I smiled when I saw who was posting this…because I do enjoy how AreYouSerious challenges us to see different views.  And I continued to smile as I realized we agree 100% on this point.  Keep it honest, but also age-appropriate.  A child’s story shouldn’t change as they grow up (I never want to lie to my daughter)…but some details of the story should be saved for when he/she’s old enough to understand.

Thank you for posting this and sharing with us.

Thanks for this really helpful and thoughtful advice.  Although we have intuitively followed much of it for years, I never conciously separated/distinguished the “why” story of my kids’ birthmothers and our journey to become their parents.  It makes perfect sense.

Thank you for posting.  We have a 4 month old at home and although I know it is a few years away I will take your advice.  Definatley something that worries me about saying or not saying the right thing.  I also think we have to wait to see what his personality is like.  Its going to be hard not to do the mystical stuff as I was raised by a Shirley Mclaine type of woman but will do my best.  We dont know a lot about his mother to tell him.

Thank you AreYouSerious.  This is very helpful, especially about separating the reason we adopted from the reason the birth mom placed our boys for adoption. I am the adoptive mom of two little boys who are too young yet to understand the meaning of adoption although it is a subject that is spoken freely of in our household.  They share the same birth mom but different birth fathers and the story of their birth mom is a difficult one with many aspects.  I appreciate your advice to essentially stick to the facts of what is actually known, and not to interpret the birth mother’s feelings or mystify the process.  Your comment about abortion is particularly helpful.  I think you’re right that if given age appropriate facts it allows the adoptee to add them to their life story in their own way.  However, as a parent, I think it will also be important to keep an ongoing and open discussion with my children about how this story makes them feel and what they think about it in order to help them build a positive self-image.  Jane Brown comments on a lot of these posts and she says it’s so important to really listen to your kids about how being adopted makes them feel.  I don’t want my boys to feel like they have to be grateful to us or live up to being extra special or perfect because we went through so much to adopt them.  I love them because they’re my kids, not because they’re adopted and they’re special because I love them so much.  I’m going to print out your post for later reference!  Thanks again. It’s good to hear from the perspective of someone who was adopted in all these discussions.

Thank you for this insight….it is truly appreciated and will be taken to heart…my daughter is too young right now to even understand adoption but your advice will be so valuable in the years to come as she begins to understand what her adoption really means….thank you so much!

Helpful perspective. Thank you for sharing!

I am very grateful to any adult adoptee who shares his/her perspective.  They do not have a responsibility to us, as adoptive parents, to do so—and its important that we, who are not in the dual role of being both an adoptee and an adoptive parent recognize that.  They are offering us a gift-opportunity to hear how our children may someday think/feel/wonder/react to adoption-related matters, including how our words and beliefs may be interpreted in ways that we might otherwise not realize. 

    As an adoption therapist, I feel quite honored to get an insider-glimpse into how the many children, teens, and adult adoptee volunteers think and feel, and what they are more often than not reluctant or resistant to sharing with their adoptive parents (and why).  Many of the statements Are You Serious said she has strong negative feelings about are some of the very things that children and youth, and other adult adoptees say too.  That is why it is important for us/you to understand how children’s unfolding thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, feelings tend to unfold over various developmental stages.  Why its important to put aside your own reactions or desire to implant beliefs/assumption/feelings, LISTEN, and RESPOND to what your child is telling you.  Its why its so important to pay attention to what is NOT said, as well—what may lie just beneath the surface of questions, comments, behaviors in your child.  And VERY important to grasp that adoptees tend to see and experience adoption and related matters very differently from how WE do, as adoptive parents. 

    Another comment that usually rubs adoptees the wrong way is when adoptive parents and others suggest that God meant for them to be part of their adoptive families.  In the mind of many to most adoptees—once they are old enough to think independently and not just take their adoptive parents’ word for everything—that would mean that God first meant to destroy their original family and cause their birth parents to go through the rest of their lives with a hole in the heart, and for God to have intended for them to have lifelong grief, questions about their worthiness to be kept and raised by the adults who are normally supposed to do that (their birth parents) by fixing whatever grown-up problems they had, and to forever wonder who they would have been.  JUST so that you—their adoptive parents—could have the opportunity to raise them.  (and have others name you as saints for having “taken in” one of those poor, unfortunate, “orphans” (who AREN’T orphans).  It rankles to the point where many, once they are adults and are not financially dependent on their parents, turn away from religion.  Why love and claim a God who would intentionally cause so much suffering for 2/3rds of the adoption triad—sacrifice them for the other 1/3rd who had all of the power to choose?

    In terms of talking with adopted children about one’s own motives for adopting, I urge parents not to whitewash the part about how many questions they had about whether raising an adopted child would be as fulfilling as raising a child born to them—whether the love would be the same, and whether they would be a “real” family (since people commonly only regard/refer to the original family as the “real” family).  Also, to not gloss over the pain they had, if there was pain—in facing the fact that they could not birth a child. 

