My circumstances were unique and who knows if I would have been this happy if I were a teenage mum with no support.

The only problem, Cary, is that despite being educated and well informed, I can not imagine telling my daughter that she is adopted. I thought adoption is so cool, I would be transparent.. Many times people talk of adoption as some altruistic act, but my lil monstah has given me more than what I could ever give her. It would be selfish to even want to be the center of her life, but she truly is the love of our lives. Seriously every parenthood cliche has come true for us.

I felt such a  possessive primal emotion from the first, which really surprised me. I don’t think you can be a mum with all the sleepless nights and life changes, without this bonding; she is mine and I am hers. From the start I started getting irrationally offended when friends referred to it. I cut off someone because she said “oh, she has really taken to you.” Like, why should she not, she is my daughter. I regret that this was shared with the whole family and I had a bit of a showdown where I made it clear that this is not something we discuss or even refer to whenever we meet or ever. Everything I read tells me that this information should be shared early. However, I also read that adopted children grapple with the issue, agonize over it. I mean, why should my lovely daughter have to deal with something her peers do not? Also, her birth mother cannot be traced. The information will really not help her get her genetic or medical information. If after a childhood of happy memories she does come to know, would it really shock her so much? Surely she would be strong enough to deal with it then. I had a tough childhood and teenage years. I was never close to my parents. Now I acknowledge that this could partly be my fault. All kids go through a rough teenage when they hate their moms, don’t they? What if knowledge of adoption compounds this angst? Leads to greater estrangement? I am going crazy, Cary, I can’t think straight. Isn’t love enough? Have you seen how the press always refers to the Cruise kids or the Jolie-Pitt kids as “adopted kids”? It makes me so angry.   I just want to be her mother, not her adoptive mother. And I want to give her a perfect childhood, though I realize it’s not wholly up to me. Already she has her own life and friends and soon she will go to school and my daughter can’t help but be independent. I am happy except when this issue comes up. What’s wrong with me? Am I turning into the crazy mom?

Can’t We Just Forget About It?

Dear Can’t We Just Forget About It,

What would you learn if you learned you were adopted?

You would learn that what you thought was true wasn’t true. It would be more a kind of unlearning than learning. It would be an acquisition of not-knowledge.

Maybe it would be like learning that most of the universe is dark matter and dark energy. You would have to start over. That might not be a bad thing. You might  acquire a new, more flexible notion of selfhood.

For one thing, you would have to conclude that you are not your genetic origin, right? Ideally, you would learn that you are a unique being, much loved, who came to be in a particular family here through unique circumstances.

But it isn’t as simple as that. We envision the unbroken line of success leading back to some early forms of human being and then back beyond them to advanced apes and less advanced apes and back and back and back to archaebacteria, the very earliest life forms. We see ourselves in a continuum, and we find comfort in imagining ourselves before we were born, and the lives of those who gave birth to us. We love deeply these images of those we take to be our parents. So it is a big disruption to what we thought was true, to what we thought we could depend on.

And it’s not a simple thing, for we are not simple creatures and we are not computers; we do not just know things and move on. We are haunted.

Old lovers haunt us. Things that might have been haunt us. It’s the season of haunting and we are haunted by ghosts.

It’s how we handle the ghosts that counts. There are always going to be ghosts in our lives. You may be adopted or not; you don’t really know where you come from. No one does. Your daughter, once she realizes she did not come out of your womb, might take some wise comfort in realizing that those who feel they know exactly who they are don’t really know, either. It’s much more complicated. Maybe this will be a gift to her; it will stretch her mind, her self-concept.

My best friend in junior high found out he was adopted and it bothered him. I don’t think it was the fact that he was adopted. I think it was the way his parents handled it. The being-adopted part of it just stood in for a much larger grievance.

You are a good parent. You love this child and as far as you are concerned she’s your daughter and that’s that. That’s pretty powerful. She belongs to you. She’s yours.

If someone along the way should whisper to her this secret, and if she should become confused and ask you, then you can tell her that she’s your daughter and you’re her mom and you love her. There’s no question of who’s her mom. Who else would be her mom but you? You don’t need to deny the truth but you can direct her to what is important and away from what is not important. You love her and she’s your daughter. That is what’s important.

And if at a certain more advanced point in her evolution you must discuss the biological details of whose womb she came out of, well, discuss. What’s wrong with that? It would be disrespectful to lie to her, wouldn’t it? Then you may get into the difficulties of the hard fact that her birth mother cannot be traced. Well, there is another mystery that if handled well could be a kind of enlightenment: For who among us can say with any certainty that our origin is not in some way a mystery to us?

