Is this a common adoptee experience?

Question

I am one of the three kids my aparents adopted. No common genes among us. My asiblings and I sometimes talked about issues related to adoption--but always out of earshot of our aparents. Do you think this is a common occurance?

Answer 1

absolutely!

Answer 2

This is common for any child.  I am one of 6, the oldest adopted, the next a half sibling, and the rest of us share both mother and father.  We discuss issue's with our parents, how we were raised etc out of the earshot of our parents also.  We have yearly sibling dinners to discuss family topics without parents, spouses, or children.

I think the reason is because we had great parents, but every adult with disagree with how they were raised or treated in some way.  We all had different experiences with our parents, but because they gave us the world, would never want to hurt them while we discuss issues and work through them.

Answer 3

Yes, it certainly was/is in my family.  My older brother was adopted, then me, then our younger brother was a surprise 'natural' baby - coming along when mum was 42! Although I have always known I was adopted, it's never been a topic of conversation - but that's pretty common with a lot of things at home - though a hugely loving family, we're not a deeply philosophical lot - no great discussions on the meaning of life, more on the lines of what's for tea....

My brothers and I did use to talk about 'it' a lot - but we always sort of felt that it might upset mum if she overheard - don't know where we got that idea from, as I now know it wouldn't have upset her in the least - but that's kids for you!

Answer 4

I think it depends on the family and the children. How open the parents are about it will affect how the kids talk about it.  When I grew up my parents were very open from the beginning. As i grew up if I had questions I could talk to them anytime about it , it was just a fact of life and sometimes the topic of conversation in my house.

Answer 5

I didn't mention my adoption issues to my parents until I was 37 years old.   Most of my adoption related issues were within myself in moments of quiet self-reflection.  Nobody outside of me had a clue I had any issues with adoption - outwardly I was the 'happy adoptee with no issues' and if asked, I would say it hadn't affected me nor did I think about it.   I lied.  It's called self-preservation.

I think it's quite common for adoptees to be 'in the closet' yes.  You've witnessed right here what happens when we come out of the closet - and it ain't pretty.   So many just want us silent and 'grateful'.   I'm not surprised so many remain closeted.

ETA.  My parents were very open about my adoption - it's not that they didn't want to discuss my feelings about it, they tried their best to get me to open up.  It was me who was afraid to tell how I really felt.  I couldn't have had better adoptive parents - my fears were not their fault.

Answer 6

Sure it is; but as an adoptive mother of a grown son, I'd like to comment that you should feel free to talk about feelings associated with adoption to the parents who (most likely) love you, want to hear your feelings, want to be supportive, and always knew that some issues may arise for their children.

I have my adopted son and two biological kids, and I can tell you that even though I realize my kids (all grown) have their rights to their private thoughts, there has never been a time when I've wanted them to protect me from feelings they needed to talk about.  I was a grown up when I had/adopted them and have only gotten more solid and mature with age.  :)

I just wrote a whole, big, answer about this on the question, "Keeping the dialog open" elsewhere under Adoption on Yahoo Answers.

Answer 7

Of couse this is common....and natural to do in my opinion.

If you are all feeling like you have issues with your parents, hopefully you live in an environment that you could share your feelings, thoughts and opinions.

Siblings (adopted or not) are the BEST friends to have...they really understand you and what you experienced growing up.

(good or bad).

Good luck! And, I hope I answered your question.

Answer 8

I never talked about adoption growing up.  Even now, that I'm grown, I don't talk about it with  my a-parents much.  My siblings were my a-parents' bio-kids, so I didn't talk about adoption with them, either, since they weren't adopted.