Adoptees do you really believe you are being fair...?

Question

I have recently become very interested in the adoption section on Y Q&A (I am an adoptee, who was adopted at 2 days old) and am extremely disturbed by some of the things I have read. People write these questions to try to get advice but yet some of you are so blinded by your own rage at being adopted it is amazing. Such anger towards these poor people that are not blessed with children of their own. So rude to people that are thinking about adoption for a child that they feel they cannot care for. You all post things saying that we are concellation prizes, that we don't fit in, that adoptive parents are wrong for renaming the child they adopted.

How can you be so judgemental of people when you are clearly not happy in your own life. What I would like to know is if your birth mother had kept you and raised you in poverty or neglected you would you be on here saying how horrible your life was then?

If you had been abused or abandoned to fend for yourself, what then?

Answer 1

i too was surprised at the anger i found here, and was really disturbed at first, but i have gotten to know some of these peoples stories and i understand their anger.

my advice is to allow them to vent and share their feelings, they may differ from yours but who is to say they are wrong? they are sharing their experiiences the same as you and i, unfortunately they dont have the positive feelings we do.

a few may go overboard and seem borderline cruel, but if anyone is looking to adopt, put up for adoption or any other side of adoption they need to hear all the voices, good or bad.

dont take their words personal, your journey was just different. although i dont agree with the views they have i respect their opinion, and if you pay attention you will find they are quite intelligent people, and i truly appreciate that. not all adoptions are wonderful and forgiving, i have learned that from these people. it saddens me, but it shows me that there are many things that need to be changed and improved with the whole process.

Answer 2

I was put up for adoption, but the day the my "new parents" came to get me.......my mother changed her mind and kept me.  I often wonder what my life would have been like because my life as a child wasn't easy; however, as an adult I realize that I am INCREDIBLY blessed with the family I have.

One of by best friends was adopted and his mother is a WONDERFUL WOMAN!!

I think it is VERY sad that people think they are "consilation prizes" as adoptees.  Adoptees are more like a gift from God to parents who want children.  Alot of people who have biological children of their own adopt.  Unfortunately, there are parents.......both adopted parents and biological parents who dont see their kids as a gift.  That has nothing to do with adoption.

I think you make a good point here and I am sorry that there are so many people here that feel sorry for themselves instead of taking the hand that was dealt to them and living their life to the fullest.

Answer 3

I've been on here just over a week or two...  I didn't consider myself anti-adoption, and I still don't think I do...  But I do see (and have most of my life) a lot of people who think adoption is a simple proposition.  I've know, all my life, that it isn't simple.  The problem I have in all of this is that I see a lot of people thinking about themselves, and few thinking about the needs of the children adoption is supposed to help.  

I don't feel anger towards potential adopters or to mothers that are considering relinquishing.  But I'd like to see a bit more understanding for the real loss that adoption requires.  That adoption is not simply taking a baby from thin air, but from a mother's arms.  The child of adoption is likely to have thoughts and feelings that she or he is going to be dealing with for much of her or his life.  That cannot and should not be glossed over or ignored.  Whether or not the situation the adopted child goes to is better, there is a loss.

The question I continue to ask on this board is who is the adoption about?  If it's about the wants of potential adoptive parents, then your questions is a reasonable one.  But if it's about taking care of children, then shouldn't those children have a voice in talking about what adoption is like?

Answer 4

I'm actually an adoptive mother myself, in addition to being an adoptee. I don't think I've been rude to anyone, but I tend to be lumped into the "anti adoption" category often around here so I might be one of the people considered rude too.

I know my "birth mom" and if she had raised me I wouldn't have been abused or neglected or raised in poverty, and she never considered abortion. I didn't have a bad life with my adoptive parents, I had a great life in fact. I'd have had a great life with my mother too. I just wouldn't have the pain from losing her and all the questions and fear of abandonment that I have if she had kept me.

I never try to judge adoptive parents or people who consider adoption for their child. I just want to make sure everyone is fully aware of what they're doing before they do it is all. Don't we ALL want adoptive parents and women considering adoption to be fully informed and make the best possible decision? I think thats why we're all here. Maybe I don't have the same opinions as some people here do, but I will keep trying as best I can to help people make good choices that they will not live to regret, whatever they may be.

