Ambivalence toward Dysfunctional Birth Family after Adoption
If you have adopted an older child out of foster care, you might be surprised by the child's ambivalence toward his dysfunctional birth family. When a child was adopted out of abusive or very neglectful circumstances, people might expect the child to have an attitude of "good riddance" toward their birth parents. However, this is frequently not the case. How can a child continue to feel any loyalty toward a person who has harmed him? You have to remember that abuse and neglect do not happen in a vacuum. The child enters the world loving his birth family. Even as the birth family harms the child or allows harm to come to him, the birth family also provides a certain amount of love. Because a child is desperate to feel loved, he grasps at the wisps of love and tries to hold onto them for dear life. If abusive or neglectful family were always bad, it would be easy to sever your emotional ties toward them. However, with the exception of the most severe cases of neglect and abuse, the harm comes along side-by-side with love, even if the love is a very warped version. Jeannette Walls provides a wonderful example of this dynamic in her book, The Glass Castle: A Memoir. Her father is an alcoholic who routinely "drinks" the family's money in the local bars, leaving the children to climb into dumpsters to search for anything to fill their stomachs. He even goes as far as stealing the children's money from their piggy bank. Nevertheless, years later when Ms. Walls considered dropping out of her senior year of college because she was $1,000 short on tuition, her father came through for her, even though he was destitute. He handed her a bag filled with filthy crumpled bills that he won gambling because he knew his child needed the cash. When you grow up in a dysfunctional household, you want to believe in your parents. You hope that they will come through for you and take care of you, even as the disillusionment takes over. It would be easier if they always disappointed you, but they will often come through just enough to cause you to doubt your disillusionment. It is this dynamic that keeps a child feeling connected to his dysfunctional birth family long after an outsider would expect the child to feel nothing but hatred or detachment. Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt 
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Selective Memory
When the birthparent was really abusive or neglectful,it feels quite disloyal to have the child keep telling you how wonderful his mom was, even after a long period at home. We are human, it sounds like 'It was so much better with my mom, gosh, I wish I could be with her'. When you have been trying your hardest with a very challenging child for several years, this is a very hurtful thing to hear. Yes, the attachment books do a wonderful job explaining the why, but this is about emotions, not logic.
Fortunately, a lot of kids don't have this fixation on wonderful mom. They can notice where they are and what life is like now. It is the ones who have their defensive shields up that have no idea that anything important has changed. It can be a long time before you do penetrate the shield, and it may not happen.
My middle son came home at 9. He had lived on the street with his mom, eaten from dumpsters, and been abused by mom's boy friends. I heard reapetedly how his mom was wonderful beyond description. Gentle discussions of what life was actually like, or gee that must have been hard went no where. After three years, I took a risk, I had to get through the shield somehow. After yet another 'wonderful mom' dissertation, I erupted and said 'Wonderful my ___, that woman drank like a fish while she was pregnant with you and permenantly messed up the wiring in your brain. You were her fourth kid, she knew that drinking was likely to damage you, and she did it anyhow. You have FAS, it will never go away, and it is soley from her drinking. You can tell me you miss her, or that good things that happened and that's fine, but dont ever tell me she was a wonderful mom, she didn't keep you safe.' I lucked out, it penetrated. We still had lots of talks about good things that happened, but no more wonderful mom. It was risky, but the alternative was no progress. He had RAD and we did attach. John
Good for you :0)
Good for you, John!! It sounds like your intuition really paid off.
I do not understand the mindset of thinking an abusive parent is wonderful, either. I never had any of those illusions about my abusive parent. However, I have seen that dynamic in other adult survivors of child abuse. They might not use the word "wonderful," but they will continue to defend the abusive parent's actions and have a shield up (as you said) that is hard to penetrate.
Even though my sister acknowledges our mother's abuse, she still does not want anyone else to criticize her mother because she is family. I get a pass because I am family, too.
- Faith
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We must BE the change we wish to see in the world. - Ghandi