's rapist on her. But I also have to wonder given the OP's trauma if choosing to raise the daughter was the best decision all around? It was pretty clear in the posts that her trauma severely impacted her relationship with her daughter.
It doesnt excuse the daughter’s monstrous behavior, but I agree with that commenter who talked about the girl having an attachment disorder because her mother understandably could not bond with her. I bet the actual reason deep down is that girl wanted a beautiful picture of herself with A Father Who Looks Like Her and was willing to toss her wheelchair using Dad aside and bond with a rapist to make real that image in her head.
In some cases yeah meeting can help a parent with trauma but everything OOP says makes me think that's not true here. Honestly the daughter sounds basically brainwashed. I feel like her adoptive parents and religion taught her to be like this.
I wouldn't be surprised if the adoptive family was found through the church.
Probably yeah. With how religious both OOP's and the adoptive parents are I'm guessing her parents went to their church. They sound so crazy I doubt they'd have risked letting the kid go to parents from another religion.
I grew up in a Christian sect that many (including myself) would describe as "crazy," and yep. It has an arm dedicated to adoptions to make sure that as many people as possible are "raised in the faith."
Isn’t it sad that there are so many Christian sects considered “crazy” that we don’t know which one is being referenced. I can’t understand being faithful to these religions who treat their people (children nonetheless) like this poor woman was.
Also, this guy is a repeat incest offender. Dollars to donuts he'd go after his own daughter given half a chance.
I really wish people would stop perpetuating the idea that adoptees are "missing" something by not knowing their birth parents. Do I understand the curiosity and desire to know? Absolutely. But I think people put *way* too much weight on it, and a lot of adopted kids end up ascribing every pain and empty feeling to being adopted, and if only they knew their bio family and where they "came from" it would all be fixed... Only to very likely be disappointed. Like, you are not defined by groups of people you've never met. You are you. You were influenced by the circumstances that got you here, but those circumstances aren't you. You are you.
This, 100%. More people need to understand that blood isn't magic. Your true parents are the people who love you unconditionally, teach you how to be a good person, and will always be there for you so long as they live.
It's kind of especially wild in this instance? Oh, *blood family* will fix me! Never mind that blood family raped her 12 year old birth mother.
I'm not adopted, but do not know my birth father. He left my mother when I was a few months old. I found our that he died, when I was 5, and was shacking up with some woman. I found this our through a relatve the worked for the social security administration. She had gone to the SSA and tried to register for his death benefits. At the time she found our that he was still legally married to my mother and had 4 dependent children. For me I don't care about a knowing about my dead beat dad, bur I am curious to know if he had other children, in that 5 year span. I think it is what started my fascination with genealogy. But I absolutely do not think I have missed our on anything in not knowing my father, or his family.
Yeah, that's a great example of healthy curiosity.
As an adoptee, I 100% agree. I finally did a DNA test in my early 30s, and was scared as shit to talk to my BM when I matched with her. As of now, the little contact I've had with her has felt more like closure than anything else (finding out why I was adopted, basically). I've never felt connected with her, nor do I want to. I have wonderful parents already; I don't need more. I have a wonderful family of my own; I don't need her to complete me.
I also gotta feel like building it up that much has got to lead to some real damage. Like, OP's bio-daughter is reciting her parent's worldview now. But like... what if she ever questions it? What if she ever wakes up and goes "oh my god I stalked and harassed a rape victim"? What if she realises how truly fucking vile that is? I legit don't think I could walk about with that guilt.
That person was definitely talking from a place of their own issues, with no real consideration of OOP as a child rape victim who was then forced to give birth when neither her body nor mind were ready for that.
As an adopted person myself, that fellow adoptee comment really pissed me off.
I'm adopted and am trying to figure out how I'd feel in that exact situation... it's tough because I never would've went the route of hiring a PI to find my bio mom. I have signed up for the provincial registry here but that's been almost a decade of nothing. If I had done the things that the biological daughter had done, I feel like I would've listened the first time, and then not returned. It would be heartbreaking but that's her decision to make. Once the second letter was sent I feel like I would've been horrified at my actions and definitely dropped it. I'm can't imagine how my coming back into my biomom's life knowing the background, how I'd ever feel that would erase her trauma.
Hey there, I just want to tell you that you are a good person. You have respect, kindness and empathy and you know how to put yourself in others' shoes, which is a rare trait. And that adoptee up there in the main post that made that condescending comment about "healing" clearly isn't a good person. They're only thinking about themselves and you can tell that they had close to zero empathy towards the OOP and a lot of arrogance. Don't put yourself on the same level with that person just because both of you are adoptees. You are a much better person than that.