Answer 5

Yes, I have found that too.  I am a biological mother to an adoptee like yourself, and whenever I have answered questions stating that I am pro-adoption, boy, do some people get their noses out of joint.  Every birth mother is different, and they all have different reasons for wanting to surrender their child.  I guess the only thing that I can understand is that people who have been adopted feel that they are missing half of themselves, and that they don't know where it is that they come from, which I can understand.  That is why I think that an open adoption is so great.  The child gets to know where their roots come from, and know who they look like, and the rest.  Just because they had such a rough time with adoption, doesn't mean that everybody has the same terrible experience.  They definitely need counseling, and maybe even tracing down their birth parents to find out once and for all why they were surrended.  

All of you out there who are so hostile,

STOP!!!  Figure out what it is that you want and need, and just DO IT, and leave the rest of us to have our opinions.

Answer 6

I am an adoptee.  I was adopted at 2 months old.  My life has been great, not perfect, but why do people think that just because their adoptive parents didn't do so well in raising them that the birth mother would have done a fantastic job?  

Now those adoptees are the ones who have been brainwashed...and here's the kicker....they brainwashed themselves!  They have no way of knowing that, at the time they were born, their birth mother would not have neglected them or abused them.

You cannot become an adult and then meet your birth mother and know she would have raised you better than your adoptive parents.  The birth mother is a totally different person now than she was when she gave you up, FOOLS!

I am pro-adoption.  If a female doesn't believe she is capable of raising the child, then she is looking out for the child's best interests by giving him/her up for adoption.

Don't blame adoption for how you were raised.  You have no earthly idea just how much worse (or better) your life could have been if you weren't given up.  Quit pointing the finger of blame where it doesn't belong!

What about all the children who aren't given up for adoption who have been abused and neglected by the natural parents?  I wish some of them would happen to look at some of the questions in here and respond.

Answer 7

I am sorry but you are very ignorent. As an adoptee I have lived with parents who could not conceive naturally and I know many people who have given their children up for adoption so don't say I don't see your view point.

I am not unhappy in my own life. It's like being in a car accident and losing leg. You don't have a leg but it doesnt mean you are "unhappy with life". The loss of a leg hinders you and sometimes you are harshly reminded that you lack this leg. The problem is, you can't remember the accident that caused you to lose this leg. So you are always asking, why did I lose this leg? Was it an accident? Did someone deliberatly do this to me?  But it does not literally ruin your life.

People like to think babies don't feel things, they aren't concious, they are little precious objects that move, cry and look cute. There is little thought to the fact that babies brains are being hardwired, they are taking in billions of information from the environment and they are learning so quickly. When they are taken away from their birth parents this really traumitises a child.

I support childless parents who want to adopt, I really do, they can take children that are sitting in foster homes and give them stable and loving homes. However, they need to fully understand the greif that a child goes through when they have been adopted.

Whether they stayed with their birth parents is actually irrelivent at this point, the act of adoption itself is traumitising.  You can change a child's name as long as they have access to their old name or the name their birth parents gave them.

Trauma of any sort (look it up on google if you want) can cause many problems for children and adults.

Adoption often reallly hurts deep down, it's like a dagger in the soul and a lot of this anger comes from this hurt and pain and grief.

You may be happy and I am sure a lot of adoptees are. I also understand that many parents are wanting children but are not able. And they have the right to adopt.

The most important thing is to understand every perspective, from the adoptive parent, to the adoptee and birth mother (and father).

I would just like to add, if you don't believe that babies can remember the emotional effects of adoption or they aren't concious enough to understand you are wrong. My first memory was when I was 4 months old. I remember being torn from the arms of my foster carer by my new adoptive mum. I reached out and I was crying and I vividly remember thinking "I don't want to go, I dont want to go!!" but I couldnt verbalise it. This hurt deep, the emotion still comes up when i remember this. Don't underestimate children, they are not objects, they are thinking, feeling, intelligent beings who have just as many rights as adults.