    When we are honest, we make it more permissible for our children to talk with us about the insensitive and hurtful things that others say, regarding adoption status.  We open the door to our child realizing that they are not the only ones who have grieved, and that adoption yields both gains and losses that we can honestly and openly talk about, and claim feelings over. 

    Telling others that we adopted to give a child a permanent home when we only considered doing so after we grappled with infertility, or secondary infertility, or single status, or medical problems that made us poor candidates to birth a child, etc…. is something our kids eventually recognize as less than truthful.  They tend to harbor resentment that we were wanting others to see us as noble, so that we would not be recipients of others’ pity.  Not that your kids will tell you that!  They just think that way and intensely dislike it.

Jane A Brown, MSW

Wow. All of this is incredibly useful to me and my family…  Some of these things would have never occurred to me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I can hear your sincerity and appreciate your thoughts, but guess I am kind of dismayed by the end of your post.  No one at all gets to decide who their parents are or were meant to be, whether adopted or biological, and my hackles go up with use of the word ‘rubbish.’  I choose to see our daughter’s placement with us through a spiritual lens and feel quite good about it, not that I am bonking her over the head with it or making her wear a t-shirt.  Wouldn’t some children appreciate the idea that they are meant to be with the family they are with?  [Just as they probably will at times wish they were not part of this family at all, as many people do!]  We are ALL just trying to find words for a situation that is both sad and happy, borne of loss, endlessly unique, and requires tons of communication - we are all still just learning…

I really enjoyed this but like Annie S. Wrote I question the last part… I had a little experience with our little biological daughter one day she was holding our little adopted baby boy and she says ” mom I wish he was my REAL brother”  God gave me my answer for her I asked her who put her in my tummy? Her answer “God did” the I asked her who worked out our miracle with adopting? Her answer “God did” so God gave you a REAL brother!!! The light dawned in her pretty blue eyes that are just like her Real brothers pretty blue eyes!!!

“No one at all gets to decide who their parents are….” 

No.  That doesn’t hold any water at all.  The fact is, each and every adoptee WILL eventually decide for him or herself the degree to which each parent, biological and adoptive, is recognized as his or her parent.  If that was not true, this discussion forum wouldn’t exist.  There would be no controversy with adoption.  No adoptive parent would ever have any insecurity.  No adoptee would search.  Someone would simply dictate, “This is your parent,” and that would be the end of that.

No amount of religion will change this reality. 

There are adult adoptees who make decisions at both extremes totally accepting one set of parents at the exclusion of the other.  More often, however, a balance is struck somewhere in the middle.  Regardless of the final decision and irrespective of any court order, eventually the buck stops here, squarely in the lap of the adoptee.  We do, indeed, choose our parents.

Hi Jeanne.  Thanks for weighing in.  What you’ve said rings true with what I have heard/observed, amongst the adult adoptees who have generously shared their thoughts, beliefs, and feelings with me/us.  Its also what I have experienced as a mom to many adults who joined our family through adoption.  We—my husband and I—chose to adopt them, and thus, claim them as our children, but at some point in their lives, each of our children has consciously made the decision as to whether they claim us, in return, what terminology they use when describing their original parents and us, and what growing up adopted has meant to/about themselves.  Our job has been to listen, to acknowledge what they have had to say at various points along our journeys together, to absorb their comments and feelings, and hopefully, to provide the type of support that they need as they’ve needed it—all without making too many mistakes and omissions along the way.  Even amongst our limited number of adult sons and daughters, there is tremendous variation and we would not know that without having listened carefully after shifting gears to realize that our job was never to try to tell them how they should think and feel, explain themselves to themselves, and shape their identities. 

Jane A. Brown, MSW

I really appreciate your post, areyouserious. I also think that one has to be really careful with ‘mystical rubbish’ (I am new agey but I love that term you used, LOL). Part of the reason is a) it can be sugar coating and BS and respect is born out honesty and b) what sounds nice to an adult can actually create lots of fear and anxiety in a child….
Also the child who wished he were her real brother was expressing something that was ignored. It could have been a great beginning of a discussion about adoption and yeah, I wish we were related biologically too but let’s look at everything we DO share, the bonds of family etc. I think sugar coating with kids can really backfire. You might also teach about language: he really IS your brother but perhaps you mean… and try to teach eventually how saying someone is real or not could hurt your feelings.
Yeah, we’re all god’s children and we’re all one but adoption is real and different and deserves the space to be talked about and understood.
Great post to open up discussion!

Thanks, areyouserious, for encouraging age-appropriate honesty, even if the details are not pretty (and usually they wouldn’t be, no?) On another thread about dealing with a difficult story adopters were advised to tell children of rape that “young girls often lie about being raped.” I was appalled. In an attempt to sugar-coat the story basically it is encouraging a damaging, and untrue, stereotype about women who are raped, and also telling the child that his natural mother is likely a liar, and about something serious.
Also, thanks for pointing out the flaws in the “child found us” fairy tale. Kids have great BS detectors.

