Adoptees, if you could go back in time...?

Question

...and interview/choose your own adoptive parents, what questions would you ask? What answers would you want to hear?

Answer 1

Q: Will you parent me to the best of your ability - trying always to be empathetic to my needs? (imagining yourself in my shoes)

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Will you allow me to know - both on paper - and in person - the family that I am bio related to?

A: I will try my hardest - they are a huge part of you.

Q: Will you be able to handle your role as being one of my families - as I have two? And not expect me to take sides?

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Can you keep your own insecurities in check - and not make me pay the price for them?

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Will you be able to embrace me for who I am - and not for who you want me to be?

(sure - you can have dreams - but forcing me to be something I'm not is unfair and is just going to cause problems and heartache in the long run)

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Will you allow me to love all of my family - all sides - and be secure enough in your own parenting abilities - to know that when you teach me to love openly (as hopefully you will) - that life can be a much better place to live?

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Will you be patient with me - throughout my life - when life changes take on an added edge - when relinquishment and abandonment issues rise to the surface?

A: I will try my hardest.

Q: Will you take care to not make me feel as if I'm going to be given away again - as I'm prone to being very sensitive with abandonment issues?

A: I will try my hardest.

(great question!)

ETA: I would also ask - most importantly -

Q: Have you checked if my bio parents can parent me - with a little encouragement - and that my relinquishment and adoption are as ethical as they can be?

A: Absolutely. I wouldn't want to seperate you from your mother and father if it really shouldn't be that way.

Answer 2

Very thought provoking question!  Excellent!  I don't know how I would verbalize the question but my intention would be to determine if I (the child) was expected to provide a purpose for the parents.  For example, did the parents believe that I was to fill a hole created by an earlier loss (miscarriage, infertility, etc), "fix" a troubled marriage, or provide unconditional love.  If they answered yes to any of the above or provided any hint that this was the intent behind adoption....I would not allow them to adopt.

Answer 3

I think this is a very interesting question, Gaia.  

I don't know how to answer it, however.  I feel ill-equipped to know what I needed in a parent.  I needed someone who could be there for me, who could deal with my emotions.  But what parent can do that?  I needed a parent (or parents) who could let me be a kid and who was ready to be a parent.  But how can anyone KNOW that they are ready to be a parent?

I just don't know.  I really don't know.  But it's a good question.

Answer 4

I would ask if this is something that she really wants to do.  I would tell her that I'll be fine.  And that she's doing the right thing by me. My birth mother didn't want to give me up.  She was under aged and basically forced by her mother.  It affected her for the rest her life (until we finally met).

I would also ask if they would be interested in an open adoption?

Answer 5

How will you feel about having very little influence over your child's personality.

Interesting question

Answer 6

I would not ask them anything.. I don't co-operate with criminals..

Answer 7

I would just want to know that they would love me, which by the way, my adoptive parents did.  And by the way, you would never ask this of a biological child would you?  Do you think that all biological children get their parents that they would choose for themselves?  My husband didn't.

Answer 8

If I had the power to retroactively choose parents, then I would pick my own parents.

I've personally always felt any adoptive parents would be more-or-less interchangable. I'd really like to know what it'd be like to grow up with family that I was related to.

Answer 9

What is your IQ?  How much debt do you have?  Do you read?  Do you have a decent marriage, or are you adopting to fill the voids?  Do you understand that this child is made up of his bio parents, and you will have little or no influence on who she becomes? Do you understand that this child will be sad about losing her parents AND her family NO MATTER what you do or say?  Do you understand that this child will tell you that she wishes she was born to you, to please you, when in reality she just wishes she was with her parents?  Do you really GET that this child is hard-wired, and will not have much in common with you? Do you get that no matter how you 'pitch' adoption, it is, and always will be, a profound loss for me?  Do you understand when you say things like, "I'm your mother, that's why!" you are talking to yourself, because I know my mother is somewhere else?  Do you understand that my mother was not a w***e, but had the same boyfriend (my father) for 11 yrs? And that just because she got pregnant in the years before birth control was widely available, she is a decent woman?  Do you know how that makes me feel, to have you track my menstrual cycle like I'm a w***e--I'm the only virgin I know!

The answer I would like to have heard is, "Adoption is not what we thought it would be, it sounds far more complicated than we can handle, we don't want to do it."