What do you think is the worst myth that is out there about adoption?

Question

Personally my big one is that all adoption is bad.... and that all adopted kids end up messed up when they grow up because their "real" parents didn't want them.

Answer 1

i think there is some truth in your thought..kids need counseling..its that simple..rejection and thats what it is..whether the parent dies or gives you up willingly its all rejection and a kid doesnt know how to deal with that it affects your self esteem for life

Answer 2

not shore that i have seen many adoptees that are not stuffed up by things that they had to go though from their life's with the differences from others.

the agencies really need to put in support for the children so that they can get a handle of how to stop some of the bulling and bad parenting that is more prevalent in adoptions, but while it is not costing them anything they are not wanting to spend anything on it.

It was never the issue for me as to the Real parents, and i was told of the adoption before I could say the word (the only thing that they did right by me) but the thing with it as i see it and the reason for the higher rate's of child abuse IMHO is that they do not see it as their DNA and as such they don't give as much of a connection or bonds that would come from blood family.

i think that maybe also for the one issue that you have asked in the question maybe the law makers should let open adoption into the rules and not this closed adoption. so then when the child is the right age they can see the birth parents and ask them why did you let me go?

well just this adoptees opine

Answer 3

That children are blank slates.  And that APs & PAPs believe they have much of an influence over who their kids turn out to be.

Genes call the shots.  They are the hardware.  At most, adoptive parents are software--but you know how quickly that goes out of date.

Answer 4

That women are getting unbiased counseling about all of their options when considering whether or not they can mother their child.

That there is no trauma for mother and infant when they are separated. That mothers just "go on with life" and adoptees will have no issues with separation if they are just "raised right".

That if a baby is "gotten" away from the natural mother early enough the baby's brain can be "built" by the adoptors.

That adoption is wonderful.

Answer 5

That parents don't love their adopted children as much as their biological child.

Answer 6

That the only other alternative to adoption is abortion.

Answer 7

I think that there are two very damaging myths about adoption.

1 - Adoptees will be forever grateful to the adoptive family for being "rescued" from their "horrible" natural family and will show their gratitude by loving their adoptive parents unconditionally.  That the natural family will be forever grateful to the adoptive family for taking an "unwanted" baby.

2 - That adoption is the loving alternative to abortion.  Organizations who beat women over the head to choose the "loving option" of adoption are clueless to the fact that an unplanned pregnancy does not mean the child is unwanted.  Some organizations have finally figured out that helping women to figure out how to parent their children is the only effective way to prevent abortion.  They are transforming the traditional church sponsored maternity home-adoption mills into residential homes for mothers (and some dads) and their children, offering parenting classes, day care, GED, and job training.

Answer 8

That finding our natural families is opening a "can of worms". Its my can to open if I want to.

Answer 9

I think that people do not realize that in most cases, the birth mother has "an adoption plan" for her child.  If one truly thinks about that, with respect to her options, they will realize that not only is it a very tough decision to make (emotionally and physically), but requires love and courage.

Answer 10

She loved you soooooo much she gave you away.

Answer 11

1. Adoptive parents are infertile

2. All birth mothers placed their children up for adoption because they were coerced, forced or lied to

3. that abortion is a better choice (easy to say since you were not aborted)

4. that any communication break-down in an open adoption is always the fault of the adoptive parents

5. the life of the adoptee would have been better, he/she would have been happier, more successfully had he/ she not been placed

Not a myth but needs to be said... Stop lying and telling people that what you stand for is Adoption Reform when you are just angry and in need of counseling. I have been to tons of Adoption reform sites including b*****d Nation and what you spout and what adoption reform really is about are apples and oranges

Answer 12

That people who want to adopt (& have) are "buying a baby/a child". The agencies should take the heat for this and not the adoptive parent(s). They are the ones who set the fees and keep most of the money, not the orphanages.

Also that adopted children all want to know about their birth mothers-that's a huge one, according to my friends who were adopted. One friend of mine found out her blood related father was in prison for several murders. She told me that she wished she'd never looked for him & found out.

What is not a myth: Adoptive parents would rather people not use the terms "real" &/or "natural" parents.

Answer 13

That adoption means a better life.  When it doesn't.  It just means a different life.