Let’s put it this way: What does it matter whose car we came in? We’re at the party now.

We step out and there are glittering lights and a carpet and we walk up the steps to be greeted by old friends and new. Whose car did you come to the party in? What does that matter? We’re here. Let’s find the coat check.

Tricky moments will come to pass in time, or not. What else can you do but handle them with love?

Right now, you are happy, and she is loved, and you are loved in turn, and these other things, let them be. Let them be for now. Let time and circumstance decide. The basic truths are enough for now. You love her. She loves you. You’re happy. She’s your daughter. You’re her mom.

When it became clear that her two-year battle with cancer was drawing to a close, my mom put a lot of effort into apologizing to me. As I sat by her beside, trying to comfort her now that we knew she was near death, she told me, “I know I was a bitch to you.” The confession came as a surprise, but I smiled, figuring it was the morphine talking. Maybe the drug gave her the freedom to let go of her pride. “You were a lovable bitch,” I responded, with a wink and a smile. But inside, my heart was breaking. Why couldn’t she have apologized years ago? We could have had so much time to rebuild our relationship.

We both laughed. For the first time in years, maybe ever, we opened up to each other. In this dreary hospital room, with its green walls and its threadbare divider curtains, with its IV drip and heartbeat monitor, my mom, for the first time in memory, wasn’t judgmental. When she told me she was proud of me, I had to wonder: Why did she wait until now? I felt so much pain growing up, but I couldn’t tell her how she had hurt me. Not now. Not when she was dying.

A week before she passed away, she told me about a lockbox hidden in her bedroom closet. “There are important papers in there,” she said. Then she gave me the secret code: “Your daddy’s birthday.”

For the first time in my life, I felt nervous being alone in my childhood home. As I prepared myself to open “the secret hidden box,” I felt my heart pounding in my throat.

Balancing on a chair in front of the closet, I reached past the stacks of hat boxes, the silk scarves, the leather gloves; my hand touched metal. I pulled out the box, placed it on my mother’s quilted bedspread and stared at it.

I took a deep breath and rotated the first cylinder to “6.” The second was already in the correct position. After easing the third cylinder into place, I felt the lid release and slowly open. It was filled with papers. Insurance documents. Itemized lists appraising the trinkets my parents collected: jewelry, furs, monogrammed silverware, the china my father shipped over from Hungary during the war. “My inheritance.”

 As I worked my way through the documents, my heart stopped: “Adoption Papers.” The piece of paper listed my birth name. I could hardly read through the hot tears that filled my eyes. After removing my fogged-over contact lenses, I was able to examine the hand-typed court documents drafted so many years ago. While I studied the pages, one memory came to mind.

“Don’t ever ask me that again,” she’d yelled, so many years ago. Had she told me where this box was so I’d find the papers and open up a dialogue? Did she want me to ask her about this now? She had apologized for all of her cruelties. She realized she had been unfair. But was she ready to talk? Was that the reason she told me about the box?

I returned to the hospital the next morning expecting her to ask me about it. Did you find the box, do you have any questions? I’m ready now to answer anything. But she never mentioned the lockbox and I didn’t have the heart, or guts, to bring it up there, on her deathbed. I wasn’t going to do or say anything to upset her. She had to be the one to broach the subject. I waited.

In the end, no matter how many disappointments my mother had in her life, she couldn’t bring herself to talk to me about her greatest disappointment of all: that she could not give birth. She said nothing and I said nothing.

She died the following week. We never discussed her secret.

- – - – - – - -

I wasn’t surprised, but clearly everyone else was. I looked again at the bundle in my arms. I felt joyful and tender as I rearranged the tiny blanket around her. I cooed to her, my little sweetheart. She didn’t stir, still exhausted from the delivery.

I said quietly to the room, “You could be happy for me.”

The nurse said, “It’s a kitten. You delivered a kitten.”

“She’s beautiful,” I said. Then more firmly, “We’re going to be fine.”

I heard clucking tongues, spilling pity. Two nurses stood by me, trying to take her from me. I petted her cheek, turning over names in my mind. Could I call her the same name I had chosen for a human baby — Emily? Maybe just Emmy. I whispered it, and she sighed softly. “Then Emmy it is,” I said. I looked up, ready to confront them,”I want you to treat her like any other baby on this unit, or you will hear from my lawyer. She’s my baby, and I love her.”

“But she’s not a real baby,” the charge nurse said.

“This isn’t right, honey,” said the plump nurse. “Let us take her, and you can try again.”

“I have been trying for seven years!” I screamed. “This is my baby. She’s beautiful, and she’s mine, and I will not give her back. “

When I woke up, I had a sore throat.

