It's been months since I looked at the FB profiles of the girls' birth family members. It just isn't a good thing for me to do. Takes me to a sad, dark place full of loathing and fear because these people all live in this area.
They all get new FB profiles constantly, there are 3 or 4 per person. Which, if I can find them that easily, what is the point of starting a new one? If you friend all the same people and make that public then it's pretty darn easy for anyone you're hiding from to still find you. And no, spelling your name a new way isn't actually a cover. Anyway, I found a profile for their birth mother that I hadn't seen previously. Looks like she just created it recently. In it was a cute picture of baby Kate at about 3 months old. I wanted the picture so I copied the image and then saved it in a file.
I'm sure that when the girls are grown they're going to wonder what they looked like as infants. This seemed like an innocuous and nice thing to do on behalf of the girls. Who knows when their birth mother could delete her profile so it seemed like I should grab the image while I could.
This set me thinking about capturing other baby pics of the girls, especially since Grandma is terrible at taking pictures and every picture she's ever sent me is blurry or cuts off some body part. I found several of the girls by themselves and then there was a pic of Jane with her birth mother when she was a year old. It's a sweet picture. We don't have many pics of their mother...I grabbed that one, too.
Feeling a tad invasive now but, on the other hand, these are public images she's left up there for 18 months after they were taken away so clearly she's not trying to hide anything. And, again, someday I think it will mean a lot to Jane to see a picture of her first mother holding her.
Then...it took a turn for the worse and I'm reminded why I should not do this social media spying thing. Birth mother's next profile had, as the header on the FB, an image of the girls that I took just three months ago, in their bedroom in my house. I checked--I'd sent that picture to Papa Ken, the pseudo-grandpa figure. I took that picture. They're in pajamas I bought, posed as I instructed, on Kate's bed. It's my picture in every sense of the word. Those are my daughters smiling at me behind the camera. And then she posts it and someone comments: So cute! They look just like you!
On one hand I think she should have pictures of the girls. I don't begrudge her knowing they are happy and healthy now. But it's the duplicitous nature of the posting. Using their cuteness to boost her own image. Pretending they're still with her; pretending she is caring for them. In reality, if they were still living with her they'd be in ragged clothes with matted hair.
So, that's the last time I have any contact with Papa Ken. It's just too creepy to think of her using my pictures of my daughters to present as her daughters. If she was open about the whole adoption maybe I'd feel differently. If we had a relationship and she'd gotten the picture from me, maybe I'd feel differently. But presenting the girls as still hers, with Ken's help, is underhanded and creepy.
From there things got even worse. Next I looked up birth father's profiles. Incredibly sad. He has four friends on each profile and one of them is his mother. There are threats from birth mother's father on his page calling him a child molester and plans to come and beat him up. Who leaves that stuff up?? Does he not know how to delete a post??
There were two pictures of the girls he'd posted. One is with him and Jane and Jane's half-brother. Wow, those three look so much alike. No doubt those two kids belong to him. I'm told that of the five he claims only those two are actually biologically his. I'd believe it.
The last picture was of Jane and Kate in July, 2018, so they were 16 months and 34 months old. Both are wearing only diapers and are asleep, most likely in his bed based on the look of the sheets and bedding. He labeled the picture, "finally all tired out from a daddy-daughter day".
Then, down in the comments, this is what he said, "K just putting it out there as a what would you do situation. if you are the father of the children do you think it's appropriate to take a shower with your two little girl"
My stomach clenched so hard I thought I was going to vomit. Then I started to cry.
He posted this in July. His own mother responded with a one-word "no" but nothing more. The girls were removed in November after he confessed to molesting both girls and boys. And his mother still adamantly refuses to believe he ever did anything wrong.
I am reminded, once more, that Grandma can never be trusted.Someone who posts that kind of question is wanting inappropriate contact with small children. Seeking it. This wasn't a hypothetical question. He was wanting to do, or had already done, something to those girls--and Grandma knows it.
The isolation from this shut down has been the best thing ever. I just need to find a way to extend it forever.
The hardest part of having an open adoption is making decisions about the secondary players. We already know that birth mother and father cannot ever have contact with the girls again. That decision was made for us by the court. But now we're on our own to make decisions about the grandparents, and friends of the family, who assure us they love the girls...but at the same time have an ongoing relationship with the very people who abused and neglected the children in the first place.
What do you say to someone who knew this was going on but didn't intervene? Or who did intervene to their capacity and doesn't understand that that wasn't enough?
I have to remember that really the courts did make a decision about these secondary people also. The courts did NOT give them custody. And the decision not to grant custody to a family member is just as great as a decision to terminate parental rights.
Ugh, this is where every contact with these broken adults takes me. It starts out all innocent and cute and focused on baby pictures--and it ends up realizing how deeply my daughters were betrayed by everyone who was supposed to take care of them and how lucky they are now to be far, far away from those people.