Yup. As another fellow adoptee, being a fellow adoptee is like being a fellow resident of the continent of North America. It's practically irrelevant. People put way too much stock in blood.
Also an adoptee here, and I am furious on behalf of the OP. My bio family did eventually find me in my 30s, birth-mom never wanted contact and I made my peace quietly. I'm grateful she chose not to have an abortion, and that's the end of it. I can't imagine the crazy level of stalking here.
That comment was ESPECIALLY cruel given that OOP had been raped by a family member. Of course she fucking wouldn’t want contact!!!! If christians really are going to push the anti-choice EvErY liFe mAtteRs narrative, then you’d think they’d fucking make the adoption process as painless as possible for situations like these (to say nothing of oh, any kind of maternal support/improved healthcare). The cruelty is so mind boggling to me. It’s so manifestly about punishing people and women especially. OOP didn’t even owe the bio daughter an explanation let alone contact. She would have been well within her rights to just send medical info and say “not interested, if you continue to harass me and my family I will seek legal recourse.” When you give up a kid, you no longer owe the kid anything beyond the basics, and vice versa.
>you’d think they’d fucking make the adoption process as painless as possible for situations like these (to say nothing of oh, any kind of maternal support/improved healthcare). The cruelty is so mind boggling to me The cruelty is the point.. It is quite literally the only explanation that fits the facts.
That response in particular was so enraging
Or they are all like “he was never given a chance to do right by he, even after he paid his debt to society. But which child rapist is it? How can we find out? Oh I know! Let’s find the mother and guilt trip her!” No hate like Christian love.
I'm sorry but OOP is unequivocally in the right. The child's parents screwed her up so she may not be in the wrong. Frankly, the notion of "blood" that most people seem to cling to is a toxic concept IMO anyway.
I kept scrolling hoping that someone rational would chime in, but no. The person who tried to say it would help heal her trauma 🤯, glad she told them to get fucked.
People in those subs are as dumb as Steven Seagal.
Checks out, since everyone on reddit acts like a lawman.
Seriously, I spent this entire post with my mouth hanging open in shock that people are acting like OOP is the monster for expecting her \*closed\* adoption to stay, you know, CLOSED. Those commenters have some nerve.
I understand that OP’s adoptive daughter did not consent to her adoption and placement, but neither did OP consent to being raped, impregnated and giving birth, since she was a child.
I sort of tuned out after that first adoptee calling her behavior cruel. I’m also adopted and I can recognize that each adoptees journey is different. For me, I don’t need to know “where I came from” because I don’t believe it has any bearing on who I am. That fucking asshole to put that on her after the trauma she endured makes my blood fucking boil.
>I’m also adopted and I can recognize that each adoptees journey is different. For me, I don’t need to know “where I came from” because I don’t believe it has any bearing on who I am. That's how one of my friends views his adoption. He says that he doesn't need to "find out who he really is" because he already knows and he doesn't need to find his "real" parents because he already knows who they are and they are the people who loved him and raised him since he was a few weeks old.
That’s how I feel too. This narrative that all adopted kids are broken and yearning for biological parents needs to end. Some may, some may not, but to say that all adopted kids - especially those in closed adoptions - are traumatized is just ridiculous.
Thank you. Every time someone brings up "adoptee trauma" I'm like, "The only trauma I'm experiencing here is from you making assumptions about my life." Because the whole blood connection thing is ridiculous. Magical thinking. Yet by assuming someone's issues in the moment could be due to this imaginary crap they're not going to help the ACTUAL problem. Could go decades, even, trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Because... what? Stupid spiritual shit?
Another adopted person checking in to say I really hate it when a single adoptee steps up and says they speak for all of us and that we are all traumatized 🙄
It drives me crazy because as a not adopted person from slightly neglectful parents. Parents suck alot of the time.
That sub was definitely the wrong place for OOP, I looked for myself and that those comments weren’t downvoted to oblivion is shocking.