I’ve been reading and thinking about the comments to this post over the last couple of days.  I really appreciate the insight that has been provided.  It helps me to look to the future and become more aware of some of the things our children will probably go through as they process what it means to be adopted.  I’d like to add my two cents to the conversation about whether to tell a child that we believe he or she is “meant to be” part of our family and Jane Brown’s comment that this may lead the child to believe that “God first meant to destroy their original family…, etc.” 
In our family, we talk about God every day, so if we were to leave God out of our adoption story, it wouldn’t be true to who we are or to our experience with adoption.  After our first son was born, my husband and I prayed everyday for years that our family would be able to grow.  Our son who was seven when his sister joined our family through adoption also prayed about this almost every day.  When our daughter’s birth mom found out that she was pregnant, she prayed about what she should do.  Once she decided to place, she prayed about what family to choose.  The experience of our youngest son’s birth mom was very similar.  To leave this part of the story out because it could be viewed as “mystical rubbish” would be denying our children the full picture of how we decided to adopt and how their birth moms decided to place them with our family. 
When we talk to our children about how we became a family, we are not saying that “God first meant to destroy their original family…” we are saying that once their birth moms decide to give birth to and place them for adoption, we believe that God helped us find each other.  We have two very open adoptions and our four year old daughter is forming a beautiful relationship with her birth mom and extended birth family.  We are hoping that our son’s experience will be just as positive.  He is only 7 months old.  There is so much love and respect between our family and both birth families.  The love that we feel for our children and the closeness that we feel to their birth families is what leads us to have that “this was meant to be” feeling.  In the end, our children will be the ones to decide how they feel about that and what type of relationships they have with those around them.  They will be the ones to decide for themselves what role God played in how they ended up being placed with us, but for us to not tell them the complete story of our experience because it could be labeled as “mystical” or “spiritual” doesn’t seem right.

jeff and kerry,

I can only speak for myself, but I did not grow up believing that God intended to destroy my original family.  I grew up believing that he didn’t care enough about my family to preserve it. 

My adoptive parents were not particularly religious, but they did believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God, and they believed “I” was the answer to their prayers.  Not unpredictably, this led to my own internal conflict.

At some point during adolescence I decided that although I had met neither God nor my original family and each were equally mysterious to me, I loved my original family more.  Now, I’m much, much older.  I see religion as a crutch people use to justify what cannot otherwise be justified.  It doesn’t mean I no longer believe in God.  It just means I now put the blame where it belongs, and God didn’t create that mess.  People did.  I do not, however, practice a religion nor do I have any desire whatsoever to do so.

I do actually really like Jesus.  He wasn’t afraid to call people out when they were trying to credit God with things that had nothing to do with him.  He’s actually a very brave and noble figure.  Just because some people would like for me to think that God busies himself by delivering babies from the womb of one to the arms of another doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it.  I’ll reserve judgment and let him speak for himself.

I also agree with areyouserious that why a child was placed for adoption, and why the child was adopted are two separate things, but never thought about that before, and think that was a good thing to point out to adoptive parents when talking with their child about their adoption.  I also agree that adoptive parents should always be honest with their child, sharing things that they know at an age appropriate level, (even when they are difficult) and also saying when they don’t know something.  I think difficult things should be shared little by little over time so that the child knows everything by the time they are 18.  (We have some difficult information to share with our oldest daughter about her birthfather, and I think all the details should be shared with her by the time she is an adult, but not before.)

I also don’t think that adoptive parents should share with their child if their birthmother has had abortions (that is her personal business) or if she was considering having an abortion with her pregnancy with him/her, as that could be hurtful to your child or could affect their relationship with their birthmother.  I had never thought about that before either, so that was another good point to think about as an adoptive parent)
   
The point that areyouserious made about another’s reality brings to my mind a different point about an adoptee’s reality, that each one is different.  That is something to keep in mind, while we try to do our best as adoptive parents to learn about how adoptees feel, and to help and be there to support our child in their personal experiences/feelings about adoption.  Even children in the same adoptive family can feel differently about adoption and being an adoptee (Jane shared something about that in her post).  My feelings were different than my adoptive brother growing up and are also different than him now, as well as being different than some other adoptees that I have met, such as on this site.  My own personal feelings about being an adoptee and about adoption are also different now than what they were as a child, and your child may also change and feel differently during their life about adoption.