Answer 8

Hi Stacie,

You're right about some of what you read on yahoo answers adoption board might be disturbing, especially for those people who have never known such issues exist.  I can assure you they are very real for the many adoptees who have spent lifetimes being restrained and silenced by the adoption system.  

I'm also curious why you feel the adoption board should only be here for those seeking advice on how to adopt.  It's for ALL adoption-related concerns.  That is not being judgemental, that is only educating that there is more to adoption than how to find a quick baby at the lowest cost.  Why would you wish for all the different experiences & opinions from your own to not be heard?  

Potential adopters need to know that deficiencies in the system exist that can adversely affect children's well-being, and improvements can & should be made.  Hopefully one day reforms will be implemented and future adoptees will not have to suffer as much.  Expectant mothers with unplanned pregnancies also need to know all of their options and consequences, not just adoption.  I don't feel that's rude at all.  All voices are valid and should be heard before anyone makes a decision.  If someone finds some information enlightening, then so be it.

To further answer your question, I have a few for you (or for anyone who cares to answer):

Is your birth certificate denied to you?

Did any adoption agency or attorney make big bucks off your transfer to another family?  Does that profit make you feel like a commodity?

Were you separated from your mother, your father, your siblings, all extended family?  Were you denied all contact and visitation from them?

If so, do people think you should be happy and grateful and shut up about your losses?

Do people call you a gift?

Are you expected to be somebody you are not in order to fulfill other people's dreams?

Did you lose your original ethnic identity, heritage, and religion?

Were you denied your medical history?

Was your mother ever wrongly referred to as a "crackwhore?"

Were you raised in family secrecy & lied to about your origins?

Have you ever been manipulated by the adoption industry  (adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, etc.) with their own agenda?

Has your name ever been changed without your knowledge or consent?

Was your mother mistreated by hospital maternity staff, social workers, and/or denied the opportunity to breastfeed you as a baby?

Have you ever lost everything you ever knew & then had your losses minimized or dismissed altogether?

Do you find it impossible to obtain genealogical information on yourself?

Have you ever had to fight to change laws in order to have equal human rights to others?

I could go on & on, but until you can answer "Yes" to all of these types of questions, please do not talk to adoptees about what's "FAIR."  Thank you.

julie j

reunited adoptee

Answer 9

Oh, Stacie.

If you're such a happy adoptee, why would what we say bother you at all?   And if you've got such a healthy life, why are you here, trolling around in the adoption ghetto of Y!A?

You remind me of what Betty Jean Lifton calls the 'deep slumber', the ones who don't like the 'awake' adoptees making too much noise while they're trying to sleep.

And you have painted such a nasty picture of 'birth' families above!  You are probably inaccurate about most of our families (and your own, too) because most of us born before 1973 were middle to upper class girls who just got unlucky after some premarital s*x.  

My own mother was a wealthy girl who hung out at her parent's yacht club where she met my father.  Hardly the crack den you've portrayed above.  She just couldn't get birth control (not even condoms--she told me my father was turned away at the pharmacists!) or an abortion.

So her mother pushed her into doing the 'right' thing.  

I DARE you to read these three books:

The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier

Journey of the Adopted Self by Betty Jean Lifton

The Girls who Went Away by Ann Fessler

Oh, and children are not a salve for a childless couple's infertility.  Nobody has everything.

Family preservation is the way.

Answer 10

aww i have no idea what u r talking about but it just sounds like more closed minded people i am pro choice but i also believe if u have a kid because u r not n cant take care of them adoption is best because then they have the chance to get the proper care and affection some people r just not meant to have kids and shouldnt or atleast shouldnt keep them n all that b.s. about well then u shouldnt have s*x just doesnt fit into todays society people r gonna do it n now its up to us to make the choices that we feel r best for us and the baby thats what living in a free country is about

Answer 11

People have different opinions?  shock, horror!

Answer 12

There are LOTS of people who blame their parents for their problems--many rightly so, many wrongly so.  Frankly, that is easier than taking responsibility for yourself and your own happiness.  It isn't just adoptees!

