Contact Letter Time... and Facebook!

Its that time of year again.

Time to write our annual contact letter to birth mum, not that she has ever responded but I do it anyway to ensure that in the years to come when the boys decide to look for their birth family (and I'm sure they will) they know that we did our best to keep birth mum informed.

Its always such a difficult letter to write. We are told to keep it brief, not to go into any personal details and to make sure it is positive - don't dwell on any of the problems we face on a daily basis or in any way blame the birth family for causing those problems.

There's a part of me that just wants to say "You caused this mess, you destroyed our children's lives and ruined their childhood, you could have stopped the abuse at any time - but you didn't - surely you should be writing to me and thanking us for giving them any hope of a future!" Of course I don't. I say they are doing well at school, we had a great time on holiday, they love sports and games... stuff like that. It basically becomes a completely rose tinted view of our lives. A facebook view of adoption.

Facebook - love it or hate it, its part of our lives.

There will come a time when the boys end up online and so this week I did the inevitable - I looked birth mum up on Facebook... and there she was.

Her whole life displayed publicly - no privacy settings.

I went through it all, eating it up, reading everything about her - desparately trying to find something about the children - not just ours but also the others she has had removed and have been adopted elsewhere.

Nothing.

Not one mention.

Just lots of lovely pictures of her with her friends and her (and I guess the boys') family. Lots of parties and pets - the usual pictures a young woman would put up on Facebook.

At first I was relieved that she wasn't showing any interest in the whereabouts of her children. I think I had been afraid to look before because I was worried that it would be filled with pictures of our kids as babies with her desparately pleading for someone to help find them.

And then I was saddened by it.

What would the boys think when they eventually see this? (Which won't be for a long time, but its bound to happen and I'd rather it was with me and papa to help them navigate it rather than for them to take a sneaky peak when no-one is looking) - how are they going to feel when they see that they aren't even mentioned?

Of course, I get that it may be too painful for her and that not everyone shares their lives on Facebook (although some of the stuff she did share seemed incredibly intimate) but with birth mum not engaging in letterbox contact my fear is that this will be the first time the boys hear from their mother again and it doesn't make for pretty reading.

It made me realise both the importance of letterbox contact and also the threat of social media, or rather unguarded social media in the lives of our children.

But for now - I'm back to writing platitudes...

Facebook gets me into trouble again...

oops! So now my sister is mad at me.

Oh dear, apparently a 'witty' comment I put onto Facebook about the gay marriage bill being passed in parliament last night didn't go down too well when I mentioned the 'joke' cost of a straight wedding (as my sister is getting married soon)... Anyway, maybe she had a bit of a point - so I deleted it to keep the peace.

I daren't put the joke here in case they see it again - I think she and he fiancee are having  a sense of humour bypass at the moment, they definately didn't see the funny side - but weddings can do that - they stress you out.

On our own Civil partnership I forgot to order the cars - and we had to load everybody into black cabs and then got stuck in a traffic jam - so we were about half an hour late for the ceremony - the registrar was beginning to worry that we had backed out - but no, it was just poor planning... planning has never been my strongest attribute! But we had a lovely ceremony.We then proceeded to take the entire family with us on our honeymoon to Paris. so we loaded the cab with mother, sister and her boyfriend and my brother and his wife and we all jumped on the eurostar to gay Paris for a few days! We even had the usual family falling out at the dinner table - I had a huge row with my brother, stormed out, (to a round of applause from the locals) and went home to bed... the rest of the family in the meantime stayed up, drank the bar dry and rowed until the morning! Apparently, when Papa was asked if he was going to follow me, his reply was, " he knows the way back." and he carried on drinking....

The next morning there was only Papa and I around so we went for a delicious breakfast and then had a lovely stroll to the eiffel tower and back. We returned to the hotel to find Mother sitting there by herself. She had her handbag on her lap and was sat on a chair eyeing the shifty French receptionist and making sure he didnt pilfer her mint imperials... she reminded me of Shirley Valentine... She was now hungry so we popped out for a second breakfast - you can never have too many breakfasts! We then returned to the hotel again and finally met everyone else, who by now had woken up and all had the munchies - so Papa and I went out again for breakfast number three - my sister in law threw most of it up, so it was obviously a good night the night before! But despite that it was great - I think sometimes the unplanned parts of a wedding are the best bit!

I think we should now make it a family tradition that everyone goes on the honeymoon with the happy couple - although with my sister we probably wouldn't get further than Skegness!!!!!! (that's a joke by the way!!!!!!).

Facebook and Gay Marriage...

This morning I read a Facebook post that infuriated me - I'm sure the person that posted it didn't mean anything and is a very nice person (I dont actually know them - but thats the problem with Facebook, anything automatically becomes shared and then public property)

Anyway, I wont go into it but the crux of the matter was the gay situation in Singapore - for those of you who don't know, Singapore still outlaws gay relationships - well in particular gay sex and a well meaning person had written that it was unfortunate that the right wing Christians didn't realise that gays were 'created' due to the hardships they suffered in childhood, development issues, abuse and lack of love and I'm afraid I saw red.... and I wrote this:

'As a gay man, partner of over 10 years in a civil partnership and raising two 'damaged' children, I am horrified by some of the comments on this thread and to even suggest that I am gay due to abuse, lack of love etc is frankly ignorant and offensive. I was raised in a church going family, filled with love, my grandfather is a vicar as is my uncle. I battled with my homosexuality because the church taught me it was wrong and therefore I was not worthy. It has taken me a long time to reconcile my faith and accept that this is all part of my journey. I cannot deny who I am as if I did that I would be offending the very God who created me. But I can learn to live in a moral way. I am faithful to my partner,I love my kids, I attend church regularly, am confirmed and have had my children baptised. I don't judge anyone for their beliefs but I won't be told that I am gay because I am in some way damaged... That insults the parents of gay people everywhere.'

For me it was a very personal thing to share but I think it speaks for me and for many who I am sure recognise that their sexuality is not 'caused' by anyone or anything.... maybe some disagree - feel free to tell me why... I love a debate...

Which then brings us on to the issue of gay marriage, which seems a lifetime ahead of the issues currently being debated in Singapore.

I thought about it and actually we should thank the right wing church for denying gay people the right to marry...

When I was single I was able to drop everything and go to New York with my friends - just to meet up for a weekend, I went to the gym, I was healthy and fun loving.

Now don't get me wrong I love Papa with all my heart - but we decided that we would take advantage of the new equality laws and held our Civil Partnership 6 years ago. We then wanted what our straight friends had - a family. So we applied to adopt and were blessed with our two children (whom I also love dearly). But now I have put on at least 3 stone, drink too much ,am constantly stressed and exhausted. Papa and I argue over things like whose turn it is to clip kids toenails and why is there no milk for breakfast. We are constantly tired and broke - with every last penny going on our kids...

Just think if the Right Wing church had their way we would have been spared all this and would be happily attending gay orgies and shopping while listening to Kylie. So the Right Wing Church does love gay people - behind the facade of vitriolic hatred they simply wanted to spare us gays from being as unhappy as they obviously are in their lives!!!!!!

Luckily - I have an amazing support network of friends and family and no matter how bad it gets there is always someone to call or somewhere to go and have a coffee while the kids run screaming in another room. Much better than sitting in a room with other like minded people spewing hatred towards a group of people we have probably never met.

After all what goes around comes around... at least I hope so!