gave ex full custody, am I a bad Mom?

(This blog has not been as frequent as it should be as I just had my first child a month ago and moved into a new home 3 weeks ago.  No more excuses, if you write me questions I will answer and post, your job is to follow.)

Question:  After four years of marriage my husband and I divorced and I granted him full custody of our son.  There were a number of issues in our marriage, one of them being I think my husband was using me so he could present a better candidate to adoption agencies.  My husband did all the work to set up the adoption and he is an extremely loving father.  It may sound terrible but while I do love my son I do not feel as connected to him as I think I would be if he was my biological child.  After the divorce I moved to a neighboring state and while I have visitation every other weekend it didn't make sense for me to fight my ex for custody.  I felt like I was doing what was best for my son and I felt no need to use him as leverage to punish my ex.  When I tell people my ex husband has custody that look at me as if I must be a terrible mother or a meth addict.  How do I get people, particularly my son as he gets older, to understand that it's because I love my son that I left him with his Father.  

Answer:  The only opinion that matters is that of your son.  Adopted children are particularly sensitive to feelings of abandonment, as long as you go out of your way to call and remain in his life even when you do not have visitation things there should be fine.  

In society at large there is a bias that children should be with their mothers no matter what.  I know many fathers who have stayed in a loveless marriage because they were petrified that they would lose contact with their children.  You are not being paranoid if you assume that people are pre-judging you when they hear you do not have custody of your child.  People are also pre-judging you when they find out you are divorced, if you have had a home foreclosed on, lost a job, are a white sox fan...

So when you go into a situation with a person who is new in your life and an awkward topic comes up how do you prove you are not a child abuser or meth addict?  Answer:  act like a normal person.

In previous posts of may have discussed the Tabloid Effect.  When we are in the supermarket we all notice the tabloids which claim outrageous, and sometimes true, things about celebrities.  If I see a headline that says, "Angelina Jolie Eats Babies!"  and I like Angelina Jolie I will think, "that's crazy talk".  If I hate Angelina Jolie I will think "I knew that bitch was eating babies."  and if I have never heard of Angelina Jolie I will think "Hmmm guess I wouldn't leave my kids at her house".

No matter what I thought when I read the headline if I were ever to meet Angelina Jolie I would weigh my experience with her much more heavily than any rumors that I had previously heard about.

If you believe that your son is better off with your ex-husband then he is, and you made the right decision.  Never let society scare you out of doing the right thing, especially for your child, just because it isn't the norm. People will pre-judge you when you do something that is not typical but if you have the power to move past that pre-judgement very quickly so do not let it slow you down from meeting people and letting them know your story.

As I said before the most important thing is that you tell your son over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over how much you love him and that you want to maintain a place in his life.  In so doing you can help him to realize that he is not destined to be abandoned and that even when people leave that doesn't mean relationships have to end.