How many adoptee's wish they had NEVER been adopted?

Question

Do you feel that way, even if you were in foster care, orphanage or had parents who were less than ideal?

Answer 1

i use to wish that i was never adopted. but then i realized what life i could of had living with my first mother. But my experince it totally differency from adoptees and first mothers who were forced or tricked by there family to give their babies up. And yes people there are babies that are unfairly put up for adoption, because the first mother feels pressure from parents, boyfriends and others.

Answer 2

I had good parents.  (Every parent is less than ideal.  Human beings are imperfect creatures.)  They loved me and did the best they could.  And I love them.

And yet, I'd be lying if I said that I never wished I hadn't been adopted.  Being adopted, for me, carries with it all kinds of complications that have nothing to do with my adoptive parents.  There is loss, which causes a great deal of emotional turmoil (for me, and many other adoptees).  And, given a choice, I would never have wanted to have that in my life.  

As for the answerer who, once again, wonders whether I'd rather be aborted...  You know what?  Sometimes, yes, I would rather have been aborted.  Especially when I read answers like that.  I mean, do you ask an orphan, "aren't you grateful you aren't dead, too?"  No, the child mourns the loss of his or her parents.  Are people still so heartless here that they can't understand that?  If so, then the tragedy that the human race has become does make me wonder if it was worth it to be born.

ETA: (1) I do have a pretty good idea how I would have been raised if I hadn't been adopted (since having met my first mom).  It wouldn't have been that much different from how I was raised.  And I would have been with my mom.  So...  Bonus!

(2) Let's assume, for the moment, I don't know how I would have been raised.  Maybe it would have been worse.  But I still wouldn't have had the emotional baggage that comes with adoption.  So, again, BONUS!  Do we tell orphans, "well, you don't know what your life would have been like if your parents hadn't died, so you shouldn't wish that they hadn't"?  No.  This misses the point.  The point is, being adopted is (for many adoptees) itself the problem.  It's not our first parents or our adoptive parents.  It's adoption itself.

ETA2:  I am focused on the future.  I'm trying to reduce the incidence of adoption in the future.  That's my goal.  I know I can't change the past.  (But the original question asked about my feelings about my past.  I answered.  I'm sorry that offends so many of you.  I forgot.  I'm only allowed to answer questions if I have something happy to say.)  My point in being here is trying to change the future for kids that might be put up for adoption, but that don't NEED to be put up for adoption.  My hope, for the future, is that they can avoid that loss.

Answer 3

I'm adopted and my adoptive parents are amazing. I love them and they love me. BUT there are times (quite a lot) when I wish I've never been adopted, whether that means my bio family had kept me or if I had been born into my adoptive family.

And anyone who thinks they have the right to tell adoptees they should be grateful they weren't aborted or whatever: you have no right to tell me or anyone else how to feel. These are our feelings, we feel them, you don't. You have no idea what its like to be adopted, so don't tell me how I should feel about something you don't understand.

Would you tell someone who'd been raped that she should be grateful to be alive?

NEVER TELL ME HOW TO FEEL. THESE ARE MY FEELINGS. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DICTATE TO ME HOW I SHOULD FEEL.

Oh and I've met my bio family. Yes, my bio mom gave me up willingly, but you know what? If I'd been kept, I'm pretty sure my grandparents would have brought me up and since they had seven well-adjusted great kids of their own, I'm sure I would have been fine. No abuse, no neglect, no drugs, etc. I'm sure my life with them would have been very different to my life as an adoptee, but who are you to say it would have been worse? At least I would have had my biological family.

Answer 4

Unfortunately, too many times people look at the issue of adoption in terms of adoptive parents vs. first parents.  They forget, however, that the adopted person is starting out life with a rather huge loss -- that of his/her family -- before adoption ever occurs.  Of course, adoption CANNOT occur unless that loss has occurred.  It's a much more complicated picture than is often portrayed by the questions and responses here on Y!A.  