As an adoptee, I find it interesting to hear what other adoptees experiences, thoughts, and feelings are (even if they are different than mine).  As an adoptive mom, I think it is important for me to listen to what other adoptees share about their thoughts/feelings, because I don’t know how my children are going to think/feel about being adopted, and they may not think and feel the same way I do, as each adoptee is different.  What Jeanne shared in her post hit strongly with me, about each adoptee deciding how much their adoptive/birth parents are recognized and accepted as their “parents.”  This is one of things I had noticed in listening to adoptees from closed adoptions share about how they felt…about being adopted and about their adoptive/birth families (some were reunited with their birth families, and some were not). I found adoptees on both extremes like Jeanne said, and some in the middle who accepted both sets of parents as their “parents.”  I think this was something that concerned me about adopting, (how my children would feel about me), because as an adoptive parent you don’t know how your child is going to feel when they grow up, and I knew this in a poignant way from being an adoptee who waffled in how I felt about things.  Reuniting with my birthmom actually helped me to solidify how I felt, and think that I am in the middle…I feel that my adoptive mother is my “mom” and she is important to me, but I also feel that my birthmom is my mother too and is important to me also, and I love them both.  (I hope my daughters feel the same way, and love both their birthmom and I in an inclusive way.)

I think the saying, “Your child will find you” that people say to encourage other prospective adoptive parents sounds like a New Age kind of expression, and personally don’t believe in that as a Christian.  I do believe that God blessed us with adopting our two precious little girls, and am also thankful to God for my adoptive mom (and that she raised me), and my birthmom and the relationship that we have now.

As an adoptee, I have to agree with AreYouSerious. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know I was adopted, or the circumstances around it. I was adopted by my grandparents and so had almost daily contact with my birth father, but none with my birth mother. As I got older, I learned more, either through observation or discussion, about the circumstances surrounding my adoption. I learned enough that when I was finally in contact with my birth mother and got her to talk to me about it, it was her story that I found absolutely implausible.

However, I don’t have a problem with the idea that God was involved in my adoption. I don’t see it, as Jane says, as my original family being destroyed first. I didn’t feel that then, and still don’t. Nor do I have lifelong grief or feelings of unworthiness. Of course I had issues surrounding adoption as I was growing up, but every single person, in every single family has issues of some nature. Mine were just different than the issues that my biological son will face, and are different from the issues that the child I’m hoping to adopt will have.

I guess my point here is that we’re all coming at this from different perspectives, regardless of whether we’re adoptees or adoptive parents. While for some adoptees God poses a problem, for others it doesn’t. I think we all need to address it as honestly and thoroughly as we can within the context of our families. For Jeff and Kerry, leaving God out is not honest; for Jeanne, adding God isn’t honest. And it’s not my place to tell either of them how to address it.

Monica.h.  thanks for sharing i wish there was a like button. We are leaving God in.

I’d like to clarify some of what you all think I meant when I wrote about weaving God into the adoption stories of our children.  First, I am not suggesting that families should not speak of God—just that they consider the fact that what they say may have a very different impact than what they intended, since adoptees and adoptive parents often have very different points of view about all-things-adoption.

    Parents might, for example, talk with their child about the human-made problems that led to their having been separated from their original parents, that God holds us when we are enduring challenges such as having been taken from our first families, or ending up in orphanages, or having temporary placement in foster care.  That God held us while we considered how to build/expand our families, giving us support as we decided whether adoption was a good plan for us and whether we would provide a good home for any child we adopted, as we decided who we could parent (infant, older child, child with special needs, children of various racial-ethnic backgrounds, etc…).  That is somewhat different from attributing a womb-to-adoptive parent arms—story tp God, as the micro-manager of that story. 
For children who often have many pieces of the story missing, and so speculate about whether their adoptive parents truly know or are just filling in the missing details (and sometimes claim to know what is actually unknowable), attributing the intent to people rather than to God, regarding their leave-taking of one family and joining with their adoptive family rings true in a way that it doesn’t when we can only convey our belief in what God’s intention was/is.

    Monica, I would never dispute your statements that you did not and do not have lifelong grief, or feelings of unworthiness.  However, the terminology we use is often imperfect when we are attempting to describe/grasp the inner workings of others.  When I use the term “grief” that can be as subtle as wishing that your original parents had not had the life circumstances they had that led you to be raised by your grandparents, so that you had the sense of internal difference you are describing.  It does not have to mean that you wept, and sorrowed, and longed for your birth parents.  That is why I said/say that it is often confusing for adopted kids—for they love the family they are growing up with and would not wish to be anywhere else, or with anyone else.  Another facet of the grief is the yearning to have the same sort of life that the other kids have around you—to not have been born to people other than the parents you live with, so as to not have a different type of history.  Although many to most adopted kids do, indeed, have acute grief that comes and goes, waxing and waning throughout their lives.

    I have one more item I’d like to comment on.  While it is wise and necessary to consider what is age-appropriate information and what is not, as far as giving adoptees their history, there is often a problem with waiting until adulthood to share all of the details of that history.  Few if any of you have adult sons and daughters.  I do, and most of them are adopted.  I cannot imagine having waited until they were adults (or nearly adults) to give them even the most difficult parts of their history.  Why?  Most of them went off to university shortly after graduating from high school.  I would NOT have wanted to give them emotionally-loaded information just before they were leaving, or during Thanksgiving Weekend, and then have them go off by themselves to process that, and incorporate it into their sense of self. 