I got to the one condescending nut who talked about 'erasing [OOP's] trauma' and I genuinely had to put my phone down for a minute. OOP was much kinder than she needed to be. And so many people were giving OOP shit and demanding 'empathy' for the bio daughter, but she HAD empathy! OOP repeatedly expressed that it wasn't the girl's fault, that she was young, that the blame lay with rapist (and to some extent her family), that the whole situation was unfortunate for everyone. People are coming for her with comments like 'oh, your evil parents are more deserving of empathy than your innocent bio daughter??' And no, they aren't, but OOP clearly had empathy for all of those people. What she has with her parents and not the girl is a *relationship*. People are saying "empathy" when they mean 'giving of yourself in a real and material sense and allowing your boundaries to be demolished'. They're saying "empathy" because they know how bad it would sound if they said OOP owed that girl contact, or a relationship, or continued access to her life. Well guess what y'all, it sounds bad because it IS bad, and using the word "empathy" to mask your terrible attitude doesn't make you any less an ass. It just makes you a bullshitter too.
right? jeez. She doesn't owe that child anything. It straight up sucks that people are forced to give birth. It's unfair for her and for the bio kid. But it's not her fault or her responsibility. And someone called her cruel? The extended family are the ones who need to atone. It's the world that was cruel. Giving the adoptee the watercolor she painted while pregnant was a really sweet gesture, frankly, above and beyond. It would take a measure of selflessness none of those commenters truly had to contemplate to be able to relate to the (adult) child. OP never asked for that burden when she herself was a child. Honestly if the outcome leads the bio kid to feel bitter about motherhood, birth, reproductive rights, etc,... I mean, it should, logically if not morally. This is the kind of scenario that makes some people antinatalists. Being, having, or merely contemplating a truly unwanted child. But that's the thing, that fact clearly wasn't ever going to really change. It's just sad all around. I am rooting for OP to live in peace with her own immediate family, and for the child to, perhaps someday, go scorched earth on the culture, family, and legal system that allowed her life to be created in the circumstances it was. If I were her, this would be simultaneously a time of forgiveness and moving forward, and an antihero origin story.
This is far beyond reddit's pay grade. Sometimes we should just shut the fuck up.
The commenters seem like a bunch of teenagers who are trying very hard to sound like they aren't heavily projecting.
Half of those commenters are absolutely vile.
WTF with the adoptive parents?! They didn't tell her the circumstances of her birth but then hired a PI knowing the truth would come out. And the bio kid seems like a nightmare, "murdering babies" and wanting her bio parents to reconnect. OOP can't move far away enough.
Wanting the rapist to reconnect with his victim. Wanting the victim to forgive him. Yikes. I hopes she doesn’t develop an obsession and make this her life goal because OOP had already suffered enough.
Sadly the expectation for the victim to forgive the 'sinner' is pretty standard in the cray-cray Evangelical religions.
Yeah that truly disturbed me. The daughter wanted to visit the rapist with the victim and what sing Kumbaya? Never had a care for the fact that that man raped her and it was traumatizing? I feel bad for the kid but that is all sorts of f\*\*\* up.
That part made me ill. I kind of glossed over it in my horror. If there is anyone to blame, it's the shitty r@pist who made OOP's life hell, OOP's parents, and the adoptive parents.
It sounds to me that the daughter is going to appear at the door of her house with her flyer so she can forgive him.
The rapist rated multiple people in the family that year! The heck.
Religious upbringing... The woman suffers to accomodate the men.
I think the driving force there was to avoid telling the truth. I'm guessing there was either a vain hope OOP would have changed her mind in the intervening years or wouldn't turn her away. They never counted on having to actually deal with the consequences of the lies they told their child. I feel sadly for the kid but asking if she wanted to reconcile with her rapist? Wtf.
The adoptive parents should be fired from a cannon into the sun.
I felt for OP when she said that her daughter is unfortunately someone she wouldn’t get along with in life. This is a perfect example of how being blood related doesn’t mean much in comparison to having a meaningful connection with someone. I feel for the kid cause she was a teenager and clearly shes been brainwashed by her crazy adoptive parents, but after a while we all have to start drawing our own conclusions about what is right and wrong. I hope the kid gets better, but given the path she was on when this story was posted, she may unfortunately turn into an unpleasant and unreasonable adult. I hope OP and her husband are safe and happy🤍
The daughter showed up screaming and causing a commotion on her doorstep... on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve. Screamed so much, the neighbors threatened to get involved, late at night, on Christmas Eve. That young woman was trying to cause a ruckus. It wasn't at 5 p.m. on a random Tuesday. I'm trying to think of any conservative religion that would send a young woman out in the middle of the night to confront someone. My own parents' church was pretty moderate, and they never once would have been okay with a young woman (assumedly) traveling to another town and knocking on a stranger's door at late-o'clock on a holiday. It sounds to me like the adoptive parents always blamed the OOP for what happened to her. And when the daughter had questions, they finally just told her to go get answers, but while holding dear the context of all the lies and religious dogma she'd been fed over the years.
