Adoptees...did you miss looking like someone in the family?

Question

I've seen many comments about international or interracial adoption - things about the culture & language being different, etc. All valid points. And it got me wondering how many adoptees noticed that they didn't look like anyone in their family even though your adopted parents were the same race?

I was adopted by parents that had the same coloring, etc. I never had a good 'self image' of my appearance (could have something to do with a nasty comment from my a.mom). But I wonder how much of it had to do with the fact that I didn't look like anyone in my family.

Before I found my birth family, I really looked forward to looking into a face that looked like mine. Did anyone else share a similar experience?

Answer 1

being adopted from s. korea and being raised in a "white" family. it eventually became obvious to me that i was different.

but it made me proud to be different and i had many advantages over my family. lol.i dont get sun burn as easy, tan very well during the summer, lol. no allgergies, can handle spicy food. and less prone to illnesses than my adopted family. little stuff like that made me proud of who i am. but every now and then i do wonder i i have my moms HANDS because everyone thinks i have such pretty hands. lol it's discusting. lol. who's big lips did i get and which parnet had the wierd shaped nose that i have. lol.

never knew my biological parents so ya deep down there is an empty feeling of where did i come from? but i am very gratful for eing adopted and now i have a beautiful family of my own. two strong sons and a beautiful wife.

dont mind me asking how about did you find your biological parents???

Answer 2

I was pretty conscious of it.  They would try to tell me that I looked just like them, simply because most of us had blue eyes, I guess.  But, outsiders would point out the differences sometimes.  I'm clearly of Celtic origins.  One look at me and it's obvious.  Red hair, freckles, fair skin, light eyes.  I was also tall and lanky, which didn't fit at all in my afamily.

I have this picture of my nmom from when she is in her late 20's.  She is standing next to her husband.  No one else is in the photo except the two of them.  Nearly everyone who has seen it has asked me who that guy is in the picture with ME!  And, when you look at me next to my father, there's no question, either.  I'm such an obvious blend of the two of them.  I really was happy to finally have the genetic mirroring that most folks take for granted.

Answer 3

Oh totally.  I mean my a-family are all the same coloring and around the same height and all, but that's about where the similarities end.

My amom had skin that would tan after 5 minutes in the sun.  Me?  I'd be out for 5 days, get nice and red, then fade back to white.  I joke that I have the "skin of a redhead" because I can NOT tan, but I don't have that gorgeous red hair to go with it.

My afamily were all pretty average size people, not skinny, not large, but me, I was skinny as a toothpick.  I mean I was gross, my nickname by my oldest a-brother was "Bones".  Thank god having a couple kids took care of that.

My adad, he had these amazing blue eyes, came from a really funky and eclectic German family, I LOVED that side of the family with all their quirks, in fact I take my screen name from my great-grandma on his side.  She lived to be 101, she was a TOUGH little old German bird, lived on that farm of hers till she was 99.  

But, that wasn't "my" heritage, and I longed to know "where" I came from.  Who I got my brown-green hazel eyes from, this odd non-tanning skin from, this super fine but super thick hair from.  

It was really grounding to reunite and finally see these things in my n-family members, and finally KNOW that I came from real people.  I finally felt whole for the first time in my life.

Answer 4

OMG!   Girl, I used to make up stuff, resemblances that may not have really been there.  We were all the within the same color palette but didn't favor a ton.  When I finally met my birth family, it was nice to see people who looked like me but it was almost weird!  None the less, I am glad that I did it.

My a-parents never made me feel any different or made comments about it.  Matter of fact, for years, no one even knew I was adopted.  When they found out, it was just like "Oh!.... Ok!"  I thought it was obvious but to others it really wasn't.

Answer 5

I'm looking at this from a couple generations down. My mother was adopted. For so long, the only place my mom could look for clues about her biological past was to my sister and me. She was always comparing our eyes, lips, legs, the way our tummies were built... It was like looking for her own mother in us. It was hard whenever the doctor asked "Do you have --- in your family history?", because we just never knew.

Many times, I would just like to know what country we're from. It's hard, because I've felt like we came out of everywhere and nowhere.

But last month, I had a baby. It's Mama's grandson, and I see the joy she experiences seeing a new life... She's never seen a boy who's related to her! She just studies everything about him. That wish she had to see her mother and father really did get answered, eventually.

The baby... He has her smile. And we know that somewhere, looking down on us, that must be her mother and father's smile, too.

:-)

Answer 6

Absolutely.  I missed having that genetic mirroring that people raised with their natural parents take for granted.

I hated my red hair.  I hated my nose.  I'd look in my Mum's three-way mirror and compare myself to photographs of my family trying desperately to find similarities . . .

I have just now been given photographs of my natural ancestors and can't get enough of them!  It's uncanny and has brought me so much peace and relief to know that I am connected to the human race.   I now love the features I used to hate that differed so much from my adoptive family; because I know where they came from.   Continuity is so important to me.

Someone once asked me why it bothered me where I got my eyes etc.   Now I look at my mother's face and I see my own eyes looking back at me - I can't describe that feeling, but it's just amazingly comforting.

I used to find myself letting out an involuntary sigh every time I heard someone comment on 'oh little so-and-so has his father's nose' or 'you can see where he get's that from . . .'  it's a discomfort that only someone who has grown up never having that continuity would ever understand fully.

ETA:  My adoptive Mum and I used to have a private laugh together when folks would comment how alike we looked.  Some people see what they want to see or imagine that they see.   My adoptive Mum thought it was great though - me, not so much.

ETA:   Just to add one more point my own daughter now adores the tight ringlets in her hair.  We never knew where they'd come from and now we do.  Adoption doesn't affect only one generation, but many.