    Sometimes I hear/read adoptive parents say that they will share details when their child is old enough to understand it.  And I wonder: “how old do they think a child would be when he/she could understand why a set of birth parents placed when they could have kept their child with them, even though that would have been quite difficult, when I hear adult adoptees who are QUITE mature (in their 60’s and 70’s) still pondering that question.  Or, do they really and truly think a child at ANY age could understand why a birth mother would keep one child, and place another?  Sometimes I wonder whether we delude ourselves into thinking “my child isn’t old enough to understand,” because we aren’t sure how to provide an explanation and are fearful of its impact.

    One professional woman I know came to me and told me that she’d married a man who already had a child—a child whose first mother was very violent and had permanently injured someone.  The child had witnessed that, and although he acted the scene out in his play, they hoped he didn’t remember and had been advised never to tell him that he had not, actually, been born to the mom who adopted him when she married his dad.  Now, the “child” is a man—in his mid-20’s.  He needs to obtain his passport and has to have his birth certificate, in order to do so.  The beans are about to be spilled.  She wanted to know how they could reveal his story to him without hurting him or causing turmoil in his life.  She is actually someone who works with adopted kids and their families, by the way.  She didn’t think he was old enough for all of his growing up years, and now she’s faced with having to tell his story after having acted as though its too toxic for him to handle—which will, undoubtedly convey to him that its a shame-filled story which was so horrific that they had to keep it secret from the very person whose story it is! 

  My point—if you have difficult details involved in your son or daughter’s pre-adoption history, please please get some professional advice as to how and when to share it, and identify resources that can help if your son or daughter has trouble dealing with the history that he/she learns about and is trying to assimilate.  It won’t necessarily get easier, and your son or daughter will want to have had the chance to discuss it and come to terms with it with YOU—not receive it after they have left home. 

  Plus, sometimes adoptive parents wait so long that they die before they get around TO sharing the history—leaving their son or daughter to guess at, and deal with why that was, and wonder whether their parent was so ashamed of their history that they couldn’t bring themselves to reveal it.  That is the greatest risk in keeping our children’s histories (or a portion of it)  a secret. 

      A good question to ask if and when we are keeping details back, even when they are difficult ones, is whether we are protecting our child, or whether we are protecting ourselves from what is an intimidating task.  The answer is not always easy to arrive at.

Jane A. Brown, MSW

Thanks monica.h. I really appreciate your insight.  I think you’re right that leaving God out of my family’s story wouldn’t be honest.  I also think you’re right that adding God into someone else’s story if they don’t believe that he played a role wouldn’t be honest either.  All parents have to make difficult decisions about what we teach our kids.  My parents never talked about God or religion when I was growing up.  I always felt a huge void because of that.  On the flip side, my kids may resent that I do talk about God.  Only time will tell.  Like you said, we all have issues in life that we have to deal with.  Dealing with those issues is what makes us strong and helps us figure out who we really are and what we really believe. 

I really appreciate all the comments that have been made.  It is so nice to have insight from adult adoptees and I’m sure that insight will shape the messages that I share with my kids about adoption.  Thank you!!

Thanks for the clarification Jane Brown.  The way that you explain how we can include God in our adoption stories makes a lot of sense to me and I apologize if I misread your previous statement or took it out of context.  You’ve shared some great information and I really appreciate it.

monica. h, I’m glad you got to stay with your family.  I don’t know what you mean when you say that your original family was destroyed.

NM.  I guess you said you don’t feel that your original family was destroyed.  I’m pretty sure I’m missing something, though. 

You lost your mother.  You stayed with your family.  Why would think that someone might think you would believe your family had been destroyed when you stayed with them?

I’m so sure I’m overlooking something here.

Jeanne, I was responding to this, which was part of Jane’s first comment.

“—once they are old enough to think independently and not just take their adoptive parents’ word for everything—that would mean that God first meant to destroy their original family and cause their birth parents to go through the rest of their lives with a hole in the heart, and for God to have intended for them to have lifelong grief, questions about their worthiness…”

Interesting comments. I like the point about differentiating between the reasons for the adoption and adopting.  I’m not likely to say to my child “God meant for you to be”...anywhere.  For me it is a bit too presumptuous to speak for God. I’d more likely tell a child that I was a lucky momma to have them as a son/daughter.  (Though as long as its said with love, I don’t have a problem with others talking of God to their children this way.)  Thank you Monica for reminding us that we are all individuals - the important thing is to listen and respect the differences, celebrate them even, not to demand that anyone must fit a mold.

  Telling each other “Your baby will find you.” is a way of honoring that there is more to life than the superficial facts.  In my own life it rings true that often there is a deeper wisdom and meaning or purpose than is first apparent .It’s calming and balancing because it is so right. I do believe we choose our parents, and so why not our adoptive parents too. To leave out this magic and spirit is to also miss much of the depth and beauty of life.

Thanks, everyone, for weighing in here.  I especially appreciate the variety of opinions expressed by adoptees—since our oldest adopted child is only 5, I am VERY interested in what you all have to say about your understanding and how it changed as you grew up.  Thanks also to everyone for being respectful of others’ ideas and feelings as we comment on such emotionally-charged topics.