Answer 13

I know my firstmom and I can tell you:

Abortion was never even considered.

I would not have grown up abused or neglected.  My parents were both middle class and my mother would have had lots of family support.  In fact, her parents encouraged her to keep me.

Nobody was on drugs.

I have no problem with people adopting or with happy adoptees.  Heck...  I would consider myself a happy adoptee.

I do have a problem with people perpetuating myths that make "birthfamilies" look like drug addicted, impoverished people who neglect their children.  Yes, I know that for some, that picture is accurate but for most I have met it is not.

It certainly was not true in my situation.

Answer 14

I don't think that adoptees are being rude or unfair.

We all have our own perspectives.  Our own experiences.

PAPs ask questions.  Adoptees answer them accordingly.

I had a great life with my adoptive parents, and regardless of what my life would have been like with my bparents..I still have questions and feelings of loss and adoption issues.

Adoptive parents should hear all sides of the story.  The good, the bad and the ugly.

Answer 15

Hello fellow adoptee Stacie,

I'm glad you've become interested in the adoption section.  You have many questions and I'll do my best to answer carefully and fully.

From what I've read, not many of the adoptees here discuss their general happiness in their lives, so maybe you've read something into their comments and thoughts about adoption that hasn't been stated?

If my first mother had kept me and raised me in poverty (which was not the situation because I do not come from a poor family), I would have been fine.  She married shortly after having me, finished up college, and ended up a highly successful businesswoman.  

If she would have neglected or abused me, I would have been the only one of her children she did that to because she did not neglect or abuse my younger siblings, so I would have probably been traumatized that she neglected and abused only her first born child.  

Now, if you want me to imagine some different, imaginary mother, I suppose I'd have to know the extent of the poverty, because many children in the world and in the US live at some point in their lives in poverty, temporary or permanent, and do not end up being taken away from or given away by their mothers.  Indeed, temporary poverty is something I experienced with my adoptive mother.  What do you know, she didn't give me away and no one took me from her.

With my imaginary mother, who is now abusive and neglectful, I would be better off being raised with a safe and loving substitute/adoptive family.  I may or may not grieve over leaving/losing my abusive mother and probably would have had mixed, confused and complex emotions on that.  

I'd have no guarantees that my adoptive family will be any more safe or loving, because as I am sure you are aware, sometimes adoptive parents are abusive and neglectful too, but a safe and loving adoptive family is definitely one possibility and the best scenario I could imagine.  If this happened when I was a teenager, I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to locate this safe and loving adoptive family.  

I don't think I'd want to be renamed, though, just because my new safe, loving adoptive family wanted me to have a new name that they prefer.

Even in this best case scenario, I would nonetheless have suffered damage and pain from having been abused and neglected, then additional pain from having been taken away for adoption, despite it's necessity.  I may or may not recognize and/or acknowledge the various sources of my pain.

As for being abandoned, essentially I was.  Not because that is what my mother wanted to do, mind you.  She was forced.  So, I can tell you how I feel about that.  It isn't happy.  Not for me, not for her.

Here's a question for you to consider:  Do you believe the poor people who are not blessed with children of their own have a right to someone else's child?  All poor infertile people, the world over?  If so, why are they entitled and whose child are they entitled to?  

Finally, you asked "do you really believe you are being fair...?"  Yes, honestly I do.

I hope this helps.

Answer 16

I don't think it a question of 'being fair'.  The adoption system is supposed to serve adoptees, right?  If so, then why are so many adoptees the worst critics of adoption?  These are the very people who are supposed to have benefited from the system -- and they are saying that it hurt them.  Obviously, there is a big problem.  If you personally hold no grievances against your situation, it is very good for you -- but please don't blame others for  being 'thankless'or 'unreasonable anrgy'.  Denying them the right to express their emotion may have been exactly what caused their psychological issues in the first place.

Answer 17

Why do you assume people who think differently than you do are enraged?

What is wrong with being outraged at outrageous acts?

I used to think like you do, I remember the first time a woman said to me that just because someone is infertile doesn't give them the right to her baby, any more than someone being crippled gives them the right to her legs.