Answer 14

Good question and interesting to read the answers thus far.

But as for the worst?  Oh, that is a difficult question.  

One that is currently bothering me is the idea that anyone who speaks out and questions adoption as it is practiced today in America (domestic and international) who points out adoption's shortcomings, who discusses the effect it has on the adoptee and/or the original family or any negative consequences of adoption, anyone who would do such a thing must be 100% against everything about adoption and must have had (abusive adoptive parents, lousy genes, a bad experience, regrets over having placed a child, a bad attitude, etc.) and probably hates children and wants them to die in the "gutter."   No.  There is nothing wrong with questioning adoption.   Adoption is not a sacred cow.

Here are some more myths, not sure which is the worst.:

* Adoption is always beneficial to all parties involved.

* Adoptees don't need to know their identities.

* Adoptees are better off not knowing that they are adopted. They will never need to search, and will not grow up feeling "different."

* Adoptees should be grateful for being adopted.  Forever.  

* Adoptees should be grateful they weren't aborted or left in the gutter.

* Adoptees are chosen and special.

* Adoptees don't need to know the truth.  They don't need to know their backgrounds.  It's irrelevant.

* An adoptee is bound to honor the agreement of adoption and to never challenge the wisdom of the sealed records, he has a right only to the information that others are willing to give.

* No adoptee is or should be interested in their background or at all unhappy with their experience.

* Adoptees shouldn't be angry, or sad.

* Medical history isn't important.

* Losing one's culture and language is insignificant.

* Losing one's roots is insignificant, an adoptee can just borrow their adoptive parents' background.

* Adopting a child of a different race is unimportant because people are colorblind.  It shouldn't matter, therefore it doesn't.

* Love is all that matters...and it conquers all.

* Adoptees cannot love more than two parents.

* Happy adoptees, who are completed satisfied with their parents and home will never want to search for their birth kin, only the unhappy and maladjusted will feel a need to search.

* Adoptees who search are looking for fantasy, the "perfect parents" who will love and cherish them, and they will inevitably be cruelly disappointed when they meet with reality.

* Searching adoptees have no respect or love for their adoptive parents.

* Because some adoptees are happy with having been adopted and they did receive a (safer, better, wealthier, more comfortable life), then all adoptees should feel happy if they took a step "up" in life and have no thoughts or opinions about how adoption may have harmed them nonetheless.

* An adoptee belongs to her/his new family forever – and owes them something more than the ordinary offspring owes her/his family.



* There is no adoption industry.

* The only players in adoption are the "triad."

* No one would make an unnecessary buck off adoption, or take advantage of infertile people.

* There is no such thing as baby stealing or selling - it never happens.  There is no black market for babies.

* The REAL parents of the adoptee are the ones who (fill in the blank).

* All adoptive parents are for closed records and would not support their adopted children in a search.

* Abusive adoptive parents don't exist.

* Adoptive parents make better parents than ordinary people because they wanted a child so badly and went to so much trouble to get one

* No one on earth would ever buy a baby in the black market or through an unscrupulous person.

* Adopting is exactly the same as having a child biologically, just more convenient to the mother so she doesn't have to go through a pregnancy.

* Adoption is a sure cure for infertility.

* Adopting is getting a child "the easy way."

* Sealed records protect the mother from intrusion into her life by the child she relinquished for adoption.

* No mother has ever placed her child for adoption under duress or under coercion.  

* A mother who places her child for adoption gets over it and forgets about that child.

* A mother who places her child is giving a gift to infertile people.  (Adoptees aren't gifts.)

* All mothers who placed a child for adoption are heavenly saints for having done so.

* All mothers who placed a child for adoption are selfish and horrible people for having done so.

* In actions as well as words, our society is completely pro-family, pro-women, pro-child, so adoption never happens unnecessarily.

* Adoption is the alternative to abortion.  (It isn't.  Bearing a child is the alternative to abortion.  Adoption is the alternative to keeping one's already born child.)

* Intentional adoptees (IVF leftovers) will have no problems with having been created by someone anonymous woman's leftover eggs, someone else's anonymously donated sperm, then raised by people who really, really wanted to have a baby.

* Open adoption eliminates all problems from adoption and the adoptee and first mother will be happy with this arrangement.  (Don't get me wrong, to me it seems better than closed.)