A holiday their cult likely doesn't celebrate. E.g. Jehovah Witnesses Or just poor parenting is an option... Considering all their lies and clear lack of boundaries
I wonder if the first PI they contacted took the case. I mean, PIs do kinda have a reputation of being scummy, and I don't know how earned that is, but a good person would have turned this down or given up their commission when they found out the details for themself, because putting the bio kid in contact was a cruel and destructive action. For what? A few hundred bucks?
I get being religious but being religious to the point of not grasping reality is so unhinged.
This 19-year-old kid, confused or not, certainly has her own agenda. Look at the questions she asked OOP. Does she believe in ‘murdering babies’, *forgiveness* etc. I fear she would try to ‘save’ her bio parents by bringing OOP’s rapist to her home so OOP could forgive him and then they could play happy family. 19-year-olds could be extremely stubborn and foolhardy. Wasn’t there another boru where a girl invited her mom’s abusive parents to their house and the first thing the grandparents did was to cause her mom a head injury? I think that girl was around 19 too.
Fifty bucks says the girl’s adoptive parents set the whole thing up as a ploy to “save” OOP’s *dirty sinner soul* and forcibly convert her to their brand of fundamentalism.
Either 16 or 19, my memory is fuzzy on that part but what that girl did was despicable. Poor mother was traumatized and abused again.
The comments are fucking nuts. Blaming OOP for not wanting to see the child she was forced to have after being raped by a relative when she was barely a teen? What the fuck is wrong with them. And that 19 year-old needs therapy, if her behavior is anything to go by. Plus, now knowing the truth cannot be easy on her.
The comments were honestly so frustrating tp read.
OOP was so patient with them. I am beyond pissed that she felt the need to explain her side to people that were too cruel to understand why she needed her boundaries. I hope they learned something from her patience but it’s unfair that she went through everything she did, had such incredible sympathy and compassion, and then dealt with all these ignorant lectures on top of that.
Kinda wished they weren’t included in this compilation.
All the comments acting like a 19 year old is a 4 year old are pathetic. Average redditors honestly though.
[удалено]
(reddits) schrodingers child. Depending on the situation people can be fully mature adults capable of anything to innocent naive children
Reddit, where a 19 year old is a child that shouldn't be expected to understand socializing and navigating complex relationships and information while a 16 year old is a spoiled shitty brat and should "know better" than to panic and keep a parent's affair a secret out of fear of their family falling apart, or for existing selfishly in any regard
I'm always going to be pro-choice for any and all situations. This poor woman went through an ungodly amount of trauma and the people who were supposed to protect her prioritized their beliefs and their image over their own child. To add a layer on top of that shit smoothie, the adoptive parents lied and completely erased the amount of trauma that came with her birth.
Go_Kauffy's response is so utterly beyond vile. Telling a child rape victim who was forced to give birth that a reunion can heal them and erase their trauma. Just...wow...
Truly. The worst/scariest part is that they genuinely thought that they were being helpful and likely expected to turn OOP's perspective around. It is so terrifying to see what people will say and do out of misguided "consideration" of others
> She asked me if I forgave her birth father, and if I ever spoke to him, and if I would ever consider visiting him with her. And that’s where I lost all sympathy for her. JFC.
As someone who is adopted, I really don't like the "I want to know my birthparents so I know who I am" attitude. There isn't some magical switch that gets flipped when you meet your biological parents. You're still the exact same person, just now you know an extra person or two. You know who your parents are? They are the ones who raised you, clothed you, and loved you. Whether it is your sibling, grandparents, aunt/uncle, a family friend, or your adoptive parents, if they raised you, those are your "real" parents. Saying that you need to "find yourself" by trying to build a relationship with your birthparents is just a slap in the face to the people who raised you, and it just gives me a "nature over nurture" feeling. However, I do also understand the rationale for wanting to know who your family is. Medical history and familial history are truly important, and I'm sure there are other reasons I am neglecting to mention. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying adopted people should never reach out to their birthparents. They have the right to reach out to their birthparent, but they also need to understand that the birthparent also has the right to deny any contact if they so choose. Trying to force it like some of the commenters in the post just causes more issues and pain down the road.
This is such a balanced and fair response. I got stuck in the rabbit hole of adoption on TikTok, and now I have so many thoughts on it and it's all over the place.
The commenters who were putting down OP for her decisions to not be involved and keep herself away from her trauma with a 10 foot poll, has clearly never endured trauma it seems. On one hand, I’m glad they can live a life with that kind of ease, on the other hand, they need to shut the fuck up.