I wanted to second the idea that you should not wait too long to share information.  Certainly, wait until a child knows about sex before introducing the idea of rape, etc.—but withholding information can make kids wonder what else you’re not telling them.  They may keep wondering what bomb you’re going to drop next, if the information doesn’t trickle out until they’re 18.  That creates a lot of potential for destroying their trust in you.

I also agree with the commenter who reminded us that every person deals differently with being adopted.  Our dentist, who is also a good friend, talks about her family that way—she and her brother (both adopted from the same country, but not bio siblings) handled it completely differently throughout their entire lives.

A very interesting thread.  I’m probably doing everything wrong.  I’m an adoptive parent.

But I honestly do believe that not just our family, but our friends and our co-workers and all the people who are around us, including people we don’t like are the people who are meant to be there for some reason.  We don’t know what the reason is (sometimes we think we do).  I’m sure that philosophy seeps through to the kids.
Maybe when they are older, they will challenge that.

I didn’t consider adoption as a second choice.  It was always my first choice.  I’m not going to share how painful adoption was with my adopted children because it simply wasn’t painful.  It was always a joy for me.  I will be receptive to hearing from them if they feel the idea of being adopted is painful to them.

It’s hard to know if they will some day feel that they are different from their friends because they are adopted, when some of their friends are adopted, and others of their friends live in various other-than-traditional household make-ups.  In order to feel adoption as a stigma, I assume one would have to be bombarded with its differentness.  I try to make sure the boys are exposed to lots of different literature, movies, real-life families, etc. so that being raised by your birth parents is not necessarily the default situation in their thinking.

I certainly hope my children don’t grow up with life-long grief and questions of their worthiness.  The adult adoptees I know don’t have those things.  I’m sure some people do—both adopted and not adopted.  Frankly, I have non-adoptee friends who are so angry with their birth parents (who raised them), that they don’t speak.  I think that is a terrible shame.  I don’t mean to trivialize how big adoption is as an issue to some kids, but it feels to me like there’s always something that can make someone feel different.

I think it is very helpful for adoptive parents to be as positive as possible when relaying information about the birthparents. Telling a child his adoption story in a kind voice and with gentleness helps the adoptee to understand. While you may be protective, especially if there are difficult circumstances, it is best to show how you can “love and let go” a little. Allow your adoptee to have a mix of emotions and be there for hugs and reassurance.

This is a great post with thoughtful comments.

For those who think that by my using the phrase “mystical rubbish”, I am deriding people’s faiths, that is not my intention.  I believe in God and I believe he walks with us through life.  I don’t think he creates the obstacles in our life, they have been created through our collective sin throughout the eon.  When people say “everything happens for a reason”, that is true but to me it means everything happens because of what has gone before not because of what is yet to come; also I don’t assume that the reasons necessarily have anything to do with benefitting me.  I am an optimist and do try to look on the bright side of things as long as I’m the only one inconvenienced, eg when I lost a job and flat within a week, I realised that it left me free to return to my home city.  However, I feel it is disrespectful to justify something that has hurt others. 

Happy Camper:  “I do believe we choose our parents, and so why not our adoptive parents too.”

My problem is that often APs are speaking on behalf of their child and deciding for them.  I would consider my APs arrogant if they decided I chose them; I would feel 1) that they were speaking for me; 2) that they were being dismissive of others (i.e. reducing bmothers to mere reproductive vessels) and thus 3) teaching me a bad lesson, i.e. that some people are more important than others.

Many may feel I am an angry, bitter and twisted adoptee - actually I am a human being who is fairly content about life in general but who is angry about certain aspects of adoption.  I accept my own adoption and have never had anger at either my APs or BPs but it isn’t all about me.  My observation is that there are still major problems with ethics in adoption and that adoption in the US needs to move back to “finding families for children who need them”; since the mid 50s, it has been more about “another way to build a family”.

Btw part of the problem with talking about adoption is defining what one means.  Do I think adoption has affected my life?  Being born into one family and raised in another has certainly played a factor in who I am.  That doesn’t mean I blame everything bad in my life on that, in fact I tend to go the other way and try not to blame anything at all on it (I’ve learnt my lesson lol) but it is part of who and how I am in ways I probably don’t know.  Many children do find it confusing and when they are young, they will often say to their APs “I wish you had given birth to me” - even though that is partly out of love, they are really saying “I wish that I only had one set of parents, it sure is confusing having another set of parents out there who gave birth to me and I don’t even want to think about why they aren’t raising me”. 

Candace Hooper “I certainly hope my children don’t grow up with life-long grief and questions of their worthiness.  The adult adoptees I know don’t have those things.  I’m sure some people do—both adopted and not adopted.Frankly, I have non-adoptee friends who are so angry with their birth parents (who raised them), that they don’t speak.  I think that is a terrible shame.  I don’t mean to trivialize how big adoption is as an issue to some kids, but it feels to me like there’s always something that can make someone feel different.”

