Is it possible that an adoptee can grow up normal without all of their background info?

Question

I am not saying this as a sarcastic question. I truly want to hear from adoptees that have decided to accept that they might not have all of their birth parents' information or access to their original BC. Did they commit to going on with their lives with the information that they do have? What are the tree pieces of information that they feel are the most important to have?

Answer 1

I have heard that adopted children are more successful then children raised by their biological parents.  So in that case they are normal?

Answer 2

Normal?  Of course we aren't normal.  

Lets operate on the assumption that YOU are normal.  Then hypothetically someone could steal all your possessions, trash your car, burn down your house, imprison you and do all kinds of terrible things to you BUT the one thing they can never take from you, the one thing that you and you alone own, forever... is your sense of self, your IDENTITY.  

Well "they" took ours and we apparently have no right to it.  We don't get one.  We have to make up a "self" and a fake history.  We create a fantasy of where we came from and we go on.  We are functional and we do everything that everyone else does.  In fact some years ago I read a study that showed on average that adopted people go farther and are more successful than the norm in society (I wonder what the success criteria was though, I am well educated and have a pretty good income but I deff. have some hard baggage full of issues to carry around.  If I succeed in life its in spite of being adopted, not because of it.  If anything it could be due to how much our adopted parents love us after the difficulty many went through to get us).  What other choice do we have but to carry on?  We might not vocalize our pain or our confusion because we know our families love us and we don't want them to think we don't want them or they aren't doing a good enough job being parents.  But we are missing something basic, something primal that is so important to us all and almost every "normal" person just gets to take completely for granted.  

The most amusing thing to me is when nonadopted people try to tell us how we should feel about all this.  It used to make me very angry when that happened, when people assumed they had the right to tell me how I was SUPPOSED to feel when they had no possible idea what it is like because they have always known where they came from.  Now I just chalk it up to ignorance and let it be.  LOL, my little brother (also adopted but from a different place) got into a pretty good fight with my sister in law (to be) the night before my wedding when she started trying to tell me how to feel about adoption while we were out for drinks.  She abandoned her son with an exhusband so she had a vested interest in keeping the belief that we should all feel about our situation exactly the way she was comfortable viewing it.  My brother apparently felt quite strongly to the contrary, so I do know its not just me, LOL.

Most important info?  Well considering I spent 4 days in the ICU last Christmas and a full week in the hospital with 8, IV bags hooked up to me while I was busy almost dying from severe diabetic acido-ketosis, I would have to go with a full and VERY detailed (regularly updated too, not just as of time of birth) medical history.  Turns out my n-mother has a pretty major case of type 1 diabetes and is insulin resistant.  It might have been helpful for me to know about that ahead of time.

It sounds like I'm bitter and really I'm not at all.  I love my adopted family VERY much, and my extended family has never once made me feel less a part of the family than any of my cousins and my bio-sister found me a couple months after my "near death" experience and it turns out my mother is very sweet and never wanted to give me up.  I have 2 sisters and a brother and will begin meeting them in person starting w my sister over 4th of July weekend.  Its just that these questions about whats really all that important for us to know about, as if EVERYTHING is not the only valid and expected answer just tend to get me riled.  LOL, I also have a TOTAL MELT DOWN when people tell me they are thinking of adoption but they don't want to tell the child.  I have had such a positive experience with adoption, I am completely for it, but nobody owns that information but the adoptee.  They should never be lied to and should always have full access to all information regarding who they are and where they came from.  We aren't chattle to be sold off.  We were never property to be traded around freely at the convenience of the adults at hand.  No one has a right to keep from us anything that is so inherently the individual's as his or her own identity.

Just my humble opinion.

Answer 3

Well I don't know LC, would you be "normal" if you weren't allowed to raise someone else's baby?

I mean really.  What kind of a question is this?

Answer 4

Holy Sh#*!    look how many adoptees are proud that they arent normal.  whats with that!!

I'm normal and proud   i love life.  I surf.  I act in movies.  live by the beach.  if i weren't adopted i'd be like in east la or somethin sellin drugs.  i love living the good life!!