* Adoption is not harmful.

* Adoption is DIFFERENT today!

Rainia, I know I didn't quite answer your question, but you got me thinking.  Take your pick.  I'm sure I missed some, but the group here will probably bring up most of the rest.

Answer 15

The myth that I don't need to know what my family medical history is

Oh and that natural parents are somehow not 'real' LOL  go figure

Answer 16

That adoption is the loving option

Answer 17

My wife overheard this one when I had to discipline one of my children who was misbehaving in public:  "He wouldn't do that if that was his biological child."

And this is about a child who's vomit I once had to catch in my hands because I had nothing else available.

The next one is that we adopted because we had no alternative.

Answer 18

Ohhhhhhh, so many, hard to choose one. Here are my top few:

1. Adoption is an alternative to abortion.

2. All moms who relinquish a child must have had a good reason for doing so... ie, they must have been unable to parent.

3. Adoption is "THE loving option"... as if parenting is not a loving option?

4. Environment is more important than genetics. They're actually both very important, with most research suggesting nature actually has an edge over nurture in shaping a person .

5. Single parent homes are a cause of abuse, neglect, delinquent behavior, and therefore being single is a good reason to place a child for adoption. While studies DO show that the majority of children who end up on the streets, in jail, etc come from single parent homes, there is no evidence that it's single parenting that CAUSES those issues. It's entirely possible--and likely--that whatever causes those issues ALSO contributes to people having unstable relationships, thereby making it LOOK like single parenting leads to problems for the children... when in fact, all we know for sure is there is a correlation, and we do NOT know that single parenting is the cause of any problems.

6. Adoptees would have been aborted if they weren't adopted, or would have ended up in foster care. Soooooo not true in the majority of cases.

7. Adoptees have no need to know about their origins.

8. Open adoption is confusing for adoptees.

9. Women who relinquish will move on and their grief will resolve within a year/a couple years.

10. Adoptees will always grateful to be adopted and will thank their mothers for giving them life and for giving them up for adoption.

11. All adoption is good/wonderful/courageous/honorable.

12. Adoptees and natural moms who are not grateful and/or happy about adoption are just "bitter" or "angry."

Answer 19

#1 - You are even more special because we chose you

--- Technically you didn't choose me - you choose to adopt because you really were left with no alternative, not that I am not grateful, but it is just false to act like there was a huge selection of healthy, white newborns and you just said "that one right there"

#2 - You look like us (the adopted family) - isn't that weird?  You think that is because you were around us your whole life?  Usually quickly followed with, "Not that you aren't really one of us but you know what I mean"  

---This statement is usually made by "well-meaning" cousins and distant relatives.  Yeah it really makes me feel like one of you - thanks

#3 - Family Medical History is something that is every "birth" childs right but is an "adopted" child's privilege

--- Are you aware to get my medical history I have to get a lawyer, go to court, and prove to some judge who has never seen me that it is important that I know if me or my children are at an elevated risk of cancer, heart disease or diabetes.  If the judge doesn't like my argument he can just deny my request...Isn't that nice of him?  So as an alternative I am deemed high risk - yeah!

#4 - Don't you wanna know who your "real" mom is?

--- I know who she is - she is the one who raised me, changed my diapers, took care of me when I was sick, and now loves my children to an extent probably only topped by myself and their father.  My "birth mother" is able to find me just like I could find her now that I am of legal age...guess what she hasn't tried and neither have I.  I understand that this is very movie of the week to everyone, but its my life and I could care less if she lived across the street.  I have my life and she has hers, who am I to intrude?  But no one seems to believe that I am serious when I make this statement....Guess What??? I AM.

Answer 20

I don't like this silly idea that I don't need to see my own real birth certificate much at all.

Answer 21

Well - there's so many - it's hard to know where to start........

Myth 1 - That all adoption is good.

Myth 2 - That adoptive parents are all saints.

Myth 3 - That all birth mothers a crack whores & druggies.

Myth 4 - That by keeping your head in the clouds - and only listening to what you want to hear - will make you the best adoptive parent you can be.

Answer 22

That all natural mothers are crack w ho re s and drug addicts that didn't want their children anyway. That one really chaps my a s s...