I don’t have “life-long grief and questions of my worthiness” but in the last 2 years, since reuniting with bfamily, I have grown to acknowledge that I am allowed to have separate feelings for my bmom and amom.  Most of my life, I have only acknowledged my bmom in an abstract way (eg as a name only) and not really allowed myself to think too deeply about things.  Since reuniting with extended family and getting to “know her as a person” through their memories and photo, I have felt a multitude of emotions.  Btw there does seem to be a misconception about many online adoptee bloggers. Almost every adoptee blogger I know has gone through most of their life like your adoptee friends, i.e. not really talking/thinking about adoption at all.  However, certain events in their life (often reunion or birth of children) has made them rethink things. 

Also don’t be too sure that your adoptee friends don’t feel questions of unworthiness:
If they say “I have no wish to reunite with bfamily, I just have no wish to disturb the equilibrium of my life” then that is perfectly natural and quite sensible and your friend is fine.

However if they say “I have no wish to reunite with bfamily; why would I want anything to do with people who didn’t want me”, especially when they know nothing about their situation, then THAT is someone who has issues about being adopted that they aren’t facing.  If they don’t consider their bparents to be human beings but only parts of them (eg egg donor, uterus etc), again that is not healthy. 

Also back to statements of the “your birthmother was a vessel to bring you to us” kind, one needs to be careful that the child doesn’t grow up thinking that some people are there to be used for the service of others.

In regards to my bmother, I will never get to meet her but by all accounts, she was a good kind decent lady much loved by her siblings and well liked by her friends.  I also think she was rather beautiful judging by her photos but I realise I am biased lol.

The point of my saying the above about my bmom is that when I read what APs and BPs say about their children, I think about whether it is something I would like to hear from my own bmom. 

The truth is that I don’t want my bmom to have relinquished me for any reason than because she had very little option (which being the 60s was probably the case).  I really hope she didn’t disassociate herself from her baby and consider herself to be a vessel for another woman’s baby. 

The above has nothing to do with how I feel about my afamily. 

Btw in regards to APs trivialising adoption feelings and issues, I’m used to it - I have grown to accept that unless I am jumping with joy saying “Woohoo - being adopted is the best thing in the world ever and I wish that everyone else in the world could share in the joy of having one’s nature and nurture separated” then I am not considered worth listening to.

It is always *good* to know that if one does occasionally have issues related to being born and raised in separate families that there are plenty of people out there happy to put adoptees in their place by telling them that everyone has things that makes them feel different and thus invalidating any feelings one might have. 

As for adoptive families, my family is fine but I know from others’ experiences that the SECOND they say that things weren’t perfect; out comes the “I’m sorry you had a bad experience - that now means that I can totally ignore anything you have to say about adoption from now on because I’m not like your parents thus my adoption experience will be perfect”.  I also know I have to be careful about talking about any of my 4 parents as human beings.

I do sometimes feel that people expect us adoptees to be Stepford children - we are condemned to *happiness* and are not allowed to express any feelings that might upset our parents, society or Adoption.  Judging by the hyperbolic terms used by many when discussing adoption, I am sure that there are some who consider the Holy Trinity to really be the Holy Quadrangle - the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost and Adoption.

I think areyouserious is correct in what is said above.

Something has risen recently in the life of a friend of mine who lost her daughter to a supposed open adoption 14 years ago. She was to be a part of her daughter’s life in an ongoing basis, but the adoptive parents left the state immediately after the adoption was finalized. They did send photos one month later through the adoption agency, and then once a year for two years. That is all.

My friend contacted the adoption agency several years later to ask for an update with pictures and an explanation as to why the adoption was not open as was promised to her. The adoptive parents wrote a letter and included pictures, and sent this anonymously through the adoption agency. My friend found out that the adoptive parents did not tell the adoptee that she is adopted and they want to wait till this girl is over 18 to tell her.

This is way to late.

An adoptee should be told from an early age that he or she is adopted. And when the child can understand the circumstances surrounding the relinquishment, the adoptee should be told what the adoptive parents know. When the adoptee asks questions about the natural parents, the adoptive parents have the moral obligation to tell the truth in as loving way as possible as to not hurt the child if there are unpleasant details to discuss. It is important to handle these questions and adoptee’s concerns in a loving way. If you (general you) handle these questions and telling the adoptee’s pre-adoption story in a calm and loving way, this will help build your relationship. Try not to be angry or insecure when discussing your adoptee’s natural parents.

Please don’t use religion to explain anything. Facts are facts.

You may have deep religious beliefs, but keep God out of explaining how your adoptee came to be in your life. God had no part of the pregnancy, relinquishment, the adoption process: people did.

Candace Hooper

A very interesting thread.  I’m probably doing everything wrong.  I’m an adoptive parent.

But I honestly do believe that not just our family, but our friends and our co-workers and all the people who are around us, including people we don’t like are the people who are meant to be there for some reason.  We don’t know what the reason is (sometimes we think we do).  I’m sure that philosophy seeps through to the kids.
Maybe when they are older, they will challenge that.

