AITA for letting my SIL interview me about being a birth mother knowing my answers wouldn't be exactly what she was looking for?
I (34f) gave birth to a baby boy when I was 20 and I put him up for adoption. I don't know anything about him and never had any contact with his family or him. This isn't something I keep secret but I also don't go into the details frequently either.
My husband's younger sister (22f) became a young mom at 17. She and her boyfriend considered giving their baby up for adoption but decided to keep their child and raise her. This made SIL passionate about adoption and adoptee rights and birth mother rights. She fell somewhat down the anti-adoption online rabbit hole. Not to say there aren't negatives to the industry, there are. But she's got a lot of wrong ideas.
She's also a college student and focuses a lot on adoption for her assignments. She wants to be a social worker who helps people keep their kids so adoption becomes a thing of the past.
I'm the only birth mother she knows well enough to ask for an interview and when she asked I said yes.
Her questions focus around a few areas from why I gave "my own baby" up for adoption to what could have changed it and did I have any regrets. She also mentioned some studies about skin to skin and if I could go back would I have held the baby and given him skin to skin with me.
I'll sum up what I told her/answered with.
I have zero regrets about giving the baby up for adoption and if I had to remake the choice, I would. This was the only good decision for him. For that reason even though skin to skin has benefits I would not have held him knowing about those. Had I held him at all I would have kept him and his life would not have been good.
I was not selfless enough to put him first. He would have been abused by my ex-partner and I would have stayed. He would have been living among drugs, sex and all sorts of things with random people coming in and out and I would have stayed. Keeping him would not have changed that. All it would do is give him more trauma. The person I was back then was not going to change for a baby. I could have been given a free house, free childcare, a job and all kinds of supports and I still would've gone back and exposed him. Therapy wouldn't have helped either because I never would have taken advantage of it really.
I told her I went from one abusive household (my parents) to another (my ex) and that I was enjoy being rebellious and pissing my parents off. That my ex was everything they hated and they were everything I hated so I clung to my ex. And because the baby wasn't his he was never going to accept him.
I told her looking back at me then and knowing how innocent that precious little boy was I would have been a monster for keeping him. I told her even back then I knew I wasn't going to sacrifice like that for him. I told her loving and wanting him wasn't enough. Because I wouldn't have given him a good life.
SIL argued with me on the point of resources. She said I have no way of knowing if I would have made a better life for us if they was offered. I told her I do know. I told her I know that 20 year old me better than anyone ever will. And the only life I would have given him would be one full of abuse and neglect. That he never would have been my number one priority. She argued adoption might not have given that to him either but I told her it gave him more of a chance than staying with me did.
She really didn't like my answers and told me everything I said went against the point of her paper. I told her I couldn't lie and she asked me why I accepted then. She said I made it seem like adoption is the only option. I told her because there are times when it is the only option.
She's mad about it and my husband told her she came to me and was wrong to be mad at me for answering the questions honestly. She said I made her work harder.
AITA? And I'm asking because I knew my answers wouldn't be the kind she wants to write about but I agreed to do this anyway in part to try and open up her mind.