Many adoptees of all ages face a very challenging and painful aspect of their adoption. Often they are asked hurtful, personal and intrusive questions. This is what differentiates them from other children. Some of these questions are about their own personal adoption and sometimes these questions come up from people that see newspaper and magazine articles, news broadcasts, events, movies or even televisions shows that depict someone that is adopted. They expect the adopted child to give them answers about adoption as if they have all the answers and assume they are the experts on the subject. This sometimes makes it very difficult and uncomfortable about sharing their adoption experience. Because of this, some adopted children will never share with others about their adoption. They try to escape the pressure of all the questions.

Some of these questions they are unable to answer merely because they have not had time to process their own adoption and have not come to answers about it for themselves. Sometimes the questions have not even come across their minds to even think about.

People can never understand what it is like for the adopted child unless they themselves have walked in their shoes. Here are some of the questions that are usually asked of adoptees: 

• How does it feel to know that you are adopted?
• Are you sad/happy that you know you are adopted?
• Does being adopted make you feel different from other people?
• Do other kids make fun of you when they find that you are adopted?
• Where is your real mother?
• Were you adopted because your mom and dad abused you?
• What were your real mother and father like?
• Have you ever seen your real mother and father?
• Where are they from?
• Are you ever going to search for them?
• What do you think they are like?
• Why did they give you up for adoption?
• Did you ever live in an orphanage or foster home?
• What was that like?
• Were you ever abused in the foster home/orphanage?
• Was your mom and dad married?
• Did your dad just leave your mom when she told him she was pregnant?
• Do you have any brothers or sisters?
• Were they also adopted, and where are they at now?
• Did your mom keep any of your brothers or sisters?
• Do you all have the same birthparents?
• Do you ever wonder what you will look like when you grow up?
• Was your mom or dad on drugs or alcohol?
• Did your mom and dad live on the streets?
• Was your mom a prostitute?
• How much did your adopted parents have to pay for you?
• Do you think that they ever regret adopting you?
• Do you regret being adopted?
• Do your other brothers and or sisters in your adopted family treat you different because you were adopted and they were not?
• Do your adopted parents baby you because you were adopted?
• When did they tell you that you were adopted?
• How does it feel to be a different race from your adopted parents?
• Do you think that they understand that you want to be like other kids of the same race as you?
• Do your new relatives treat you different from the other kids in the family?
• Do you know other kids that are adopted?
• Do you prefer to keep your adoption a secret? 

Before you pose any of these questions to an adopted child, ask yourself, would I want to be asked such personal questions? Can you just imagine what it would feel like for a four, five or six year-old child to be asked these questions? Even to the older child these would be very difficult and more than likely make them feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. 

As parents of adopted children, parents need to understand that these questions are posed to their adopted child in schools, on the playgrounds, at sporting events, at church, at sleepovers, and even at family gatherings. Most of the time, these questions come at the most inopportune times and in front of other friends and family, which only heightens the embarrassment or shame. These questions are asked sometimes just innocently, but many times their friends, teachers, coaches, neighbors and schoolmates ask them.

Some of the best responses that an adopted child could give at these times are to say, “I would rather not talk about it.”  On the other hand, “This is my business and is too personal. Or sometimes just walking away from the person can help the situation. 

Adopted parents are also asked personal questions about the adoption; however, they are much more prepared to answer the question or have ready made answers to the question that let the person know that it is a personal matter and not to be discussed. One of the most asked question to adoptive parents is, “Is that your real child?” In addition, the response should always be, “Of course, she/he is a real child and she/he is our daughter/son.” 

Until the public is more educated about the reasons, the process, and the joy of adoption these questions will be asked. I hope that soon the media and press will be more vigilant about educating the public about issues surrounding adoption. 

To all families touched with adoption ~ “Stand strong and proud”

The adoption process is a very delicate situation that all adoptive parents need to understand. They need to realize that it is not about them, it is about the child.

These children often come into adoption knowing that they were not wanted or that their biological parents were unable to care for them. This brings a myriad of emotions and thoughts about their situation or about themselves that needs to be explored and thought out.

Here are a few things you should avoid doing at all costs with your adoptive child.

• Be very vague about the child’s biological parents. Many adoptive parents do this feeling as if they are protecting the child and many times this only makes the situation worse.
• Refuse to ever talk about the adoption and just insist that the child is theirs and that is just the way that it is.
• Making the child feel guilty or ungrateful when they ask any question about their background or their biological parents.
• Making the child feel guilty or ungrateful if they question why they were adopted.
• Tell the child that they must have done something wrong for their biological parents not to want them.
• Tell the child that they should be grateful and in their “debt” because they “saved” them.
• Make the child feel disloyal if they talk about their birthparents or want to make excuses for them.
• Making the child feel guilty if they share that they are adopted with other people.
• Not recognizing that the child has a set of biological parents and adoptive parents.
• Introducing the child as their “adoptive” child.
• Make the child feel that they had to “settle” because of their own infertility.
• Not acknowledging the birth parents abuse or neglect of the child. Or refusing to even speak of it, thinking that they are protecting the child.
• Refuse to offer professional help to the older adoptee. Ignoring that they may have issues that they need someone to talk to about.
• Thinking that if they just loved them enough that it will “fix” all of the child’s issues or concerns.

