Hostile?...We Hope Not.

While perusing Facebook yesterday, I came across something that can be best described as mildly unsettling. There are lots of adoption themed groups through that network but the one titled "You Know You're Adopted When" made both of us a little concerned.


The purpose of the "group" was humor and to allow adoptees to write in quips about how you can tell when you are adopted...kind of Jeff Foxworthy take on the process. However, after several statements it became clear that this was morphing into an outlet for adoptees to vent very negative views of their adoptions. Now, we don't know the circumstances of everyone's life and it would be careless to assume that all adoptive families are either good or bad but some of these statements really broke our hearts.


There were several comments along this line -- "you know you're adopted when you "grew in your mother's heart" because she was already menopausal and couldn't have any more babies." Age of parents seemed to be a big concern for some of these kids. That bothers me a bit because 1) I'm not menopausal and 2) 20-somethings are not able to adopt in the majority of countries with programs. WE don't feel old at all; in fact, we know lots of people our age who are just starting families. The next hot-button was race -- a big concern for us considering our child will be Korean and we...well, we are not. How do we raise a child to be both aware and unware of race, to recognize the beauty of diversity without using it as a label or crutch and do all of this when they are living in a home where no one looks like them...yet? (adoption in the future). The final issue that grabbed us was the notion that they felt the need to be "grateful that they were taken in" so they needed to live up to the image of being a "good adoptee." First, I'm heartbroken if any family out there ever makes a child feel like an item added to a home rather than a member of a family or a human being who has natural "charming and less-than-charming periods." Some of these individuals actually had strangers or other family members approach and them and tell them that they are lucky to have a family. We beg of our family and friends....please don't ever convey such thoughts to our children. To go through life feeling that they should be grateful to have been chosen makes them sound like Oscar nominees rather than children who needed and deserved a family and stability just the same as anyone. You certainly wouldn't tell a biological child "You are so lucky your parents decided to have sex." Weird! If anyone is lucky...it's us (tell us...we get the sentiment without being burdened by the guilt).



Anyway, we pray that our child has very few adoption crises, as was evident in many of the comments on these pages. We know that they are not going to be saints--no person is. And we expect shaky teenage years, as do most parents. We just hope they don't hate us or themselves simply because of how our family was built.