- – - – - – - -

When we first met Daria, the birth mother, at Big Boy’s, I thought she looked like Mariah Carey. She had blond, streaked hair, big, aqua-colored eyes (they had to be contact-enhanced), and high cheekbones. She smiled at us as though she knew us. Well, of course she did. We had sent her our adoption portfolio, full of pictures and personal history. She knew the colleges we attended, the size of our home, our family history, our medical history, even our dog’s name, for Christ’s sake. We knew only her first name, a few vital statistics, and that she was pregnant.

“There she is,” I whispered, and we both rose to greet her. I noted the slight drag of her right foot, but I tried not to look at it. I remembered that on her medical sheet, she said she had had a slight stroke after her last pregnancy.

I smiled at her and extended my hand. “I’m Lydia,” I said, and then shoved Sean forward, eager for him to take the lead for me. He shook her hand and looked at me. He never had accepted responsibility easily. What was I thinking?

I grabbed the flowers we had bought on the way up, trying to cover my embarrassment for him. “These are for you.”

Daria looked surprised.

“You said your favorite color was purple,” I said, pointing to the delphinium and iris.

“And you remembered that?” Daria asked, referring to our previous phone conversations, where we had asked everything from, “What’s your favorite color?” to “Do you have any communicable diseases?” I had remembered every answer; obviously, she had not even remembered the phone call.

“Thank you. They’re pretty,” she said. I had been hoping for more.

She was pretty too. Sean pulled out a chair for her, and Daria sat down, oblivious to my stares. She was wearing a tan sundress that ballooned away from her. She wore heavy ’80s makeup, foundation that had been carefully tinted, blue eyeliner that matched her stunning eyes, blush striped to her hairline, and lipstick with a glossy finish. It wasn’t garish, but it was practiced and perfect. She wore little jewelry, except for a blue topaz ring that was boldly expensive. I hoped the father of the baby had given it to her. I wanted the baby to have been conceived in love.

- – - – - – - -

On the day that we were to give Emma back, James and I went down to the lake. It was about 85 degrees, and the sun was just starting to warm up. I took care to shield Emma from the sun, making a tent of sorts with her blankets. James was playing in the sand, “Making tracks” he called it, cutting tributaries down to the water. He asked me to play with him, but I said no rather sharply, and he got the message.

I looked down at Emma and at the lake. Both were still. I knew I should pray. I knew I should cry. I knew I should clasp her to me and rock and cherish her and memorize her every bone. I couldn’t do any of it.

I felt movement before I heard it, and turned to the swamp to my left. Seven blue heron rose from the reeds, perfectly spaced. They called and crackled; I know of no other word for it, maybe it was their wings beating or maybe it was the wind vibrating, but as they rose, the weather, the wind, the cloud, the bird, and my hope gathered as one, and flew.

James was already staring, and I lifted Emma’s blankets, and this I swear: She opened her eyes and saw her first miracle. It was the first of many in her young life. Fortunately, I was there to see them all. For I was, eventually, legally named her mother, although it took an 18-month court case and all our life savings to be so. But that is a nightmare that deserves its own story.

The memo, which dates from April 1961, was released by the Homeland Security Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by the author.

Jacobs notes that it is possible that the elder Obama made up adoption plans simply to appease immigration officials, who were allegedly concerned about the Kenyan student’s “playboy” lifestyle. Sources close to Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham — including her uncle — told Jacobs that Dunham had always been committed to bringing up her son and had never mentioned adoption.

Similarly, former White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told Jacobs that the president had never before heard of his parents’ adoption considerations and did not believe that his mother actually ever contacted the Salvation Army.

“But no one in the family plays saxophone,” I chuckled to myself. “They must have meant ‘trombone’ or ‘trumpet.’ “

Then I thought: “I wonder if one of the boys is thinking about switching instruments.”

Then — because five of our nine children were adopted at older ages from orphanages abroad, including the 13-year-old boy from Bulgaria and the 11- , 13- and 14- year old boys from Ethiopia — I thought: “They can’t spell.”

I returned to the Google search bar and hit a few random letters. Every letter-key I touched produced a little spurt and cascade of misspelled dirty words and phrases. I went back to the beginning of the alphabet and did this in alphabetical order. You had your male body parts, your female body parts, and — in the “Cs” and “Fs” — a few correctly-spelled popular four-letter words. I cheered up momentarily in the “Vs” with the appearance of the word, “Virginia.” “All right, so sometimes they actually do use my computer to do their homework!” I thought with relief, glancing down the list for hints of Jamestown, the Royal Colony and Thomas Jefferson.

But then I recalled, not for the first time: “They can’t spell.”

