Please don't tell me I was lucky to be adopted (birth mother, parents)
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P.S. I am an adoptive mom, step mom and previous foster mom. And I am estranged from my bio family and wish they had the common sense to have placed me for adoption like their parents wanted them to. So...no attacks. I am just processing this piece and wonder what others think of it.
Some people are lucky to be adopted, others are adopted by dysfunctional families. Generalities aren't all that pertinent or applicable to the question.
My brother is lucky to be adopted - even though he was adopted into a rather dysfunctional family (my mother is mentally ill and my father has been an enabler for most of their marriage). His alternative was to continue to live as an Amerasian kid forced to steal food on the streets of Seoul, Korea in order to survive. So...though his life hasn't been perfect, he'd be the first to tell you that he's grateful to have been adopted.
However, I always did feel a little sorry for him because in a sense he went out of the frying pan into the fire. Still...it beats being a street urchin. And to his credit, he's forgiven both his natural mother and my parents, and has built a good life for himself. He realized a long time ago that his success depended more on his current mindset and attitude than his past and he decided that ruminating on "what might have been" is a giant waste of time. There is no "what might have been" - there is only "what is." And "what is" is largely what you make it yourself.
My grandson was adopted at age 10 months after being cared for by four different foster families. He is being raised in a very loving home now. He's lucky to have been adopted.
P.S. I am an adoptive mom, step mom and previous foster mom. And I am estranged from my bio family and wish they had the common sense to have placed me for adoption like their parents wanted them to. So...no attacks. I am just processing this piece and wonder what others think of it.
I understand you. Our family was forged by both pregnancy and paper work.
Being related by blood does not make a family - love does.
Thank you for sharing.
Obviously, I do not agree with the article that you linked. There is not one person in my own family, or extended family; who yearn for the culture of their birth or for the parents who rightly decided that they were ill equipped to raise a child. In one case, the child was removed from an abusive mother and boy friend. My cousin's daughter has no longing to reconnect with the woman who gave birth to her.
She has a mother. My cousin. And she has two brothers.
I've always thought it a little odd that adoptive parents feel entitled to gratitude.
The child has asked for nothing, had no input into the adoption, no control over anything at all about how they were raised or where they went and still must be grateful, no matter what. The parent has no requirement and no obligation to win or deserve respect or love. The child just owes them that.
As an adoptive mother to three I never felt entitled to gratitude any more than a bio parent. I expect all 4 of my kids to be thankful for the ease and love they have in life and to not take it for granted.
I read the article when it first came out and was tempted to post it but did not want to stir the pot again like it was stirred a few years back. I'm sorry this woman has had problems but I'm betting she would have had problems no matter who her parents were.
My grown daughter was adopted from Korea at 3 months. She is very much aware of how her life could have been different if she had not been adopted and she is grateful but I never said "You are lucky you are with us" I did often say "We are so lucky we got to parent you."
As an adoptive mother to three I never felt entitled to gratitude any more than a bio parent. I expect all 4 of my kids to be thankful for the ease and love they have in life and to not take it for granted.
I read the article when it first came out and was tempted to post it but did not want to stir the pot again like it was stirred a few years back. I'm sorry this woman has had problems but I'm betting she would have had problems no matter who her parents were.
My grown daughter was adopted from Korea at 3 months. She is very much aware of how her life could have been different if she had not been adopted and she is grateful but I never said "You are lucky you are with us" I did often say "We are so lucky we got to parent you."
Amen and amen.
We are SO blessed to have my brother and my grandson in our lives!
There is no such thing as "what might have been." There is only "what is."
I've always thought it a little odd that adoptive parents feel entitled to gratitude.
The child has asked for nothing, had no input into the adoption, no control over anything at all about how they were raised or where they went and still must be grateful, no matter what. The parent has no requirement and no obligation to win or deserve respect or love. The child just owes them that.
We are adoptive parents and have met others and your experience with adoptive families does not seem to be the norm. What I read in your post is that you aren't maybe aware that children joining the family through adoption are considered to be the same to adoptive families as children born into the family at least among the "normal" families and individuals.
One of the issues I have with the article is the discussion about suicide and counseling. We were attempting to adopt through our state and a few others reading through profiles and it was not at all unusual for children in the system to be removed from very dysfunctional homes where mental illness, abuse, neglect and alcohol and/or drug addictions were the major players. Add to that poor foster homes and by the time they arrived to the adoptive homes, despite how good and dedicated the parents were, it was a rough road for everyone involved.
We adopted an infant, 4 weeks old and special needs, his fourth family that month and I could write a good article on nature versus nurture. It is a learning experience.
Is a child lucky to be adopted? I would think 90% of the time they are but to tell them that would be very inappropriate and I know some ignorant people would tell them that. I met a woman in her 60's that went into foster care and then to an adoptive home. From the story she told me, looking back she can see that she was much better off getting out of the situation with the birth parents but she was adopted by a family that was some what "generic" but they took care of her and met her needs which was a step up and she was an older child at that time. I gathered that she felt lucky that she was adopted or at least removed from the home of the birth parents.
I do think that the biggest hurdle for those that were adopted has to do with the "why" and they cannot come to terms with it thereby causing them significant issues. The "why" isn't about them and had nothing to do with them. They could have been the most beautiful, the best behaved, the most talented, the brightest, the child everyone could only dream of.............. Not about them but about the birth parent/situations beyond their control.
I am an adult adoptee.
Let me just say, as one who knows,
There is no worse thing in the world
than being rejected by your mother.
It doesn't matter what the circumstance is, that is
irrelevant.
For a biological mother to give away her infant,
and then you never hear from the person again, is
a psycological trama for any human being.
If your mother didn't want you, no one will want you.
You feel like that your whole life.
You can have the most wonderful of upbringing, be truly
loved in every way,
but you are always an adoptee.
Always.
Just a fact.
Unless you are an adoptee, you will never understand. Ever.
They may say they are happy, don't care, happy to be adopted,
but deep down, there is a hurt that will never heal.
That's just the way it is.
I'm really sad you feel that way but the fact is not every adoptee walks around with a wounded heart. Curious...yes.
My own 31 year old adopted daughter from Korea is very frank and honest with me. She has been curious and sometimes sad as a teenager but only because she sometimes felt marginalized in high school. She was the only Asian in her South Georgia school so that has more to do with it than being adopted.
And to say if your mother doesn't want you nobody will is just so out there. Why are people willing to travel to the ends of the earth, beg borrow and steal money to adopt children.
I tell all 3 of my adopted children that their birth mothers didn't relinquish THEM--the people they are---but an extra mouth to feed when they lived in poverty, a child who they knew would be better off elsewhere. In fact I think placing a child for adoption has to be right up there with one of the most loving things a human being can do for somebody else. I couldn't do it.
I teach my children that we need to be grateful for our warm beds, our full dinner plates, and our loving family.
I do not teach them that they should be grateful that they were adopted. I do teach them that I am grateful to be their mother.
If any one else says something along those lines to me I always tell them that my kids actually missed out, I mean they could have lived with Angelina and Brad! In all seriousness I tell them that that is not the way we look at it at all.
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