The issue of abortion, of course, is silly and moot.  Anyone "could have been aborted."  Just because parents were unable/unwilling/not allowed to parent doesn't mean they wanted to abort.  These are not opposites of one another.  The opposite of relinquishment is not abortion.  The opposite of relinquishment is parenting.  Abortion is the opposite of carrying to term and birthing.   Parenting is often an option that women considering relinquishment would like to have, but feel they don't have.

Now then, do I wish I'd not been adopted?  I wish that it had not been necessary for me to lose my first family, even though I love my adopted family.  Because people tend to see this as an either/or issues (adoptive parents vs. first parents,) it is incredibly difficult to get some to see that adopted people can love their adoptive parents, but still wish they didn't have to lose their first parents.  It's just not a simple, cut and dry, either/or deal.  

I'm going to get more specific to my own situation.  I was in foster care.  The entire time I was in foster care, it was true that I would grow up to have the very same rights as every other citizen.  The very minute that adoption decree was signed, my right to my OWN record of birth was taken from me -- a right that all non-adopted people take for granted.  Indeed, even people who were given up for adoption, but are not adopted, have this right.  It is only the act of being adopted that takes it away in 44 U.S. states.

Also, being adopted comes with expectations.  There is often an unspoken (sometimes spoken) expectation that an adopted person should "forget" about his/her first family.  That can be a heavy burden to bear.  If a child is relinquished for adoption, but never adopted, that expectation does not exist.  If the child becomes "eligible" for adoption because his/her parents die and there are no family members to raise the child, that expectation isn't there.  Becoming adopted creates an expectation that would not be placed upon any other child who lost his/her parents.  Just reading some of the questions and responses here on Y!A shows that adoption comes with this expectation in the minds of so many.

Why should being adopted come with the burden of such expectations, along with the denial of a right everyone else has?  It shouldn't, but often it does.  

Sure, I would like to have been raised by my first family just like the vast majority of people are.  If this couldn't be the case, I'd have preferred that my adoptive family could have raised me without the negative side affects of adoption as we practice it in the U.S. being a part of it.  

It's not about WHO my adoptive family and first family are.  It's about what adoption itself entails.

Answer 5

I'm sure many wish they were never adopted.  However, you don't know what your life would have been like if you had never been adopted.  Your biological parents may have abused you, you may have gone hungry many days, you may not have been educated.  There are so many unknowns there is no answer to this question.

I am not adopted, and many times I wished I was raised in a different family, so everyone feels that way at one time or another.

Answer 6

I'm thankful i was adopted . . and yes, i have met my birthfamilies on both sides. . .very thankful i was adopted.

ETA - how could i get 12 thumbs down for saying that I was thankful?  I guess, despite the fact no one should be telling anyone how to feel, they're going to knock you for being ok with your adoption anyway .. .

Answer 7

Oh Curly, Curly, Curly....This will shock the heck out of you, but, I for one, would rather have been aborted.  

This statement is made over and over to us adoptees and I realize you're new here but it is a very offensive thing to say and  you must stop immediately, because you have no idea how we feel.

I've lived a lifetime of pain and depression.  I've attempted suicide several times and no amount of therapy, medications, or self-help BS has done any good.  Sorry, but not being born at all, often sounds like a sweet deal.

And, to answer the question, I would rather have been raised by my first Mom.  She is wonderful, smart, successful, and we have TONS in common.  And, BTW, she is not, nor has she ever been, drug-addicted, a prostitute, abusive, manipulative, violent, or any of the other things people always like to assume about our first moms.  

My first Mom's only crime was that she was single and pregnant in a time when that was considered unacceptable.  She was forced (yes, forced) to relinquish me for adoption to a couple that was more Cleaver-esque and therefore considered to be more suitable to be parents.

Answer 8

Having just reunited with my mother, yes I should have grown up with her.  She didn't 'give me up' she was lied to and tricked and though she could never have kids so I was doubly precious to her.

I should have been with my mother all along.