Answer 5

I was adopted by my grandparents, and I know my mom and her side of the family. I don't know who my father is and my mother isn't sure either. Which you know what i'm fine with. It bugged me for a while, but my grandparents have done very well for me. I am now married with 2 kids and one on the way.

I think for me it would be important to know what the medical history is.  Another one I would like to have is whether I have other brothers or sisters out there. I can't think of another one. I'm pretty much happy and have moved on knowing i'll never know him.

Answer 6

Absolutely. Look at the millions of children that have grownup with one of their parents and never had contact or much knowledge of the other.  If anything, I think it would make them more compassionate and understanding than the average person.  

On the other hand. If I was adopted from a country that had so much baby trading going on, I don't think that I could just take the word of adoptive parents.  I would need to find out the facts.

Answer 7

my story is like Sweety375's,

i was adopted my my grandparents,

and i know my mom and her side of the fam,

but i know nothing about my dad.

i wish i knew his name or something.

if i ever am really sick and in the hospital,

and they ask me for family history,

im not gonna know,

so i think the health and stuff is really important to know,

but i dont.

Answer 8

Define 'normal'

Is it normal to separate a portion of society (the adopted) and deny them access to the truth of their own origins; something the non-adopted take for granted.   Discrimination is normal, huh?

For those who never have a hope of finding the truth of their origins (i.e. those victims of black market adoptions and foundlings) I admire the 'normal'  and productive lives they lead.

For the rest of us who's records are wilfully witheld from us.  Who are not treated equally under the law.  This is not 'normal' and we deserve to be treated like any other 'normal' member of society.

1.  Up-to-date family medical history, just like 'normal' people take for granted;

2.  Pictures and family history;

3.  The real reason for the relinquishment with no sugar-coating stories about being 'chosen' or 'loved so much you were given away' blech

Believe it or not, there are many 'normal' functioning adoptees in the world.   Sometimes people's inner turmoil is not evident; but they function pretty well nonetheless.

Growing in the dark is never normal as evidenced by child welfare policies around the world (oops, except in the USA where the shame, stigma and closed records remain like old dinosaurs) and the United Nations Convention on the rights of the Child.

Answer 9

I was lucky enough to find my birth family after 5yrs and it was done over the internet on findmybiologicalparents.com. I knew my birth name and yes it took all day but a name came up and voila! I dont know what the future holds but I'm up for it I am going up to NWT to meet them this summer!

Answer 10

Yes, my fiance was re-united with his brother who was placed for adoption 48 years ago.  The brother was raised in the town where my fiance's grandmother lived, and apparently everyone in town knew who his mother was, except for him.  He says he's had a great life, chooses to call his 1st mom "Mother" because he calls his A-mom, "Mama" and doesn't want to be disrespectful of her.  He has a great family, has had his step daughter,whose bio father refused to let him adopt, yet never saw her, adopt him.  When she hit 18, she changed her name to the step-dad's (the one who was adopted) and presented it for a Christmas present.  He said he was curious in his 30's and 40's when he had kids of his own to know where he came from.  They have been reunited for a few years, but my fiance didn't know if he wanted to reunite with him.  They have and it was great, and it is unreal how much they have in common, like fishing and golf, and both raising kids that weren't their own biologically, and neither were able to adopt them as children and both wanted to as adults.  

Even though the records were closed, he was online and wanted to find out where he came from.  His teenage daughter came in with a friend, and wanted to use the computer, and he said not until he found her.  The friend called her mom, who told him, and they were reunited within the day.  Sometimes, it's just the little breaks one gets rather than the traditional paperwork trail to locate their loved ones.

Answer 11

Its not impossable but adopted children do seem to have more bagage then people who were born and raised with their own family. But if you make them happy and comfortble they will love their new family

Answer 12

i have contact with my biological family on my mother's side, however i still know nothing about my father. Even on her death-bed my b-mom refused to give me information about him. That is something i have accepted and lived with. I have a dad and he has been there for me. Even though i wish i knew about my b-dad(it would of been kinda of fun to see what traits i inheirited from him), since there is nothing i can do, i just moved on from it. I was able to know my b-mom and still have contact with her family. so thats better than nothing.