Below is a description of one woman’s struggle to deal with finding out that she was adopted…

I was born in September of 1960′s to a nurse in Washington State. She was 26 and unmarried. She had me at the hospital and left me the next day, unnamed and alone. The doctor that delivered me named me and even brought me to his home to be cared for by his wife until Catholic Charities came to bring me to a foster home.

Three months later, I was adopted by a military family stationed in Spokane, WA. My Mom and Dad drove through a snowstorm to come and pick me up at the foster home. Mom said that I was her Christmas present. My Dad was in the Air Force. They met and married when they where very young. I think that Mom married Dad in large part just to get out of the abusive situation that she was in with Grandpa and Grandma. They were very harsh with her. As we look back now she went from one abusive situation to another. Dad was just as bad. He controlled everything. Mom did not even learn how to drive until she was in her 30′s and was never allowed to have a job or outside friends.

We lived in Washington until I was six. We then moved to Louisiana, where I lived for the rest of my childhood.

I have an older sister and she is nine years older than I am. She is also the only biological child my parents had. My sister currently resides in Louisiana and attended law school. She has been married four times and has four children and five grandchildren.

I also have an older brother. He is seven years older than I am. He was adopted in Morocco, Africa while my parents were stationed there. My parents decided to quit loaning him money after he became an adult so he moved and he has not been in contact since.

My older sister and brother are not very close to me. The age gap was just too much for there to be much of a connection. I have not spoken to or had contact with my brother in 21 years. My sister has not been in touch in about 18 years. Her choice, not mine.

I also have a younger brother. There is only a two-year difference between us so we are much closer. We were able to grow up and go to school together. He was also adopted in Washington. He now lives in England, just north of London with his wife and two girls. We stay in close contact and have a great relationship. As we were growing up, we fought constantly. It was as adults that we became true friends. With maturity comes better insight into others.

My parents divorced after 42 years of marriage. The court battle that preceded it was nasty and was the main reason for our family being divided. My sister chose my father’s side and that is why she refuses to stay in touch with my mom or me. My father now resides in Natchitoches and stays in touch sporadically. I had to testify at the divorce hearing about him having an affair. It is amazing to me how doing something that he always taught me to do, tell the truth, is what finally came between us. I have tried to stay in touch but he is reluctant.

My mother now resides in Texas and I guess is doing well. She chooses to have nothing to do with me after I contacted my birth mother in 2006. I needed some questions answered about her and my biological father. She was on her deathbed and I felt like I had to go see her before she died. I received no information from her, she made it all about her, and then she died two weeks later. My adoptive mother has not contacted or spoke to me since then. I have tried to call but she will not answer the phone. I have sent letters and cards but she just puts them in larger envelopes and returns them unopened.

My father still lives in Louisiana and we have now reconciled our relationship and have made a fresh start.

(more…)

The search for a personal sense of identity is normal among adolescents. However, to the adoptee it comes with the adoption process. Alternatively, it comes with the foster child that is placed in a foster home.

They wonder the same things. They ask themselves the same questions:

• Why did my biological parents not want me?
• What is so wrong with me that they did not want me or want to fight for me?
• Was I a bad child and they could not handle me?
• If I had been a better-behaved child, would they have kept me?
• Was it because I was not smart enough, pretty enough, etc?
• Am I just trash that is to be thrown away?
• What could I have done different to make them change their minds?
• If I had been born a girl/boy would that have changed their minds?
• If my biological dad had been there, would my mom have given me up for adoption?
• Was I that much of a burden for my biological parents?
• Did I disappoint them in some way?
• Am I less valuable than the biological child that is raised by its own parents?
• What do people think of me when they find out that I am a foster child or adoptee?
• Will they hold that against me?
• Will they just pity me?
• Do my new parents just feel sorry for me or do they really love me? And why?
• Do my new parents have expectations that I will never be able to fill?
• What if I mess up, will they send me back? Will they regret adopting me or taking me into their home as a foster child?
• Why do other parents go to any lengths for their children, but mine could not.
• If my adoptive parents/foster parents really knew the true me, would they still want me here?
• How can I test them to make sure that they really love me? How far can I push “the envelope” with them?
• If my birth parents are so immoral and despicable, does that mean that I am also?
• Is that my future and I have no choice in it?
• Why do I have these persistent feeling of shame and guilt even though I know that it was not my fault that they did not want me?
• Why do I let myself be defined by being an adoptee/foster child?
• What will the other kids at school think of me as a foster child or of me, if they find out that I was adopted?
• I want to trust my new foster parents/adoptive parents, but why is it so hard for me?

Because of these and many more questions, these children may need help from therapists who offer treatment for identity disorders.

Adoptive parents and foster parents always need to check their own attitudes about foster care or adoption. This will enable the foster child or adoptee to understand their efforts to help.