Should adoptees feel something regarding their adoption?

Question

according to "boo hoo i'm adopted so pity" those adoptees that feel a sense of loss or rejection or other feelings are patheic people. This person feels that adoptees shouldn't have feelings regarding their adoption. In all her answers she makes a point to belittle those adoptees that express their feelings. So my question is should adoptees not feel anything? Should they just accept their fate and never acknowledge their feelings? I'm just saying because according to this person any adoptee that has feelings regarding their adoption are pieces of scum. just saying.

Answer 1

Adoptees have EVERY RIGHT to have feelings.  Everyone involved in adoptions have strong feelings.  There are always going to be bad days.  It saddens me that there are so many out there who are hurting.  Anyone who belittles them should be reported.

Answer 2

It is my personal opinion that NO ONE should be told how to feel.  If some people want to belittle me and others, I feel sorry for them.  I do have feelings about my adoption.  Very mixed feelings.  Some of them good and some of the bad.  For far too long, I have kept these feelings to myself.  That damaged me greatly.  I will no longer apologize for my feelings.  And I think it is good for adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents to know what - at least some - adoptees go through.  Not because I think they shouldn't adopt at all, but to help them be better prepared for the things that MIGHT arise for their adoptees.

Answer 3

Feelings are very personal and to attack someone based on how they feel is vile. Would this person also attack someone who had a strong emotion about an abuser or negative feelings towards being abandoned to foster care as a newborn and not being placed in a family right away?

When does an emotion become wrong? Are all emotions in response to a negative life event wrong? Feelings are never wrong in my eyes, how someone chooses to act in response to their feelings, however, can be.  

Bottling up your feelings is not healthy either. Learning positive coping skills and how to deal with your emotions is the best route.

So yes, adoptees should feel something towards their adoption. Be it pain, joy, grief, elation, sorrow, happiness or ambivalence. Everyone should have emotions towards any major events in their lives and if they don't it could be a sign of something far worse than feeling a bit of anger or pity.

Answer 4

Hmmm, I noticed this, too.  I have spent most of my life trying to act 'as if'.  As if it does't bother me, as if I am ok, as if being adopted is the same as not being adopted, and as if my adoptive family is my 'real' family.  I am, just now, starting to process the pain that has haunted me throughout my life.

I wonder where this person is in their processing of the adoption wound.

Answer 5

Or they can take all their very normal feelings and human curiosity and STUFF it down deep.

That's what the adoption agencies and adoption 'professionals' recommend anyway.

Answer 6

People are entitled any feelings they have.  Would this person tell a minority to "just get over" discrimination?  Would they tell a disabled person to "just get over" their disability?  For some adoptees, our life circumstance has been less than rosy.  Perhaps this member could use a lesson in basic human compassion and empathy.

Answer 7

People should just feel the way they feel, there is no wrong or right way to feel. Who knows why one bloke feels this way, the other bloke feels that way. Its just how one feels. No one is pathetic for their feelings.

Answer 8

Everyone is entitled to whatever feelings they have whether adopted or not.  If someone doesn't like it, that's their problem.  It does not make those adoptees pieces of scum!

My adopted daughter says she is really happy she was adopted.  She knows some of the circumstances of her birth parents, and feels she wouldn't have any kind of life had she not been adoopted.  She says she's thankful to them for letting her go to a family that could not only love her, but provide for her needs.  Those feelings are valid.  I'm thankful we were able to give her enough security that she has these feelings about the life she has.

I'm very sorry for those who feel rejection, loss or other such things.  I hope they'll be able to work through those things.  But for someone to say that they are pathetic or scum for feeling that way is not only absurd, but heartless.  I feel even sorrier for them.

Answer 9

I think that person is protesting a bit too much.

If that person is so happy then why would a few people with issues and questions upset them so?

I'm telling you there is nothing scarier than a person who claims to be happy and then lashes out at those they deem unhappy.  S-C-A-R-Y.

We should all be allowed to feel what we need to feel without judgement.

Answer 10

i think that's completely wrong. it's just normal to feel lonely or rejected. i mean, it must be really hard to accept that your own mother gave you away. and you've got to hate her otherwise you'll never manage to forgive her...you've got to let it all out or it will destroy your whole life. it's like cancer. if you pretend not to care about it it will get you down. but if you fight the problems that come up you've got a chance to succeed.

a good friend of mine never used to talk about it until about 3 months ago (when she met her "real" mother for the first time). it's still hard to talk to her cause you can feel how much she hates her mother but she already starts to understand her cause we're getting into the age her mother was in when she gave my friend away...

Answer 11

Each adoptee will have feelings about it as unique as their own heart and personality. They should be encouraged to express all their feelings and ideas or fears about it with their new parents away from the home situation where they will feel more free to open up. Externalizing such feelings instead of only harboring them inside will free them and help them gradually adjust to their new reality. They should be encouraged to heartfully forgive their birth parents for whatever made them adoptees first with speaking the words realizing the feeling of it comes later.

Answer 12

Adoptees can feel whatever they want without being scum. They can feel feelings of loss for not having their bio parents or they can feel grateful for having people who cared enough about them to be their parents even though they didn't "have" to be. Or they could feel a mixture of both. Anger, sadness, happiness, abandonment, one or all of these feelings is normal and should not be frowned upon. People have feelings, they are controllable. I don't think someone should look down on someone for expressing their feelings.

Answer 13

I don't think there's any >should< about it. Adoptees feel what they feel. Many feel a profound loss. Others don't. No one else gets to decide what adoption means to them -- they get to decide. And they get to change their minds or expand their thinking without notice to anyone else.

And name calling over how someone else feels? That is just pathetic.

Answer 14

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  Each person's experience with adoption is as different as the child's face involved.  We just all need to remember that.