Answer 7

Oh man, I've always been soooooo envious of people who are related by blood and can see themselves in their relatives.

My adoptive family was a "good match" on a superficial level.  They are white, pale skin, brown hair.  The similarities end right there.  My afamily are short, kind of stocky build, with brown eyes and thin, mousy brown hair...I am  tall, thin athletic build, with green eyes, full lips, and thick, golden brown hair (at least when I was young, lol).  I stuck out in my afamily like a very sore thumb.  

I used to HATE my long legs and my big lips.  I would slouch and go around biting my lips inside my mouth to make them less noticeable, because I think on a deep level I really wanted to look like my afamily and it disturbed me deeply that I didn't look like them.  I would often whine about how I didn't look anyone and I would say things like "even the dogs have brown eyes!"



I hate to say it, but the truth is that I was much more attractive than my adoptive family, and that made me Extremely self-conscious....especially when I would get attention from the opposite s*x, and my amom would get mad at ME for flirting!  Basically I felt like a w***e before I had even done anything.  It all came to a head when I was a teenager and my amom basically wouldn't let me date at all because she was sure I was "going all the way".  And then when I did get pregnant in my twenties, her first comment was, "I always knew you would do this to me."  What the h**l?  You always knew I would grow up to be a w***e...like maybe my real mom was?  Is that what you were trying to say you jealous b*tch?

Please excuse me, I totally digress.  To answer your question, yes, I did miss very much looking like someone.  When I met my nfather when I was 22, I looked strait into my own face.  I look EXACTLY like him...except female, of course, lol.  He is very tall, athletic, green eyes, full lips,  thick hair.  We have the EXACT same nose...which my own daughter also has, as well as the green eyes.  It is totally awesome to look at the next generation and see me...and him.

Answer 8

Every day I noticed things, especcially in school. In biology they asked us to look at our parents eyes and see who we got our eye colour from. I have green eyes and don't have either of my parents eye colours. This was upsetting, I had to make it up I felt embarrissed to say I was adopted and didn't know. My adoptive mum has dark thick hair and thin skin that browns and my dad is bald and has very dark skin. I have very thin frizzy light brown hair and very very pale skin. My mum is skinny and get eat anything and still remain slim while I can eat a pebble and put on a pound. Our make-up is completely different. I always hated it at family gatherings and people would be ooing and aring over the babies and saying "ohhh doesnt he look like his father" or "can't you see her grandmother in her" and so on, and I would think I bet no one did that to me, and when someone said to me when I told them I was adopted "I thought you were related cos you look like your dad" it almost made it worse, I was like, no i don't, I'm adopted, he's not my dad and it made me realise even though i loved him he really wasnt who i considered my real dad. So confusing.

It was only until I got the chance to meet some bio-relatives that I stopped feeling so isolated. I didn't fully realise how alone I felt and confused I was. I met my birth aunt and when I saw her it was like I was in a dream, even though she was a different person with a unique look, I could look at her face, in her eyes and see myself looking back, it was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. My aunt had crisp green eyes like mine with a thick dark ring around the iris like mine, her eyes were large like mine, her nose was large and jewish looking like mine her lips were a bit different from mine, but her hair was frizzy and light brown. I could see bits of me in her, I felt like I finally connected to someone, someone I could look up to and have an idea of what I would grow up to be like. I was 16 when I first met her. I have met my other aunts too and I see bits of me in each one, in different ways. FOr instance, one has my body shape, the other has a very soft voice like mine etc etc, so many things.

I havent met my birth mum yet but I know that when I do I will recognise more similarities. I also know deep down that I have similarities with my birth father but know very little about him.

But to conclude, I never realised how alone and confusing it was to only have myself as a reference. I didnt know what I would grow up to be like, if I was the only person in the entire world with a big jewish nose but when I met my relatives a void was filled and suddenly I felt a part of the world not separated from it. Made such a huge difference to my emotional well-being.

Answer 9

No I never had an issue with this. It’s funny because just a short while ago this topic came up in my mixed raced group. About people having issues if they didn’t resemble their parents a lot and these were  people that are not adopted.  



I accept and embrace people’s differences I always have.  So does my family we celebrated differences because that was the way it was meant to be.

Answer 10

Not adopted here, but had to answer here, as my father had a paternity test done when I was younger, based on me not looking like anyone in our family.

Answer 11

Yep, still do.

I'm very obviousy celtic, pale, lil nose, freckles, red hair, etc...

The adopted family are all tall, willowy and dark.

I was always the odd one out, in a lot of ways.

I would love to see my parents, they died when i was very young and I don't have any pictures.

I'd just like to know who's eyes I have, who's nose....

Wether I got my book interest frm my parents, or my love of extreme sports lol.

All I want, is to see where I came from.

Answer 12

I absolutely missed looking like people in my family, though we were a generic white bread family and my dad and a-bro have blonde hair/blue eyes like me. The hardest part was my height and physical build. I was 6'1 when I was 12 and my a-parents are tiny!

When I met my n-dad (who's 6'5) and my 1/2 sister (who's 9 and is as tall as I was when I was 9), it was just FANTASTIC to actually look like someone. For the first time in my life I felt beautiful.

Answer 13

I have adopted family members that actually look like they could have been born in the family.  My cousin was adopted when he was 1 and he looks a lot like me it is weird.  My other cousin that was adopted looks like another family member but yet aren't blood related.  So I guess they never went through the search for someone that looks like them but i can see your point because i would think that an adopted child would wonder who they look like and when they have children they would wonder who their children look like, like for example i know my son looks like my mom but what if my mom wasn't my mom.  So I can see what you are talking about.