Why do people keep saying that adoptees lose something? Why are you all bashing adoption?

Question

Let me start by saying that I was adopted. I don't feel that I've lost anything. I've got wonderful parents who love me and would do anything for me. I was a desperately wanted child. I never think about my birth mother. My adoptive parents were perfect.
My parents were always very honest with me, I never didn't know that was adopted, it was a fact, not a huge part of our life as a family. I don't think I've lost anything at all, and I'll probably never go looking for my birth mother, unless some strange genetic thing comes up with my own children, I don't see the point. So my question is: Why bash adoption? Because you made a choice that you are having a hard time living with? I read somewhere on here that birth mothers should get to keep their babies to 8-10 weeks because we let puppies stay with their mothers that long. This is crazy, you and baby bond during the first days, that is why the child should be turned right over to the adoptive parents.

Answer 1

It's remarkable the spectrum of emotions that are expressed here. Adoption was created to allow a better future for children and women who might otherwise not have one at all. And, adoption is NOT just children who were relinquished at birth in a hospital by a young mother just not ready to handle the responsibility. Adoption includes children who lost their parents to a tragedy, children who live in foreign countries whose governments are unable or unwilling to care for them, children who were removed from unsafe/neglectful/abusive environments (created by the very people who were supposed to love and protect them the most) and on and on.

It's so sad to see people who were adopted who are angry or bitter. For the author of this question, your parents handled it right. With honesty and love and support. I have friends who CHOSE to adopt rather than have bio children (and no they aren't infertile). Adopted children are never second choice or settling - ridiculous to think otherwise.

Adoption is not WHO you are. It's simply part of your history. It should never be the qualifying descriptive for your life. If it is, then perhaps counseling is in order to help deal with emotional fallout.

And just as a side note, many children are adopted with their siblings and most of the time, NOT having biological contact is in the absolute best interest of the child. Just because the child doesn't have contact doesn't mean they don't have information. Plus, there are biological parents out there who don't want to be found or be contacted and that is their right.

Lastly, one thing I absolutely hate is when the media states "so and so's ADOPTED children" rather than just saying their children. If a parent goes around saying "this is my adopted son and this is my son" then maybe the parent should reconsider why they adopted at all. There should be no differentiation.

I'm so pleased that you have been raised with such love, confidence, honesty and security. You are a wonderful example of what a blessing adoption can be for all concerned.

All the best!

Answer 2

Any time you make a choice, you experience a loss. Let's say you go to dinner and you order the spaghetti and meatballs. Unless you have an athletes metabolism and can eat two meals, that spaghetti will be your only entree. The alternate menu item (maybe chicken parmesian) is what you lost by choosing the spaghetti. By chosing one thing you loss the ability to have and experience the other.

The same principle applies to adoption. If you chose an adoption plan for your child that child will have losses. The loss of being raised by his/her birthparents. The loss of potencial birth siblings. In the case of international adoption, the loss of their birth culture. There are gains and losses regardless of whether the child realizes it or not.

If 16 yr old birthparents decide to keep a baby they are not prepared to raise that child too will experience losses. They loose the advantages that come with parents who are mature and out of high school and finacially in a better position. Parents who have jobs and can provide the educational toys and experiences to give the every advantage.

While most adopted children gain a great deal in the adoption, SOME children feel the losses more than others. Some children do not feel them at all and others feel them in their bones. Research shows that girls are more sensitive to those losses than boys but boys are not immune to the losses either.

No matter what we as a human race experience losses on a daily basis. The problem with these losses is that the child is not making the choices that result in these losses.

I have an adopted daughter who right now at 4.5 years of age cannot imagine having any other woman as a mommy but me. I know this feeling will likely change but I hope it doesn't. She tells me every day multiple times a day "Mommy, I love you so much! More than anything in the whole wide world." I pray every day that I can answer her questions about her adoption so that she does not feel the losses so deeply. I hope and pray she has as healthy an attitude about her adoption as you do.

I love adoption. I could not love my daughter more than I do. I would never bash adoption as I know many, many families that were formed through adoption but there are losses involved whether they are felt or not.

Answer 3

You know it's rare to find a happy adopted adult.

Why bash adoption? I don't bash all adoptions. just the ones where people feel like they are hand picking a plum.

I was adopted. my first family due to whatever gave me up. my adoption was prearranged and i was taken from my mother 2 hours after i was born. everytime my name is said i am reminded that i'm adopted ( named after the 3 people that legally disowned me) i found out i was adopted when i was 12. the time in your life when your starting to learn who you are. to this day i don't know if i am the person i am because that's who i am or if i am the person that i am because it made them happy. I am black and korean and my whole family is white. when i found out i was adopted all of the stares that i use to get from other family members and all of the looks of your trash all of a sudden made sense so i tried even harder to make everyone happy. only problem was i ended up making myself even more miserable because then i knew i was losing my identity it wasn't a subconsious thing anymore it was a reality.

