Question for adoptees (Kinda long, I have to post it in three parts. Sorry)?

Question

Howdy, howdy!

I have seen several of you mention that you lament having lost your family, and although I do fully acknowledge that loss, I'm afraid I don't quite understand it. Let me explain . . .

First of all, I am absolutely nothing like my parents. I do not think like them, I do not act like them, they've hardly ever listened to me, and they've never understood me.

So I look back wonder, is that the kind of relationship that constitutes a "family?" If so, by who's definition? Although I used to believe they were "family," I now understand them to have been more like "caregivers." To me, a family is a place where the members receive unconditional love and support. I have always been able to find these things, but they were waiting for me beyond the biological boundaries. Early in my life I learned to create family by surrounding myself with the people who provided the things that now fit into my understanding of the definition.

Answer 1

I was exactly the same way growing up, and still am today. I've never felt close to my family and always had great friends who I thought of as my family. When I was little I used to feel guilty for not being closer to my brother and sister then I was to my chosen family. I learned at an early age that blood isn't what makes people family, it connections. in my heart I have two moms, one who gave birth to me and nurtured my body, another who fed my soul. I have five brothers, one who looks like me, and four who act like me protect me and love me. I love both of my family's, my bio-family and my chosen family, but I love them in different ways. I am much closer to my chosen family then i am to my other family.

Answer 2

I think this is a really good question.

I don't know anyone personally who feels this alienated from their family, but it is certainly something I have heard before and I don't discount it in the least.  It is sad when parents don't make an effort to understand their children.

I don't have this experience, my adoptive parents did, I feel try to understand me, not all the time, but certainly gave probably more than the average adoptive parent in this regard, and I still maintain and have a good relationship with them, I love them very much,  including my adoptive brother.

With my adoptive family, I do feel there is a unconditional love in the regard that if we just met each other as adults, it is unlikely that we would take the time to get to know each other, esp. my adad and I have diatmetrically opposing views on issues that are closest to my heart, including the war we are in.  Yet, I still visit, and put up with his rantings, and occasionally vice versa.

To me family more means people you love despite great differences.  I still definetly consider my adoptive family, "family"  although there is always the added difficulty of not having the physical bond, where you belong to each other no matter what.  At this late stage in the game, (I am 35) I don't think any incident could occur where I would cease loving them or stop considering them as my family.

Sometimes I think this makes it harder on me than for adoptees who could just cut ties, or dismiss their adoptive families in their entirety.  We have a shared history, I have some very tender memories.  I also believe a lot of the negative things that happened, were in part due to their infertility, and me being so different than them.

Which leads me to my second point, my natural family.  I met them again when I was young, which I think was good for me, but it was not something I understand/understood.  It was very physical, like gravity pulling on me.  In all honesty as far as my understanding goes, I had absolutely no reason to care for them, no logical reason anyway, they gifted me to strangers.  They turned themselves into strangers.

My mother and I have probably the most pain-filled relationship of either of our lives, and yet we still have it.  The bond is powerful and indescribable, the only thing I can think of comparing it to is not knowing what it is like to have air, and then having it, I was much more like my mother at age 18, who at that time was a stranger to me, than I was like my adoptive mother, it was kind of shattering.  I moved like my mother, I talked like my mother, I laugh like my mother.

Before I met her, I felt like being adopted never bothered me, but I also felt a very restless anxious feeling, and my skin hurt.  I thought that was just how it felt to be alive, but when I met her that kind of changed.  Before I met her I kind of felt like my cells were on edge, I know this sounds nutso but there aren't really words to describe what it is like, it was such a physical ache.

It wasn't about what I wanted for sure, I wanted nothing more than to be the good adoptee, who was casual if at all interested in her natural family.  I wanted to please my adoptive parents and let them know how completely and totally grateful I was for their caring and support.  Unfortunately, I was willing to do this at a great personal cost.

It is still a struggle for me, I still feel guilty for not being their bio child, although it is getting better.  There is just so much that goes a long with adoption, for example as a little girl, I instintively felt that their bio-daughter who should have been, would be much more like them than I was.  I would pray at night that she ( the unborn bio daughter)  would somehow magically replace me and I could go back to the orphanage, I was never in an orphanage, but you know it was just a little kid thing.  It just seemed so unfair that they didn't have a natural child, it is unfair.