At Amazon.com, new products were presented for my approval, based on my “recent searches.” Just for me, they were saving a video version of the Kama Sutra. “Wow, that’s some good spelling!” I thought. “I thought it was spelled Karma Sutra.”

Perhaps my two “bio” sons, Seth and Lee, then 23 and 20, had looked into erotica, but they’d come of age in an epoch closer to the lifetimes of Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers. When they were young teenagers, computers were old, slow and black-and-white, more toaster or window fan than science fiction portal into every crevice of the known universe. When they were young, sexy and forbidden images were reproduced in magazines and also arrived in the mail in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or the Victoria’s Secret catalog. To conceal testosterone-fueled research from his mother, a 20th-century boy shoved his magazines deep under his bed, in the moldering twilight company of old socks, chewed gum and misplaced homework. No electronic trail lingered. Twenty-first century boys are unlucky in this way.

By sundown on the day I discovered the new research interest, “saxing,” I had purchased and downloaded a software product called NetNanny. Any attempt to visit a website featuring a female other than Cinderella, Indira Gandhi, Julia Child or Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was blocked by the sudden appearance, in profile, of a British housekeeper in a white apron, starched collar and little peaked hat. In her hand she held up, victoriously, a computer mouse that she’d evidently just cheerfully yet violently yanked out of the back of somebody’s hard-drive.

I was really smug about Net Nanny for two months.

The four younger boys were stymied by NetNanny for a day and a half. A clever friend of theirs secretly taught them how to turn off my computer, turn it back on, and quickly create a “guest” account other than mine. My computer “guest” was named “Franny,” in honor of our stocky middle-aged rat terrier. On Franny’s account, there was no Net Nanny and there was no Mom but there were, however, plenty of fleshy, top-heavy, rouged and evidently outgoing young women.

I may not be of the Internet generation, but even I know that a rat terrier would have no interest in a computer guest account. Wordlessly I retaliated with stricter software than NetNanny. The new protective software was called Safe Eyes. Safe Eyes stopped young teenage boys from accessing any website other than one entitled www.FunWithFractions.com.

So the boys down-shifted to other media.

One day a $767 bill arrived from our cell phone carrier. Close scrutiny revealed that the excess charges arose from the boys’ cell phone numbers: hard-core sex scenes had been downloaded from the Internet onto the tiny screens.

“I didn’t know they had Internet access on their phones,” I protested to Customer Service (not wanting to mention, “I didn’t know you could even get two female breasts on such tiny screens.”) What I did say was: “They told me they needed cell phones so they could call when soccer practice was over!” Hadn’t each portrayed himself as at risk of abandonment, alone and fearful on a darkening and vast soccer field as night closed in, long after the parents of boys with cell phones had come and gone? Customer Service waived the charges because the boys were not supposed to have Internet access on their mobile phones.

So that portal was closed. But the boys journeyed on.

A cable TV bill arrived from Comcast, charging us for a pay-per-view purchase of an X-rated movie about pole-dancing.

Pole-dancing is not, I recently learned, the festive springtime event of European folk culture in which young girls hold ribbons and weave in and out around a central post, wrapping it in a rainbow of pretty colors while adult males in short pants and knee socks whistle into wooden flutes. That is “Maypole dancing.” Pole-dancing is another thing entirely. I am learning so much!

When I checked the date on the Comcast bill, I realized I’d had a middle-school son home sick on that very day. At the precise hour of the movie screening, he’d been “napping” on the basement sofa, in front of the big-screen rec-room TV, upon which non-Maypole dancing was being anthropologically examined.

Furious with the $20 fee, I pounded down the stairs, found this son, and held out the bill to him. “This was the day you were home sick. That was your movie and it cost us $20! What are you going to do about it?”

“Oh, OK,” he said mildly. He slipped into his bedroom, removed his wallet from a drawer, took out a twenty and handed it to me.

Mollified, I couldn’t think of anything to say other than: “Hey, thanks!”

Back upstairs in the kitchen I had misgivings, which I shared with my husband, Don Samuel, a criminal defense attorney. “I’m not positive,” I said, “but I think that I just sold our 14-year-old son pornography.”

“That’s not good,” said Donny.

To which I replied: “I feel like his pimp.”

Of course we tried “Parental Controls” on the television.

“Parental Controls” should have the subtitle: “Ask Your Kids to Show You How to Install These Things.” The only Parental Controls we ever successfully set up on a television blocked nothing the children ever wanted to view, but resulted in our being unable to ever watch the “Jim Lehrer Newshour” on that set.