I have started looking for a theropist. unlike most children that get adopted now i have never in the 29 years i have been on this earth seen a theropist. yesterday due to her complete lack of resposibility for the parts she has played in my insanity she disowned me.

There is just something about an adoptive parent that says you aren't really part of my family and i don't owe you any loyalty and i have never gotten any. I got christmas eve, the day before thanksgiving, and the day before new years eve. the family along with her two daughters got the actual day of the holiday.

If people were screened the way they were supposed to be, if parents were forced to go to counciling and got help for their children and understood cultural differences then it might not be so bad. it's too late for me. so now i just have to go through my yearly cycles until someone can help undo the damage that they have caused.

I can't change who i am but i can try to change the way they handle the traiding of kids. for a long time i wondered if i was a black market baby. no one should have to live like that.

Answer 4

I was adopted too. I got a nice home and was raised by loving, accepting, wonderful parents who love me for who I am and never expected me to "be like them." I have still felt like a circus freak my entire life. I did lose something: my original identity, the knowlege of why I look they way I do and have a different sense of humor from anyone in my family, etc. What I've lost is my own birth certificate, the one thing every US citizen is entitled to unless they're adopted.

I can accept that you don't feel angry; I hope you can accept that others simply feel differently than you do. I'm not "bashing" adoption, but I have a right to be angry about it, and sometimes I am.

Answer 5

Its nice knowing I am not the only adoptee that does not feel like they have lost something. My parents were always honest about my adoption, my mother always told me if I wanted to search for Biomother she would help me.


As hard as it may be for some to believe or accept there are people where adoption is their first choice or they want to adopt after having a biochild(ren). Sure there are some couples where it is their 2nd choice but that is not the case for everyone. I know some couples who have chosen to adopt because they wanted too. A close friend of my brother’s family had 2 bio children and because they wanted to they adopt 2 siblings from Russia, and later adopted an American Bi-racial baby.

My parents already had biological children. I was a foster child that was only supposed to stay one weekend. They weren't even looking to adopt. I didn’t lose my name, I had no name I was just Baby Girl [birthmother’s surname], when I was placed in my family as a foster child. They called me Precious for months in till the Foster Care System insisted that they had to name me and so they did.

My birthgrandmother wouldn’t take me because I’m bi-racial, so I lost a racist grandmother and got one who loves me for me and doesn’t care that I am Bi-racial. To me that is not much of a loss, in fact it’s not a loss at all. It’s a gain: a family that fully accepts and loves me for who I am. Let me tell you mixed race people can have just as many issues and identity problems as adoptees. Imagine how it would have been for me to stay with birthmother and be around a grandmother that did not like me simple because I was Mixed raced, to see her favor birthmothers first daughter just because she was “100%” white. Being fully accepted by my family I have not had many issues over being a mixed race person.

Do I wish I had information on my ethnic heritage. Of course but I don’t need to track down Biological kin for that. When I can afford it I will be getting an Ancestral DNA test done. Do I wish I had medical information other then what has been document through my life? Again of course but I don’t have it and that’s just the way it is. I do have a document that records my birth the date, time, who delivered me, how much I weighed, when birthmother went into labor, how long it lasted, etc. It’s in my adoption file. I also know why I am who I am because this is the way God wanted me to be. All people question why they are here adopted or not.

Answer 6

I am an adoptive mother and I see adoption as being very positive. I hope that my daughter grows up with the feelings that you have about adoption and us as her adoptive parents.

But isn't there loss in all parts of the adoptive triangle? Adoptees lose the chance to grow up with their birth family/birth culture; relinquishing parents lose the opportunity to know the child that they have relinquished; the adoptive parents (in many cases) don't have the opportunity to parent a biological child.

While this might be true, the positive side of adoption, as far as I am concerned, far outweighs the loss. I have gained the opportunity to parent a bright little girl; the opportunity to learn something of another culture and become more open to new ideas and experiences than I would have previously.

I hope that my daughter gains so much from being adopted. She will have the opportunity to meet her birth family in the future, but in the meantime, she is able to grow up with opportunities she would never have had if she had stayed in her birth country.

I am glad to have read your experiences and to know that there are adoptees out there who are pro-adoption. God bless you and your parents.

Answer 7

Are you saying I didn't lose my mother? I have no right to grieve for her?!

If someone lost their mother in childbirth, would they get more empathy than adoptees get?

I'm also very fond of my adoptive parents. But I should still be allowed to grieve for my losses.