As an adult though, I can see how that isn't good enough, it isn't good enough to burden a child with that, even though it was stuff I just picked up on from the ether.  I shouldn't have had those struggles, esp. considering that I was a child born to an upper middle class young adult woman who was coerced into believing this was the only option.

My mother, was not depraved, unloving, or neglectful, just railroaded.

Adoption is always a complicated proposition for the adoptee, all too often adoptees heads are filled with the idea that they owe their lives to their adoptive parents.  My aparents actually did not do this.

I do think adoption has its place, as much as my heart wishes it didn't, as much as my heart wishes that all parents were loving and capable.   I do think at times it is the lesser of two evils.

In this case I believe that only children who are bereft of family should be adopted, none for social reasons, like the stigma of unwed motherhood, but serious reasons like debilitating mental illness, abuse, etc.

Sadly, in this country (United States) there are 114,000 children in care.  Children who could really use a committed parent to help guide them, not change their identity, not usurp them into mini-mes, but who could definetly use adoptive parents.

Meanwhile,we are subjected to the hue and cry of how hard the paperwork is, how long one must wait for a hwi (healthy white infant) , which is just wrong.  Adoption should be about finding loving homes for children, not finding children for homes or separating less than ideal mothers from their children.

Adoption shouldn't be the baby store.

If I could waive a magic wand IA would stop, infant adoption would become negligible, like in Australia, and there would not be 114,000 American children in care.

Sadly, America is still exporting black babies, and European couples are coming here for their hwi's. as the other western countries have nearly nil infant domestic adoptions.

I bet you are sorry you asked, sorry to go ON, but this subj. is very close to my heart.

Answer 3

I think if you look specifically at the definition of family it is a term meant to refer to those who you are related to you through blood, adoption or marriage, not necessarily attached to the emotional component you are describing.  Families come in all shapes, sizes and functions.  Not all families share a close bond where they also act as if they are close friends.  I consider myself close with my family but I in no way share the same kind of closeness with them that I do with my closest friends.  My friends know me on a deeper and more intimate level than my family.  There are several reasons for this.  The main one is that my siblings are a lot older than me.  My nieces and nephews are closer to my age than my siblings.  It's taken many adult years for me to build up a friendlier bond with them.  

However, I know that I'm loved unconditionally and if I ever needed support for anything they would be there.  To me that is unconditional love.  As a family we have close ties, stay in contact and do our best to spend time with each other particularly during the holidays.  We even extend this opening up our homes to include anyone we want to bring.  Many times my friends have joined in our holiday traditions.  To me family is what you make it.  Closeness comes from equal participation.  Having these kind of close relations with friends is wonderful but by definition it doesn't make them family.  It makes them your support system.  

If you solely associate the term family to mean the emotional component then I too consider my closest friends as a part of my family.  I care for and respect them just as they do with me.  However, when push comes to shove if I were really in need of serious support I would lean more on my family than my friends.   I love my friends as I do my family but as a family we have a responsibility/obligation to help when needed.  Friends who do this are great but if you lean to hard or too much it can have a greater affect than with your family.  At least that's been my experience.  If you choose to look at your family as only caregivers then you're missing out on what a family can truly offer.  Then again you may have a family that is that distant.  In that case developing a new family isn't a bad way to begin again.  

Even with some hairy challenges our family has faced from time to time I've had to learn to over look some of those things or learn to deal with them to make our family unit remain strong over time.  If you give up and discount what a family can offer then you totally miss out on what they can provide.  Every relationship takes work and sometimes we forget to do that with our families then start feeling less appreciated and connected.  For me I try to look for what each relationship brings, what I can do to make those relationships closer and show appreication for how they each contribute to my life.

Answer 4

For me the biological bond is a strong one. I look, act, think and respond as my natural Mother does. We are essentially the same person in many ways. I am close to my adoptive family as well but was never able to see myself in their eyes.

Family to me is defined as "the people I feel a connection with on a higher level than my casual acquaintances". My "family" includes members of my natural and adoptive family, friends and past mentors as well as members of my children's families. However it does not include all of the people I could classify as being part of these groups.

Answer 5

What happened to your DNA question?

I gave it a lot of thought, and then you deleted it...

Answer 6

I'd answer this question but then you'd just go delete it again like all the others

There have been some great answers here, if you are willing to read them I think you'll get alot of insight from people who have lived adoption