Thus, it should not have been an enormous surprise when, on a Saturday afternoon in August, another cable TV bill arrived, this one charging $120 for unsanctioned pay-per-view purchases, through the cable box in the basement, of XXX-rated movies involving, variously, lingerie, lesbians, Las Vegas and — no doubt — the Kama Sutra and perhaps even Virginia.

This time I was really mad. We’d had the excruciating and one-sided discussions about relationships, true intimacy and respect for women. I’d held these conversations (or “monologues”) with our daughters and I’d held them with our sons, because my husband (defender of the criminally charged) is incapable of allowing such delicate topics to cross his pure lips. I explained how demeaning it is to women to be perceived as sex objects; I touched upon the importance of respect in the approach to intimacy and marital happiness. The night I sat on the edge of 13-year-old Sol’s bed to broach the subject, he fell straight backwards onto his pillow as if he’d been shot, and then reached out and pulled the bedspread up and over his face, refusing to reappear.

On the afternoon that the pay-per-view bill arrived, the four younger boys and friends were lounging around the kitchen table eating cold cereal and popsicles.

“I need to talk to the Samuel boys RIGHT NOW,” I announced, the bill shaking in my grip as if I’d just grabbed a live duck out of the air.

The boys’ friends evacuated.

Twelve-year-old Helen peeked in, wondering if she were needed.

“I said the Samuel BOYS!” I roared. Helen fled.

I smashed the fluttering bill flat onto the table. “One hundred twenty dollars!” I shouted. “Who is going to pay for this?”

Daniel and Yosef, who’d lived in America for less than a year, instantly lost all English-speaking ability.

Sol put up both hands in self-defense and shook his head no. He glanced around with a shocked and concerned expression, as if startled to find himself in such low company.

Jesse, the Bulgarian 13-year-old who was somehow constantly in hot water, sighed and coolly raised one finger as if signaling a waiter to bring the check. “It was me,” he said.

“Really?” I asked, stunned at the rapidity of the confession. “All the movies? You?”

He sighed again. “Yep.”

“Jesse, that is a ton of money.”

He tsked sadly in regret at his own behavior and said, “I know.” He shook his head, as if to say, What am I going to do with myself?

“Go get your allowance book,” I snapped. He handed over the account register while his three brothers watched expressionlessly. “This will take you till … December to pay back,” I said. “You’ve got no spending money till then.”

“OK, Mom.”

“Can we go?” asked Sol, eager to put distance between himself and this distasteful subject.

“Go.” I waved the others away.

In a minute, Sol was back. For the second time in a three-month period, he was removing a $20 bill from his wallet and handing it to me.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“To help Jesse.”

“Really?” I asked, startled. I was touched.

“Here, Mom,” said Daniel, having regained a few words of English. “Help Jesse.” He gave me a ten.

Yosef then produced $40. “Yosef, sweetie! You don’t have to do this.”

He shrugged modestly as I kissed him.

“Jess, sheesh! You’ve got nice brothers,” I said. “You’ll be able to pay off the rest of the bill easily.”

With a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes from these fraternal kindnesses, I made my way to the front room, where Donny reclined in his overstuffed chair reading his law books. “You will not believe what just happened. We have incredibly sweet boys!” I told him about the money they’d donated to Jesse’s case without anyone asking for it.

Donny glanced up from “The Eleventh Circuit Criminal Handbook,” said, “They watched the movies, too,” and returned to his reading.

Why? Why am I such an idiot? I’ve been raising children for decades, and this insight would never have occurred to me.

The next day I found Jesse eating a bowl of Froot Loops alone in the kitchen. “Jess,” I said, “those movies … Did any of the other boys watch them with you?”

“Mom! Are you kidding me? I didn’t watch any of them! Did you see the times those movies were ordered?? Five in the morning! They watch them before school. I don’t get up that early!”

It was true. My sons from Ethiopia, who’d once worked as goatherds, were up at dawn every day.

I sputtered to reply. “Well … why did you say it was you?”

“Did you see their faces? They were terrified,” he said, and returned to his Froot Loops.

When I relayed this news to Donny, he laughed and said, “They must have been thinking, ‘Jesse’s always in trouble. Jesse can take the heat.’”

I’m a sucker for sibling solidarity. To celebrate Jesse’s having paid off his bill and the spirit of fraternity that helped him do it, I took the kids to a movie. I took the six youngest males and females to the Disney-Pixar animated movie, “Wall-E.” “Thanks, Mom!” “That was really fun, Mom!” everyone said when we got home from our big night out. The two girls headed upstairs to their bedrooms, and the four boys ran for the basement stairs.

Excerpted from No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene. Copyright © 2011 by Melissa Fay Greene. Published May 2011 by Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.