Having said that I love and adore my adoptive family and can't imagine not having known them.   It has nothing to do with any 'bad experience'.  I had as wonderful an experience as one could have growing up adopted, but that doesn't negate the pain of losing your family, your heritage and spending a lifetime of wondering who you are and where you came from so, please, please refrain from insulting my adoptive family with the 'bad experience' card yet again (the first answerer)

I'm not even going to enter into 'would you rather have been aborted' crappola.   That was never an option and I find it a highly insulting thing to say to a person so I would ask the same thing to to the asker - would you like to have been aborted?  See how ridiculous that sounds?  Stop saying these dumb things to adoptees, we have to put up with enough already.

curly  I hope someone tells your daughter she is lucky she wasn't aborted and she should be SO grateful for that.   Adoptees are no more candidates for abortion than any other person in the world - stop with the negative stigmatizing of adoptees.  Thanks

Answer 9

I wish I had never been adopted.

Even before reunion, living with that knowledge that I was living away from my real family, that I was denied knowing who they were or where I came from, that I was lied to and mocked for wanting to know who they were, it was all very painful.

Then I did reunite, and found out that my parents got married 6 months after I was born, and that they were quite capable of taking care of me...it all seems like such a waste.  I was given up for nothing.  All because in 1973, a 19 year old single girl could not have a baby and keep her.  So I had to miss out on my parents, my full brother, my grandparents, my cousins and aunts and uncles and entire family...just because of some backwards thinking of the era.

I most definitely wish I had never been adopted, adoption sucks ***.

Answer 10

Don't apologize, Curly.  There are plenty of adoptees who are perfectly content with their lives, and have no regrets about the past.  The ones we hear from all the time are the ones who are bitter because they wish things had been different for them.    You won't be surprised to hear that there are plenty of BIO kids who wish they had been adopted, because they hate their bio parents.

We all have things in our pasts that we wish we could change, but what is done is done.  These people need to let go of the past and look forward in their lives.    We have the power to change the future, but not the past.

Answer 11

i was adopted and had foster care and i know it did me alot of harm...i hated my adopted family .. some adoptions are good but its only as good as the person in charge of the adoption does his job!!!!...money isnt everything...and adoption is about the money....

Answer 12

I wish I had never been adopted.

My mother was forced to move to another state - and told to not come home with 'that' baby - me.

The pressures were too great for her.

My mother and father went on to marry 6 months after my birth.

They went on to raise 3 more children.

I love my adoptive family - but it was the family I didn't completely fit in to.

If my mother has been given support - she would have parented me just fine.

I wish I had never been adopted.

Answer 13

The thing is that I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I want to meet my first mom... so there's a chance that I'll feel differently once I do.

But I'm happy I'm adopted... and I know for a fact that I wasn't one of those unfortunate cases where my birth mom was tricked or forced to give me up.  She chose to do so because she thought it was important for me to have a stable life with two parents.  (She gave up a son before me.  Her parents, my birth grandparents, offered to take care of her and me if she wanted to keep me, but she went ahead and found my parents and went through a private adoption.)

I do know some people who wish they hadn't been adopted.  My friend Jen, for example.  Her adoptive mother thought she couldn't have kids, adopted her, and later managed to give birth to two more girls.  Jen's ALWAYS been treated differently by her entire family.  I've always felt bad for her because she hasn't felt very loved by her family her entire life.  She went and met her birth mother and found out that she was one of those cases where her birth mother was pretty much tricked into giving up her baby.

I think it's HORRIBLE that people do this!  If a woman decides to give up her baby, it should be for all the right reasons!  If she has a desire to keep her baby, then there's most likely no one on the planet that will love that child more.

Believe me, my parents (the ones that adopted me) aren't ideal... I don't think June Cleaver exists in real life nor do I think I'd be happy addition to a Cleaver-type family.  But they've loved and supported me and given me the tools I need to be happy and healthy.

I think people's answer to this question depends on two things... 1) How they were treated by their adoptive families and 2) How they feel about their birth families both before and after they meet them.

excellent question, and I don't understand how people can take offense to it!  There are a million different situations out there and a huge portion of them that really... well.. suck.  I can understand why some people out there wish they had never been adopted, I'm just not one of them.

Answer 14

I have met some that wish they had never been adopted. I am not one of them. I am extremely thankful and feel blessed to have been adopted by such wonderful parents. They adopted six of us and I think we all feel this way.

I had been in foster care, but don't remember it.

Good question!