How would an adoptee explain this one?

Question

I have been reading much of these posts and replies for sometime now. I just have to wonder why most of the adoptees on this forum feel that their own experience with adoption would be wide spread and an example of what ALL adoptoin situations are. I "get it" that your experience was bad, I "get it" that not all adoptions are warm and fuzzy, I "get it" that some adoptions agency's AND attorneys have the adoptive families best intertest at heart. BUt what I dont get is why you all think that EVERY situation needs the biological family to raise the child. Here is my REAL question, so explain this one....

Scott Peterson, the man who is in prison for life for killing his wife and unborn son, was raised by his birthmom. This same mother previously placed 2 of her children for adoption. I have listened to these 2 adoptees speak about their half brothers life and crime.

Answer 1

Using Scott Peterson to illustrate this point is ludicrous. There are a lot of  bad parents out there whether adoptive or natural. I would bet Scott's mother was the way she was with him because she lost two other children. Scott was denied nothing in his life, he was "The Golden Boy" and as such thought he could get away with anything and that everyone would treat him the same way his parents did and deny him nothing. His mother was damaged by her experience with adoption and did everything she did because of that experience. See possums post regarding that aspect of this question.

So how about if you explain me the phenomenon of adoptive parents who murder and abuse their children? That number is astranomically high in light of the fact that an adoptive home must pass a home study and  in my opinion should have zero of those sorts of things happening. Is it more acceptable because the children they adopt are not really their own flesh and blood and therefore it is easier to hurt them or kill them? I mean in a population that is 1-2% of our total population in the states the number of abused adoptees is 84%! How do you explain that one? Alot of adopted persons have done murder as well, that number is also very high. (I don't have that one in my head so I can't quote a percentage on it) It is much higher than the general population though, that I do remember. My own child was mentally abused as well as emotionally abused my her adoptive parents. Funnily enough my raised children are neither, I wonder why that is? They seem healthy and well adjusted and oh yes, I am a single parent.

By the way welcome back Noodles, just couldn't stay away could you?

Answer 2

The people you speak of are the kind that are unhappy with their lives and rather than get off their assses to change things, they'd rather just blame someone else.

They would be whining about their parents no matter who raised them.  They are the ones who will not accept any responsibility for their own choices.  No matter how rotten their childhood is, they don't have to live their whole lives in that shadow.

Answer 3

NEVER have I seen ANY adoptee on here claim to be speaking for ALL adoptees. Do you ever think that maybe BOTH sides NEED to be told? Or do you just zone out the second something isn't meshing with what you believe to be true?

Are you saying that since I am a natural mom who is now parenting that my child is destined to be a murdered? That the simple act of placing a child for adoption equates poor parenting skills? Are you suggesting that once a parent relinquishes rights to one child they should be forever banned from parenting? I don't understand where you are going with this. It sounds like you are looking for any asinine reason you can grasp at to vilify natural parents.

Not all children should be raised by their biological parents, not all adoptees should be raised by their adopters either. Give your head a shake. There are c**p parents of all kinds out there. That is the very reason that each case should be treated as a unique situation... SINCE IT IS IN FACT A UNIQUE SITUATION! You are the one seeking to lump people into nicely packaged categories. Categories of your choosing and definition.

Adoption is not about roses and sunshine and it is not about despair and hatred. It is about a delicate combination of negative and positive emotions. When people are trying to gain insight into adoption they should be told all sides. Would you like it if your leader made choices based on his or her views alone and not the views of the majority... Oh wait, I am thinking maybe you do.

Answer 4

I personally would not trade my adopted family for the world. People have the right to feel the way they want, but I think people who resent their adopted parents are the vocal minority.

Answer 5

I don't think my experience is in any way universal.  I am often very frustrated by the views about adoption I encounter, but I don't think it does anyone any good for me to try to invalidate another's feelings.

I have great a'parents.  There are terrible a'parents.  There are wonderful and terrible natural parents.  Nothing can be generalized from the single case of Scott Peterson except that Scott Peterson is one sick individual who decided others could conveniently die if it got him out of growing up.

Answer 6

"BUt what I dont get is why you all think that EVERY situation needs the biological family to raise the child."

NO ONE has said such a thing.  Move on.

Answer 7

Hi Noodles.

I haven't followed this case, but I did look Google poor Jackie Peterson after this question, and the internet provides the follwoing information. She was raised in an orphanage after her mother had a nervous breakdown following her father's murdrer.  She lost 2 children to adoption when she was young, her raised son is believed to have murdered his wife and her grandson, she currently has a debilitating breathing problem, and you want to skewer her on Y!A?