Answer 13

I'm paraphrasing here, but Betty Jean Lifton (in the book Lost & Found) says that adoptees who don't search "live in a smaller space".

In my opinion, a MUCH smaller space.

Answer 14

Hi LC,

I'm guessing you are asking this because, as an adoptive parent, you want to know how much of your child's roots they should be entitled to have, & what effects depriving them of that will have on them.

It's a good sign that you are asking, as not all APs get proper preparation from agencies for raising adopted children.  Adoptees should have ALL possible information by the time they reach adulthood at the latest.  I would not recommend withholding any of it from them.  Being as how adoption is about meeting the needs of adoptees first, it stands to reason that giving them any and all of their family & medical info is preferable to not telling them.  The reality is the APs are not the child's "only" family.  Adoptees shouldn't ever be put into the position of having to ask for what is theirs by birthright.  It should be automatically available to them.  AP's shouldn't feel threatened as if it's one family competing against another because it's not.  Both sides are important to adoptees in order for them to reach their full potentials.  APs are trustees of the adoptee's heritage info, not owners of it.

If you are asking if they are going to die without it, then in most cases, the answer is no.  (Although in some cases they do.)  That still does not justify withholding anything that could be made available to the adoptee.  Just like humans have overcome other obstacles and managed to survive, yes adoptees have managed to survive in spite of missing vital parts of their connection to humanity.  The question would be why would an AP want to subject their child to any additional hardships, even if they would not die?  It's challenging enough to be an adoptee without additional unnecessary challenges thrown in.  Many adoptees have suffered because of their situation, and it is not always vocalized to the AP's whose feelings the adoptees oftentimes try to protect at the expense of their own.  Sure, you don't see what is missing in adoptees because it is not visible on the outside, such as people who are missing a limb, so it's easy to dismiss that adoptee's needs may not be real.  The needs are real, and if they can be met, then why would anyone want to take that away from another person?

The other question is what is "normal?"  Is it having what everyone else has?  If so, then no, if you take away what they could have, then they are not like everyone else.  Can they manage to pretend it doesn't matter?  Some do.  Can they be in denial for extended periods of time?  Some are.  Could they be protecting other people's feelings?  Again, in some cases, yes.  My point is, why put them through that to see if they can survive without it?  Why when it harms no one for them to have their own information & can greatly benefit them if they do have it?  At least make it the adoptee's own option.  That's not a decision people should be able to take away from others.

Lastly, you ask what info is the most important?  There is so much!  Meeting family is the best way to totally understand where you come from.  When that is not possible, then medical info, extended family background info, social history including reasons for adoption, ethnic info, religion, physical descriptions, the list really goes on & on.  Different bits of info could hold different degrees of importance to different adoptees.  Again, my opinion is the adoptee should have full access to all their family roots & heritage in order to form a complete identity, not just one or two pieces of info.  Think of them like puzzle pieces.  They all fit together to make up the whole of who we are.  Thanks for asking, and I hope this helps explain things.

julie j

reunited adoptee

EDIT to add:  Rather than expecting adoptees to accept living without their own information, I would suggest recommending that AP's be expected to accept that adoptees do come with their own heritage instead.  Thanks.

Answer 15

Just what do you consider as normal?I don't think that anyone who is adopted doesn't grow up any different to anyone else and find this insulting to all who have been affected by the adoption issue.We all regardless of whether we are adopted or not should have access to all files regarding our medical history and this is what I consider the most important information that is withheld from adoptees.

Answer 16

I'm not sure what you mean.  I grew  up "normal."  As normal as anyone.  I have a good job.  I have a wife.  I have friends and family.  I'm as "normal" as most people I know.  I didn't get my information until last year (after I had accomplished these things.)  If I hadn't found out my information, I would have gone on with life.  I would have always had questions, but I wouldn't have stopped living.  

Why don't we ask women if they would have gone on with life if they hadn't been given the vote.  Would they have grown up "normal" without all their rights?  

Whether your question is sarcastic or not, it certainly seems to imply several insults.