I'm glad for you that you don't feel the grief of your loss. But don't bash those of us who feel it acutely

Answer 8

adoptees lose their identity

they lose the right to see their own birth certificates -- a right that everyone else takes for granted.

they get saddled with a false identity, a new name, a fake birth certificate that states the two people gave birth to them who maybe never gave birth to anyone, nevermind them.

and they lose their genealogy, their family history, their connection.

as infants, they lost the person they had bonded with for nine months and who had bonded with them. newborns know their mothers voices, her heartbeat, her scent. they can be traumatized by this huge loss.

and, a family out there has lost a beloved son or daughter, because unplanned does NOT mean unwanted or unloved. there is likely a mother out there who grieves unceasingly and thinks every day about her lost child. we never stopped loving or missing our children. and most of us wanted to keep them but were given no other options.

this is what my friend Anne, an adoptee, says about adoption:

"Being surrendered for adoption is not a gain in the least. No amount of money, or a two parent family, nor anything can replace the real and natural mother for adoptees. Nothing can replace the heritage and connections with others in the natural family as well. They won't tell you this but I will - from day one we grieve and are sad to have lost our mothers and are not happy! Not only are babies sad they are also afraid. We know our mothers, we grow inside their wombs. We hear the music of their hearts, we know their smell, we trust and love them by nature. They are ours, our universe - all that we know, all that we feel, love and are attached to. Adoption takes our universe away. If someone took away all that you love and all that you know how would you feel?

"When we are born we only want one thing to be held and loved by our own mothers. We know them, they belong to us and us to them. To take that away is not good for babies it is the worst most abusive act emotionally to inflict. When adoptees lose their mothers they lose themselves as well. They forever lose the person that they were born to be, and they lose the joy and right of being that person.

"Above all we lose trust from the very beginning of the separation. The loss of trust is not a temporary feeling that is lessened by being adopted. That is another famous lie promoted by baby brokers. It is forever and permanent just like adoption is.

"When the first lesson in life is that the one person you love and trust will go away it is hardly a good start for anyone. Along with the broken trust is grief and sorrow. This is not a lesson or anything that should be encouraged to inflict on helpless infants. Being severed from your mother and family is not anything that adoptees are happy about. The loss in adoption for adoptees can rarely ever be expressed or acknowledged. There is a horrible expectation and false belief that the adopters and adoption will overcome any damage done to adoptees. This is another lie - it cannot undo our pain in losing our real families. In fact it makes the pain worse as it is so often denied to begin with. The truth is that we are traumatized from the separation and always will be. The grief that we feel as infants is not ever acknowledged. This lack of support also breaks our trust. It also makes us untrusting of our own feelings when our first feelings are blatantly ignored. It is normal for babies to be sad and in grief when they lose their mothers - what is NOT NORMAL IS ADOPTION to begin with. "

Answer 9

A couple of questions for you.

Why do you have to say that your adoptive parents were great? Its no one's business. So what you don't want to search, that is your choice. You are still entitled to your choice. I for one am going to see to it that you get your choice.

Adoption laws are antiquated and hurtful to all living adoption. Could you give a child up for adoption? Think about it. No you couldn't. I couldn't. Its from that base of understanding that I get where they are coming from them. My adoptive parents were excellent with me. In fact it was my own adoptive mother that pushed me into searching. My own adoptive mother called up to the agency demanding that they give me my records. If my own adoptive mother believes that I should have my heritage, why is it so hard for everyone else to see that. Don't you want the very document that accurately records your birth? Even if I never talk to my natural mother, I want that. It records MY birth. It records MY history. It is about ME. If my natural mother and my adoptive mother want me to have this, why can't you understand that?

Adoption then and now still denies all living adoption their choice and their rights. The industry itself tells all of us including the adoptive parents,adoptees and natural parents that we can't handle our own lives. That we are all to include you incompetent by the reason of adoption. Even LC is incompetent.

Adoption if done right is a good thing. If it is truly an ethical adoption, then it is a good thing. Too many times it is not an ethical thing. More often than not. I challenge you to read, learn and see outside the box.

Answer 10

My son lost something when he was adopted like who he really is. I lost my son to adoption 7 years ago I was forced coerced and brainwashed into thinking it was the best thing well I certainly wasn't properly informed and because of it me and my son are both paying the price. I was supposed to have a completly open adoption well when my son was 6 months old they slammed it in my face no visits no phone calls nada. Now I get pics and letters through the agency but only when I beg for months and months on end. They have decided not to tell him hes adopted because they wanna pretend they gave birth and thats pretty sick if you ask me. If someone had just told me my options if someone had just been a bit more forthcoming with the truth like adoption is a permant solution to a temporary problem I would still have my son if someone would have offered me the help I offered to my friend (live with me and let me take care of you till you can do it yourself) I would still have my son. A baby should stay with they mother for a awhile so they can make a decide with out crazy hormones rushing around and without any agency adopters or social workers around to sway the desicion in anyway. Losing a child to adoption is a lifelong desicion that one can not take back and many many regret deeply. So you ask why do I bash adoption why do any of us bash adoption maybe its because we lost something so profound its all we can do to remind others not to make that same choice.