I think this poor woman has been through enough.  

As to the gist of your question, are mothers who relinquish doomed to raise murderers?  No, how absurd and hurtful to suggest, mommie dearest is certainly an apt monniker for you.

Answer 8

i've always thought that a true mother and father are ones who raise a child with love and respect for themselves and others. Someone who is there when the child is sick or had a bad day and also to help with the big snowman in the front yard..someone to tuck you in and chase away the bad dreams..doesn't have to be biological to do all this

Answer 9

Get off Birth parents will you. Did you know that almost all serior killers were adopted check it out it's true.

As far as Scott Peterson he was a spoiled brat that got everything he wanted because his mother couldn't get over giving the daughter away.

Answer 10

Yikes!  Are you an adoptive mother?  I hope some of these answers really help you to "get it" because you don't.  As many people have said here in many posts, it isn't that they think children should "ALWAYS" be with their biological parents.  Here are the 2 points.  It IS best for children to be with their biological parents if possible and safe, and social supports should aim at that goal.  When a child cannot be raised in his or her biological family, no matter how bad the situation and how much "better" it is in the adoptive family, there is still profound loss for the child which adoptive parents must acknowledge.  I remember a blog post from an adoptee that really speaks to what you are thinking about.  The young woman came into contact with some of her biological family members after her biological mother had died, so she never got to meet her biological mother.  She met her biological brother, a very troubled man who had a tumultuous childhood raised by their biological mother.  This woman in no way wished that she had grown up in that family instead of the one in which she had grown up.  She did however had profound sadness and felt profound loss at the thoughts of the hugs, and nurturing, and moments her biological brother got to have with their biological mother and she didn't get to have that.  Would she have wanted to trade places, no, but she still felt profound loss.

Answer 11

What on earth are you talking about

Answer 12

Here's how this adoptee explains it.  For one, adoption is not healthy.  Read here:

http://www.angelfire.com/or/originsnsw/w...

Secondly, I would explain Jackie Peterson's bad mothering as CLASSIC 'firstmom' behavior that is described in the linked article above.  She, as you've mentioned, gave two children up to adoption.  I think this double loss did profound emotional damage to Jackie.  Her husband, Lee, was a wealthy man who had already had a family with his first wife, and agreed to have Scott to please Jackie.

The Peterson's overindulged, spoiled, and overcompensated with Scott.  He was never told 'no'.  He believed the rest of the world was as likely to fall for his manipulations as his parents were.

Jackie was afraid to punish Scott, because she felt so much GUILT about the loss of her other children.  She did Scott, obviously, a huge disservice.  And now she can't admit she was wrong because Scott was her only chance at motherhood.

I would argue that the damage of adoption affected the Petersons, too. I wonder if Scott would have been so 'damaged' if his mother hadn't given away her first two children.  He was afraid to get a divorce, and disapoint his parents.

Answer 13

OMG are you saying that anything any child does is his or her parent's fault?

What is your question exactly? That if Scott Peterson had been adopted-out he wouldn't have killed is wife?  

If there is a question of merit here, I seem to have missed it.

Answer 14

Based on your question, I have to wonder if you really did read many of these posts and understand what adoptees are saying...

I won't interpret for others, but what I have been saying is different than what you seem to have understood.  

An infant/child doesn't understand all these considerations.  The infant or child just knows that he or she has lost their first family.  That loss creates grief.  That grief generally goes unacknowledged by society.  

Now, as adults, we continue to be told that our feelings don't matter.  Thank you for continuing that trend and confirming that you don't "get it" at all.

Answer 15

Have you ever done research into the trauma that relinquishing mothers go through after placing their children?  Do you s'pose that might have something to do with how Scott was raised?

D'you think giving him away too might have been the answer?  Do you realize that while adoptees make up only, oh, about 2% of the population, of that 2% we make up a staggering 20 (or so) % of commiters of serious crimes, such as murder?

As much as I hate to admit to that fact, it kind of paints a sad picture of the damage that adoption does to the adoptee, doesn't it?  Oh, we can sit and blame it on "genes" but really, is it?  Or is it the psychological damage done by separating us from our families and keeping all these lies and secrets going?

Having lived this for 34 years, I'd beg to say it's probably the latter.  But then, I'm just an adoptee, so what do I know, hey?

So adopted or not, I'd say Scott Peterson probably would have had a pretty good chance of turning out to be a murderer either way.

Oh and hi Noodles, yeah I gave you a thumbs down too, just in case you're wondering ;)

You always can make me laugh!!

Answer 16

for "reading much of the replies and posts for sometime now" i'd say that you don't "get it" at all.

keep reading.