I didn’t consider adoption as a second choice.  It was always my first choice.  I’m not going to share how painful adoption was with my adopted children because it simply wasn’t painful.  It was always a joy for me.  I will be receptive to hearing from them if they feel the idea of being adopted is painful to them.

OUCH.  I WILL BE RECEPTIVE TO HEARING FROM THEM IF THEY FEEL THE IDEA OF BEING ADOPTED????  It is not an idea.. they are in fact adopted and it is not just an idea in their head… it is part of their identity to the core.  When you seperate nature and nurture no one knows what clashes will take place…. You saying you will be receptive is a slap in the face.  Receptive is a very poor choice of words where I am sitting.

It’s hard to know if they will some day feel that they are different from their friends because they are adopted, when some of their friends are adopted, and others of their friends live in various other-than-traditional household make-ups.  In order to feel adoption as a stigma, I assume one would have to be bombarded with its differentness.  I try to make sure the boys are exposed to lots of different literature, movies, real-life families, etc. so that being raised by your birth parents is not necessarily the default situation in their thinking.

Being raised by your birthparents is not just default thinking-but the overall case for most of society.  To pretend that this is just as simple as being raised by a single mom or in divorced families is truly missing the point in what the adoptee discussion is about.

I certainly hope my children don’t grow up with life-long grief and questions of their worthiness.  The adult adoptees I know don’t have those things.  I’m sure some people do—both adopted and not adopted.  Frankly, I have non-adoptee friends who are so angry with their birth parents (who raised them), that they don’t speak.  I think that is a terrible shame.  I don’t mean to trivialize how big adoption is as an issue to some kids, but it feels to me like there’s always something that can make someone feel different.

Feel different?  When you are different… you are different and triviliazing it the way you are stating is a slap again in the face.

Please do some research for your kids sakes.  There is a lot more than being adopted to this.  I too felt the same way at one time- due to that being what I was told my my adoptive parents.  Once I got old enough to think for myself——things changed I hope you will prepare yourself and your kids for this change.

It always shocks me when an adoptive parents speaks out and shows their total ignorance to the issues adoptees face.  My mom wishes she had known now the information on adoptees that is out there now- so she could better help me deal with my struggles when I was growing up and into adulthood as well as being more prepared herself to handle it emotionally.  If she had done things different and been more educated I may have not had to face what I do now…  the information that is available now was not as readily available then…land now that it is there really is no excuse for adoptive parents to continue to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it is just a select few adoptees who have issues with being adopted.

One things is your adoptee friends speaking to you as an adoptive parent are probably not telling you the whole truth of their feelings… they are being politically correct and comforting you…. I have done it before.  I am adopted I am okay.  IF you want to talk more and more in depth I will talk to you…

but I am not a poster child for adoption and will not tell every adoptive parent MY truth especially in a face to face exchange… I am working on that but routinely tell them what they want to hear…  I talk when I know it is welcomed. 

I have adoptive parents in my family- my cousin- and I have never in my life told them how I feel about adoption and my adoption tho I am very active in the adoptee community and very much affected by my adoption….. to the point that after reading ONE chapter in the book PRIMAL WOUND my adoptive mother said to me- IS THIS WHOLE BOOK GOING TO BE ABOUT YOU?
My cousin and his wife could say the same as you have said….-” I have a cousin who is adopted and she is just fine and happy to be adopted”.. They have never asked me how I felt about being adopted and they are not on the top of my list for talking about it with them and contributing to some great family discord…... So if you are assuming because they seem fine to you and seem to not care- does not mean in reality they are happy with their adoption or adoption in general….
I am not and I guarantee you they would say the same about me.  I write a blog, I post on adoption websites trying to educate adoptive parents and support other adoptees in their process…. I am also very affected by my adoption… and if they looked hard enough they probably see it and yet do not ask…
Do those even closest to me know my true feelings on adoption and my adoption specifically?  NO.

So please do not assume what you think you know about the adoptees in your life.  You most likely don’t.  And even if you asked them they would be more than likely willing to tell you what you want to hear and not rock the boat….... for that is the nature of the adoptee…  Do not rock the boat… as an internal thought… I am terrified of rejection- terrified.  For me to say anything that people I love and care about will reject on the topic of adoption I will more than not not do it… I can’t handle rejection.  I don’t want to be a bad apple.  I just don’t.  Maybe it is time for me to start speaking out with my own family….  so they can say I know an adoptee and she is not happy.. or would they?  Would they not just call me ungrateful and angry?  Would they not just spout off how wonderful my AP’s are and dismiss my feelings?  from all my reading I think what would happen is the latter… so no thank you - not at this time.  I can’t take any more wounds right now…  I will be a good adoptee.  I will be a good and grateful adoptee.  Don’t worry I am fine.
Posted by Candace Hooper on May 11, 2012 at 6:57pm