Thinking about those that I know and love, I reflect on the fact that adoption touches most families in some way. One of my dearest friends is adopted, and so are several special cousins. The topic of being adopted comes up from time to time in different contexts, but rarely is it the focus of our relationships. We are simply good friends and family. Yet, for children who are adopted, and parents who adopt children, it is something huge, neither bad nor good, just the elephant in the room that not everyone can relate to.
Much that we read about adoption sadly focuses on the lifelong negative impacts of adoption. Here are some common themes.
- Loss – Birth parents lose their child; adoptees experience their first loss at initial separation; and adoptive parents often feel a loss by not being able to have their own children.
- Rejection – Birth parents often condemn themselves for giving away their child; adoptees may feel unwanted and rejected; and adoptive parents may feel that their bodies rejected them if they are infertile.
- Guilt / Shame – Birth parents feel guilt and shame for giving away their child; adoptees feel that something about their very being caused the adoption; and adoptive parents often feel shame because of their inability to have children. They feel that they have committed a sin and are being punished.
- Grief – Birth parents often feel intense grief when they give up their child; adoptees grieve the loss of their biological family; and adoptive parents grieve over the inability to have children.
- Identity – Adoptees lack medical, genetic, religious, and historical information and are plagued with questions such as: Who am I? Why was I born?
- Intimacy – Birth parents may equate intimacy with pain and loss; adoptees often hold back part of themselves in a relationship as a means of protection; and adoptive parents often experience irreparable harm of their relationship due to the intrusive nature of medical procedures and putting the blame of infertility on one another.
- Mastery / Control – Adoption alters the course of the lives of many people.
However, adoptive parents can ease the transition for adoptees, which goes a long way toward creating positive family ties and fostering healthy self-esteem.
And in an era where most adoptions are transracial or transcultural, adoptive parents can:
- Become intensely invested in parenting
- Tolerate no racially or ethnically biased remarks if their child is of a different race or culture
- Surround themselves with supportive family and friends
- Celebrate all children and all cultures, and talk openly about race and culture when their adopted child is from a different ethnic or cultural background
- Expose their children to a variety of experiences so that they develop physical and intellectual skills that build self-esteem
- Take their children to places where most of the people present are from the child’s racial or ethnic group
- Help their children learn all they can about their family background to include medical information. We all need to know our “story” and adoptive parents can gather and appropriately share as much information as possible to help their children make sense of their history.
Transracial and transculture adoptions are more the norm these days, and with sensitive and thoughtful parenting these adoptions are not detrimental for the adoptee in terms of adjustment, self-esteem, academic achievement, peer relations, and parental and adult relationships. Research consistently shows that approximately 75% of transracially/transculturally adopted children adjust well in their new homes.
Here is a really good website with excellent resources and tools for those individuals and families who seek information about adoption.