I was actually aghast, who then would give these "poor infertile people" a baby if it wasn't single women I thought.

Now that I am older and didn't get the children I always dreamed of, I realize that it is really alright not to always get what you want, and  you can still have a fulfilling life, and it comes no where NEAR what adoption is like for me, NO WHERE,  there is no reason to take an infant and pretend it is yours, if you need to care for children there are lots of opportunities.

I see you also by into the assumption that my natural mother MUST be some kind of depraved woman,  she is not, she was not, I have known her for almost 1/2 my life, I would have been better off not adopted, there is no question.

You sound like someone who has been guilted into seeing things from your aparent's lens, I spent a lot of my life like that too, it sucks when you are an "extra" in your own life.

and yes, I think I am being more than fair, I hate to see others needlessly go through what my mother and I have been through.

If people want to adopt, they should do fost-adopt, and no I don't sympathize that you want a baby.

Good luck.

Answer 18

I agrree with some things you say but not all. There are cases where the child was not abused or lived in absoulte proverty, but was adopted out.   What i do resent is people like Tobit and others who lump all adoptive parents as these horrible people that abuse kids or get kids to be replacements.  That isn't true. I love my adoptive parents and am very happy with the life they provided me. i'm not brainwashed as Tobit will probably say. I do feel that there is needed reforms in the adoption industry. because in some cases an adopted child goes from the frying pan to the fire. I mean look at that case out west where those parents adopted special needs kids only to put them into cages. Or the people that adopt or foster for the money they get for the kids. there are people out there that fall into that category. Just NOT all adopted parents fall into this category. The only thing i need to come to terms with is the anger i feel towards my b-mother. That is why i'm a healing adoptee.

Answer 19

Yes, I understand.  When you've been brainwashed your whole life, it can be painful when someone wakes you up with the truth.  So let's be fair...with some more truth.

Q:Are adoptees consolation prizes? A: for some people they are and that's the problem.

Q:Do adoptees fit in? A: By definition, that would be...'no.'

Q:Are adoptive parents wrong for renaming the kid? A: Only when they are doing this for the purpose of erasing the child's heritage and to claim ownership.  Yes, trying to dominate and own a person is wrong.

Q: how can you be so judgmental? A: I, for one, am just presenting logical arguments.  You can choose to ignore them if they hurt.

Q: what would it be like if you were raised in poverty by your bmom? A: Refer back to that brainwashing thing at top.  Most bmoms are not in poverty.

Keep thinking. I am confident, you'll understand one day.

Answer 20

I'm adopted and I've given a baby up also.  

I don't feel one way or the other about my bio parents.  I'm sure they were nice people and all.  I grew up in a wonderful home with a wonderful family with parents whom I love and love me (and cherish me and spoiled me and....lol)

I'd eventually like to meet my siblings but i'm in no hurry.

Answer 21

I find that some of the answers here actually go towards proving your point.

I understand and respect adoptees feelings towards their own experiences, but to have them attack the whole concept of adoption is unnecessary. There are many people who want to adopt for the right reasons, and yes there are reasons for adoption. Not all birthparents are capable of caring for their children, for whatever the reason may be, and those children deserve a family.  For people to bombard others with their negativity is wrong and not always helpful. However, to think that adoption is an easy road is ignorant, and some of the adult adoptees bring up points that need to be considered.

Why do they do it? It's because they are angry and bitter about something that they had no control over. But adopted or not, none of us chose our parents and have to live with the consequences of who raises us and how well they do it.

Answer 22

THANK YOU!!!!  I agree with you totally!  I am an adoptive mother and think what some of these people are saying to others is terrible!!!  Misery likes company, so they say . . .   People like yourself who post answers and are happy and secure with their adoptions just get told that they're lying or messed up or something.  I don't know why they can't accept that some adoptees really are happy with their lives.  YIKES!  I think that they have issues that THEY haven't dealt with and don't want to take any credit for their problems themselves.  They want to blame it all on being adopted!  

I am so glad to know I am not the only one feeling this way!