They all get new FB profiles constantly, there are 3 or 4 per person. Which, if I can find them that easily, what is the point of starting a new one? If you friend all the same people and make that public then it's pretty darn easy for anyone you're hiding from to still find you. And no, spelling your name a new way isn't actually a cover. Anyway, I found a profile for their birth mother that I hadn't seen previously. Looks like she just created it recently. In it was a cute picture of baby Kate at about 3 months old. I wanted the picture so I copied the image and then saved it in a file.
I'm sure that when the girls are grown they're going to wonder what they looked like as infants. This seemed like an innocuous and nice thing to do on behalf of the girls. Who knows when their birth mother could delete her profile so it seemed like I should grab the image while I could.
This set me thinking about capturing other baby pics of the girls, especially since Grandma is terrible at taking pictures and every picture she's ever sent me is blurry or cuts off some body part. I found several of the girls by themselves and then there was a pic of Jane with her birth mother when she was a year old. It's a sweet picture. We don't have many pics of their mother...I grabbed that one, too.
Feeling a tad invasive now but, on the other hand, these are public images she's left up there for 18 months after they were taken away so clearly she's not trying to hide anything. And, again, someday I think it will mean a lot to Jane to see a picture of her first mother holding her.
Then...it took a turn for the worse and I'm reminded why I should not do this social media spying thing. Birth mother's next profile had, as the header on the FB, an image of the girls that I took just three months ago, in their bedroom in my house. I checked--I'd sent that picture to Papa Ken, the pseudo-grandpa figure. I took that picture. They're in pajamas I bought, posed as I instructed, on Kate's bed. It's my picture in every sense of the word. Those are my daughters smiling at me behind the camera. And then she posts it and someone comments: So cute! They look just like you!
On one hand I think she should have pictures of the girls. I don't begrudge her knowing they are happy and healthy now. But it's the duplicitous nature of the posting. Using their cuteness to boost her own image. Pretending they're still with her; pretending she is caring for them. In reality, if they were still living with her they'd be in ragged clothes with matted hair.
So, that's the last time I have any contact with Papa Ken. It's just too creepy to think of her using my pictures of my daughters to present as her daughters. If she was open about the whole adoption maybe I'd feel differently. If we had a relationship and she'd gotten the picture from me, maybe I'd feel differently. But presenting the girls as still hers, with Ken's help, is underhanded and creepy.
From there things got even worse. Next I looked up birth father's profiles. Incredibly sad. He has four friends on each profile and one of them is his mother. There are threats from birth mother's father on his page calling him a child molester and plans to come and beat him up. Who leaves that stuff up?? Does he not know how to delete a post??
There were two pictures of the girls he'd posted. One is with him and Jane and Jane's half-brother. Wow, those three look so much alike. No doubt those two kids belong to him. I'm told that of the five he claims only those two are actually biologically his. I'd believe it.
The last picture was of Jane and Kate in July, 2018, so they were 16 months and 34 months old. Both are wearing only diapers and are asleep, most likely in his bed based on the look of the sheets and bedding. He labeled the picture, "finally all tired out from a daddy-daughter day".
Then, down in the comments, this is what he said, "K just putting it out there as a what would you do situation. if you are the father of the children do you think it's appropriate to take a shower with your two little girl"
My stomach clenched so hard I thought I was going to vomit. Then I started to cry.
He posted this in July. His own mother responded with a one-word "no" but nothing more. The girls were removed in November after he confessed to molesting both girls and boys. And his mother still adamantly refuses to believe he ever did anything wrong.
I am reminded, once more, that Grandma can never be trusted.Someone who posts that kind of question is wanting inappropriate contact with small children. Seeking it. This wasn't a hypothetical question. He was wanting to do, or had already done, something to those girls--and Grandma knows it.
The isolation from this shut down has been the best thing ever. I just need to find a way to extend it forever.
The hardest part of having an open adoption is making decisions about the secondary players. We already know that birth mother and father cannot ever have contact with the girls again. That decision was made for us by the court. But now we're on our own to make decisions about the grandparents, and friends of the family, who assure us they love the girls...but at the same time have an ongoing relationship with the very people who abused and neglected the children in the first place.
What do you say to someone who knew this was going on but didn't intervene? Or who did intervene to their capacity and doesn't understand that that wasn't enough?
I have to remember that really the courts did make a decision about these secondary people also. The courts did NOT give them custody. And the decision not to grant custody to a family member is just as great as a decision to terminate parental rights.
Ugh, this is where every contact with these broken adults takes me. It starts out all innocent and cute and focused on baby pictures--and it ends up realizing how deeply my daughters were betrayed by everyone who was supposed to take care of them and how lucky they are now to be far, far away from those people.
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