"When you were eight, your biggest decision was which cereal to eat for breakfast. Someone else worried about the mortgage, the car payments, whether there was enough money for groceries."
Not true if you grew up with poverty or with abuse and/or neglect or serious health problems. Not everyone's childhood was rainbows and puppies. For some kids, every day is about finding the strength to survive to the next day. You remember that sh*t clearly, believe me.
As a newborn I went home from the hospital with my adoptive parents. Growing up I knew that I was adopted but very little about my birth mother. The subject seemed to upset my mother. So, the older I got the more I romanticized my birth mother and the reasons that she gave up. When I was 55 I read a post on “Cousins Connect” and there I was. A brother was looking for me. We had long phone calls and finally a reunion. I will never forget the day that he told me the truth about our birth mother. She actually was a drunk, and she sex trafficked 3 of her own kids (born after me). The fourth half-brother was beaten unmercifully for years and years until he finally ran away. It hit me in the gut. My dreams shattered and I grieved the loss of THAT woman while dealing with the reality that she was an evil person through and through.
So, yeah, reality can blow fantasizing right out of the water.
"When you were eight, your biggest decision was which cereal to eat for breakfast. Someone else worried about the mortgage, the car payments, whether there was enough money for groceries."
Not true if you grew up with poverty or with abuse and/or neglect or serious health problems. Not everyone's childhood was rainbows and puppies. For some kids, every day is about finding the strength to survive to the next day. You remember that sh*t clearly, believe me.
Thanks for these terrific insights.
Having chosen not to attend my 50th high school reunion, your list explains a lot about conflicted feelings and emotions that went into that decision.
As a newborn I went home from the hospital with my adoptive parents. Growing up I knew that I was adopted but very little about my birth mother. The subject seemed to upset my mother. So, the older I got the more I romanticized my birth mother and the reasons that she gave up. When I was 55 I read a post on “Cousins Connect” and there I was. A brother was looking for me. We had long phone calls and finally a reunion. I will never forget the day that he told me the truth about our birth mother. She actually was a drunk, and she sex trafficked 3 of her own kids (born after me). The fourth half-brother was beaten unmercifully for years and years until he finally ran away. It hit me in the gut. My dreams shattered and I grieved the loss of THAT woman while dealing with the reality that she was an evil person through and through.
So, yeah, reality can blow fantasizing right out of the water.