Angry and Bitter Adoptees?

Question

Is it so hard to realize why some people feel angry and bitter?

Is it so unjustified to be angry towards a system that commodifies children and keeps adoptees stigmatized as second class citizens?

Answer 1

It's not hard to understand at all Heather.  What I DON'T understand are people who happen to be angry at the SYSTEM yet take it out on strangers here on YA.  I understand being angry at the system, being angry at the individuals involved in the system.....but some on here take it too far and end up blessing out a perfect stranger who asked an innocent question...sometimes out of ignorance.  If the aim is to educate people about the reforms that need to happen, then blessing people out or demeaning them is not the way to go yet I've seen it time and again....especially to people who are looking to adopt.  They really get it!  I actually feel very sorry for prospective adoptive parents who come on this forum genuinly seeking wisdom & guidance during what can be a very confusing, emotionally difficult time.  They have no clue about the dynamics on this forum or that it really has nothing to do with them PERSONALLY.  It's just that people are angry over changes needed in the SYSTEM and instead take it out on someone else.  It's sad really.

Answer 2

It is not unjustified.  It is simply a matter of non-adopted people either buying into what society tells them and/or (in the case of some PAPs/APs) wanting what they want when they want it and never thinking ahead to the time when their cute infant will be old enough to ask perfectly reasonable questions like "Where did I come from?" and "What do you mean I can't see my own birth certificate?"

I don't tell blind people that sight is not important and that they should just quit being so bitter and shut up.  They lack something everyone else has--just like I Iack a huge part of my identity--and they have a right to their feelings about that.  How they choose to deal with those feelings is up to them.  But as a sighted person I would not dare presume to school them on their emotions.

Answer 3

If there's anger, it's because you don't know how to look or think beyond the moment and put other people's feelings in front of your own.

I met my birth family and, trust me, I was so much better off where I was raised than if I'd have been raised with my birth parents and that really isn't saying a whole lot for my adoptive family, either.

As far as being stigmatized as second class, only you can allow society to place you in a "catagory".  If you think highly of yourself and others, work hard, educate yourself, people will actually look up to you and be amazed at what you accomplished in such difficult situations.  Time to grab your own life by the horns and stop allowing your birth circumstance to bring you down.

Answer 4

It is completely justified.  In 44 states, adopted citizens ARE treated as second class citizens by the STATE, which holds the records of the OWN births from them.  All other citizens have the right to this document.  This is discrimination.  The state, then, has placed us in that category.  

Having a variety of feelings voiced by adopted persons about adoption as it is practiced in the U.S. is often discounted by those who feel threatened by anyone who wants reform.

As far as what Dark Eyes stated about reunion, no one should use their own reunion experience as a reason to suggest that others shouldn't want to reunite.  Many of us have had great reunions.  It is up to the individual parties in each situation.  We can all make our own decisions about reunion, just as all other citizens make their own decisions about their contacts.  Adult adopted citizens and citizens who have relinquished are all adults, capable of handling these issues for themselves, thank you.

Answer 5

My youngest brother was adopted as a newborn.  He's 25 now.  People are always saying things like, "so he's not really your brother" or "so what was that like, having an adopted sibling?".  Even my mom keeps referring to him as my father's "adopted" son (my dad and my second stepmother adopted him).  It's really irritating.  

First of all, out of all the siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, etc., I'm still the oldest.  Everyone else is just one more kid.  Greg is MY BROTHER.  Period.  I helped raise him.  I fed and burped and diapered him and got spit up on and peed on.  I had to babysit for the little brat whenever I was home from college and I was probably the only real source of dicipline that he got when he was little (Dad was still in his man-ho phase).  We fussed and fought just like I did with my sister (whole sister, three years younger).  We still fuss and fight.  His son is my youngest nephew and I spoil him just like the rest of the nephews and nieces.

He's my brother and anybody who says otherwise has to answer to me (the big sister).

Answer 6

I can be angry and bitter.  But it would it would only be towards my bio mother & father for being abusive alcholics and watching all three of their children go to foster care.  But when I feel angry about not having a normal childhood, I realize there are alot of other people in this world who have endured painful things.  Things could always have been alot worse for me.

Answer 7

I guess it is.  People would rather believe that adoptees who are upset by being denied their heritage, that adoptees who feel the pain of being taken from their mothers at birth, that we have just had bad experiences.  They don't want to look at the problems inherent in the system and in the tragedy that precedes EVERY adoption.  They want to just tell us the problem is us.

Once, I was a solution to an infertile couple's problem.  Now, I'm a problem myself.  Things do come full circle, don't they?

Answer 8

I was told when I was little that I had to be adopted because my biological parents had been too young to have children, at 19 and 20, and I believed that explanation. When I got to be that age myself, though, with a job and apartment of my own, and some of my friends starting to spawn, I realized that it wasn't too young, and there was something else going on. I had questions before, but now I have anger.

Answer 9

You (and the others) are not unjustified about being angry.  When I think back to my son's adoption and the nightmare the state of NJ put him & the bio family through, I too get angry.  I get angry at the adoption reform that hasn't happened yet but SHOULD.  I get angry when people attack birthmothers.  I get angry when adoptees are told to just "deal with it".  I just wish there was something more as an adoptive mom that I could do for my son as well as other adoptees.  

I just wish that more people (not you, but people in general) would focus that anger on the system and allow us (adoptive parents) to help them fight the system with them.