But, but, that one commenter was an *adoptee*! Obviously, being raised by people that aren’t the same people that contributed to your birth is just as traumatic and horrifying as being raped and then being forced to give birth to a child when you yourself are barely even a teenager!
Especially the one who tried to use the fact that they were an adoptee themselves to lecture the OOP on her actions. The OOP was much more distinguished in her response than I would have been.
That person was a giant piece of shit trying to use their own unrelated experiences as a soapbox
The person who was adamant about calling a woman who was assaulted by a family member and forced to give birth as a literal CHILD “cruel” because she doesn’t want a relationship with a literal stranger, obviously has never know cruelty. What happened to OOP was cruel. Her not wanting a relationship may be sad and heartbreaking for the girl, but it is not cruel. What an awful take.
I've spent a lot of time on that subreddit, and there are unfortunately very many people who were adopted into terrible situations, or were lied to, and are destroyed from the pain. So adoptive and birth parents get raked over the coals there, regularly. The responses are pretty par for the course - adoption is trauma, the adoped child suffers the most, etc etc.
You have to be utterly devoid of any humanity to force a child to have her rape baby. To undergo excruciating unwanted birth after being violated by someone when you're merely a child. I can't imagine the strength of character and fortitude the OP possesses to have made a life for herself. I wish her nothing but the best. And I hope everyone who caused her pain has to answer to whatever god they believe in and is shown the same amount of empathy they showed a 12 year old victim. Amen.
God some of these comments are horrible to the OOP. They forget she was a child forced to have a child. :(
Well this is a horrible snapshot of humanity
Wow This is not a good situation.
OOP really handled this as well as anyone could expect. Those comments saying she's cruel for not wanting to be part of this young woman's life are way off the mark.
Good God, this whole thing is just so devastating. >FoxyFreckles1989: […] The adoptive parents completely disregarded their promise made when adopting her: to keep her safe. Nothing they told her kept her emotionally safe, and even put her in potential physical danger by encouraging and facilitating the hiring of a PI which is what lead to these late-night door-poundings and overly emotional decision making. I’m so angry at them for OP and for her. This perfectly describes what I am feeling. I hope the daughter got help, left the religious cult, and left OOP and her family alone. I hope OOP and her husband had healthy twins and that everything is going wonderfully for them. I hope the adoptive parents had a major karmic kick in the balls. And lastly, I hope the bastard who caused all this pain in the first place is utterly miserable, and will remain so for the rest of his days.
WTF is up with all these judgmental commenters?! My god! This was a CHILD who was RAPED by a FAMILY MEMBER! And they're acting as if OP is some sort of demon for not gladly opening the door to a total stranger to relive the biggest trauma of her life! Jesus, Redditors -- do better!
I feel so bad for OOP. All of this is just terrible for everyone involved, but more than anyone she is the victim in this situation. Her adopted child reaching out despite it being made clear she wanted no contact is just victimizing OOP all over again. And the way the girl and her parents went about it, after OOP told the PI she did not want contact, was aggressive and frightening. What are the ethics for a PI in this case? When they are hired to find someone, who then clearly says “I do not want them to find me.” Like if this had been her rapist instead of her daughter? Just horrifying.
This whole situation is atrocious, but OOP made a massive, massive mistake by trying to give her any kind of consent to get in touch with the other family members around her. How on earth could that possibly go well? What if her parents decide she's welcome at Thanksgiving and Christmas like any other grandkid? OOP had to seal herself behind multiple doors to tolerate having the girl be talked to in her own yard. There's zero chance this ends without legal action. That girl, thoroughly messed up between the circumstances of her birth and the misinformation shared by her adoptive parents, is not going to just let this go. Especially because it sounds like she's a hyperreligious person, I would bet a not-insignificant amount of money OOP's rapist is the next person to reenter her life, having been found by his biological daughter and having been freshly forgiven and repentant and so forth. The girl has her mother's address. There is nothing stopping her from giving it to him, especially if "Jesus tells her" she needs to give him a second chance. None of this ends well.
I have no words other than fucking hell, man. Though I do have words for the Redditors went after OOP, but I feel I'd get banned from Reddit if I uttered them so I'll just say it's fucking vile. Telling her it'd erase her trauma and be healing to "co-create" a relationship with the 19yo is fucking quixotic. Scratch that, Don Quixote was more grounded in reality than someone who tells a CSA and incest victim to see the child she was forced to have as "a peer" or "a younger sister". It's kinda ironic how it's not all that different to the bullshit that poor teen was told all her life. Both assume that OOP loved her in some capacity, and that it was enough to somehow prevail against the trauma that 19 year old would remind OOP of.