“[Am I The Jerk] For Treating My Adopted Children The Same As My Biological Child?”
Adopting a child is a long process and the parents must meet a lot of various requirements to be considered as adoptive parents. It’s something that a person wouldn’t willingly go through just for fun, so you would expect that they really want this.
In real life, that’s not always the case and parents may not love them as they would their own children. A dad on Reddit was quite perplexed that his wife had these kinds of feelings and didn’t think their adoptive children deserved the same size college fund as their biological son. But because he loved her, he wondered if he should have compromised to make his wife happy.
More info: Reddit
Dad views his biological and adoptive children alike as his kids, but found out that his wife didn’t
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Image credits: Hernán Piñera (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) is a dad to 3 children. One of them is his biological son Ethan, who is 16, and then two adoptive children: Aiden, who is 16, as well as Gracie, who is 12 years old. The adoptive children are actually his wife’s cousin’s kids. The parents were losing custody and the wife asked her husband if they could adopt them, so they did just that 10 years ago. Recently, the parents died and now these kids don’t have another family they can go back to.
While in the post, the OP makes a distinction between his biological son and his adoptive kids, in his mind, there is no distinction and he considers all of the kids his own. On top of that, all the siblings are really close. So when the OP’s mom died and left him a lot of money for inheritance, he decided to distribute it equally towards his kids’ college funds.
The man has one biological son, an adopted son and an adopted daughter, but they are still family as they’re his wife’s cousin’s children
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As Ethan and Aiden are at the age when they are starting to think about colleges, it’s a regularly occurring topic in the family’s conversations. But it seems that it bothers the wife that her adoptive children will have the same college fund as her biological son because then less money is left for herself.
The couple got in such a big argument that the wife left and hasn’t returned for several days without even giving a call. The saddest part was that the kids heard everything and Aiden felt bad that he and his sister were the cause for this argument.
The children’s parents had lost custody for a reason that the dad didn’t reveal and later passed away
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In a reply to a comment, the dad revealed that this favoritism may have been happening for longer than he thought, because Ethan didn’t want her to come back because “Aiden and Gracie don’t need that in their lives.”
Up until this point, the OP hadn’t noticed any unfair treatment himself: “We have never had an issue before. They all get new stuff as and when they need it. She would happily just take Aiden or Gracie shopping if they needed something. There were never at any point red flags for me that she was any less loving to them as she was to Ethan.”
Adopting the children was the wife’s idea and it worked out fine as they became a real family and their biological son has a close relationship with his siblings
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However, a problem occurred when the man’s mom died and left him quite a bit of money, which he decided to put in his children’s college funds
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But now the dad himself isn’t too sure about wanting Ami back either. “I feel that it wouldn’t do the children any good to have her in their lives at the moment. They obviously feel like she doesn’t love them as much. She can’t change what she has done and I have to make sure all of my kids are safe and loved. I can’t trust her with them anymore and I don’t think that’s a safe environment to bring kids up in.”
He was prepared to help her if she really had problems, but scratched that thought when his wife refused any help and left for Canada to live with her mom. She didn’t even say goodbye to her kids and hasn’t contacted them since leaving the first time.
He divided the money into equal parts but the wife thought that their adoptive children didn’t deserve as much money as their biological son
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You could say that it is quite an extreme behavior to leave without saying a word. It’s also unusual because a group of scientists found in their research that parents didn’t favor their biological children over the adoptive ones: “These findings refine, rather than refute, predictions from evolutionary psychology concerning preference for closely related individuals over distant relatives or non-relatives.”
And even though when parents needed to rate their children’s negative traits, they rated their adoptive children higher in behaviors like arrogance and stealing, but they gave the same ratings of their positive traits compared to their biological children. The positive traits included conscientiousness and persistence.
The research also showed that “Raising adoptive children is viewed as a meaningful alternative to raising biological children as it appeals to and satisfies human tendencies to care for infants and young children.”
She also wanted more money for herself and when the man wouldn’t step back, she left home and didn’t contact her family for several days
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Nigel Barber Ph.D., author of Kindness in a Cruel World, also comes to the same conclusion that parents love all of their children equally no matter if they are biological or not. Some studies show that adoptive children are actually treated better.
Theories for that explain that it could be because they need more help as they have more problems at school or had addiction problems. Anthropologist Kyle Gibson says, “In adoptive families, it appears that ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ Parents invest more in adoptees not because they favor them, but because they are more likely than genetic children to need the help.”
Sadly the children heard the conflict and felt bad for causing arguments between their parents
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In the end, the mom left for Canada and didn’t even say goodbye to her children so the dad doesn’t feel that bad for not taking her opinion into consideration
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It’s a mystery why Ami, who was the one to propose the idea of adopting her cousin’s children, was the one who turned her back on them and had a problem of them being treated equally with her biological son.
But people in the comments were glad that the kids have such a good father who stood up for them and takes care of them. They were also confused why she would behave that way and advised the dad to secure those funds to prevent her from accessing them if she seeks nice things for herself.
What do you think of this story? Have you ever seen this happen in real life? What do you think the dad should do in this situation? Let us know your thoughts and reactions in the comments.
People in the comments thought that the dad was being fair and were surprised by the mom’s behavior given that she suggested to adopt the kids in the first place
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I'm adopted as well, and this enrages me too. This mom is such trash. I hope dad divorces her to get her permanently out of those kids' lives, as she will treat the adopted kids like c**p to their faces at some point, if she hasn't already. My mom treated me like a second-class citizen through my entire childhood (and still does) because I was adopted just to be a sibling to my parents' biological child. Fortunately my dad was great and didn't care I was adopted and loved me equally :)
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The thing is, the adopted kids are blood. Ami’s cousin is their biological parent.
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Wow. Just wow. I hope she gets the help she needs. I'm glad the kids have their dad, he's a stand up guy. I don't think he'll have a hard time finding a new special someone
I'm adopted as well, and this enrages me too. This mom is such trash. I hope dad divorces her to get her permanently out of those kids' lives, as she will treat the adopted kids like c**p to their faces at some point, if she hasn't already. My mom treated me like a second-class citizen through my entire childhood (and still does) because I was adopted just to be a sibling to my parents' biological child. Fortunately my dad was great and didn't care I was adopted and loved me equally :)
Load More Replies... The thing is, the adopted kids are blood. Ami’s cousin is their biological parent.
Load More Replies... Wow. Just wow. I hope she gets the help she needs. I'm glad the kids have their dad, he's a stand up guy. I don't think he'll have a hard time finding a new special someone
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