Angry at Adoption
“if your birthmother had reacted differently, would you still be angry at adoption…” Anonymous comment on Amy’s Blog
I had to really think about this before I could answer it myself. The answer is resounding, “yes…sort of.” However, I think there is a flaw in the reasoning here. In asking this question it seems to take an “all or nothing” approach to the feelings toward adoption. There are so many little parts to any person’s adoption story that to say I am mad at adoption isn’t saying I hate everything about adoption. Granted, there may be some where this is true but again, it’s not an “all adoptees” thing any more than any other issue with adoption is.
For example, I hate adoption. I know I have said adoption can be a good thing in some cases and I still stand by that but saying this does not negate that I am still angry about it and hate many aspects of it. I hate the lies and secrets. I hate the carelessness of business who deal in children. I hate the entitlement some people feel to having a child. I hate the attitude of people toward birthparents. I hate the stereotypes on tv for all members of the adoptive plane. I hate telling doctors I only have a very limited medical knowledge and no access to anything else because I am adopted. I hate the look they then get in their eyes as they says they understand, that slightly pitying look. I hate that the agency made money off me when I was born and now made money off of me to search or get my non-id. I hate that my birthmom doesn’t have the strength/desire/wish/respect/”whatever is the real reason” to meet me or even write a simple letter to me. I hate not knowing my story. I hate seeing the pain/anger/anguish/fear/sadness in a birthparents eyes for a choice they may not have fully understood the consequences of and the ones who should have know wouldn’t tell them. Some of that hate has eaten me up inside and has become anger at adoption.
On the flip side, I don’t hate my adoptive parents. I don’t hate the opportunities they have provided for me. I don’t hate the life I have and had. I don’t hate my birthmother because she has denied contact (I am angry at her for this but I don’t hate her.) So saying I hate adoption does not mean that I hate all things adoption and wish I had been raised by my birthparents.
Which brings up another point. I don’t get how some adoptees can say that they were better off being adopted. I mean, if we don’t live it we can’t really be sure. We don’t know that where the birthparents are now is where they would have been if they had kept us or if someone had helped them keep us. Their lives may have been better or worse despite having kept us, so could ours. Whose to say that a drugged out birthmom might not have changed her life with the birth of a child. Whose to say the pain of relinquishment has turned a hurt heart to stone now. Whose to say that a well-to-do daughter couldn’t have provided a great life if her parents hadn’t been so worried about what the neighbors would think. Whose to say a father couldn’t have provided a better home if he had been informed he had a child rather than the two parents the agency picked who only wanted to token child to give the “perfect family” appearance? We can’t honestly know.
When I tell people I was/am searching for my blood, one of the first questions I am asked is about my parents and if they know or are okay with me searching. I answer of course and that they are helping me but in reality what does it have to do with my search? The implication is that I am doing something wrong or something that my parents may not approve of. Why? In searching, I am taking a journey of self discovery. I am looking for a part of me and my history that I don’t have and they can’t give me. A part that I hope to be able to pass on to my children as it is part of them as well. In my opinion the question should be whether or not my parents are supporting me because the onus is really on them. As parents, we are supposed to support our children as they discover the world around them and in turn discover who they are or who they want to be. When you think about it, parents who do not support their adult children searching or even make snide comments or threats about searching are really to tied up in their own petty jealousy to be allowed to have an opinion. They are not being nurturing parents in this situation. Now before anyone jumps on me for this, understand something. I AM NOT lumping every adoptive parent into this category. There are many who are very open and supportive and I salute you. Others may be very cautious and play it careful, concern for their family and for their child (no matter what their age) tempering their excitement and this is okay too. I’m also not saying that the fears, insecurites, or concerns that adoptive parents may have when their child (again, no matter what the “child’s” age) is bad. Heck, it makes sense that it would be normal. What I am saying is that those who give in to those fears, insecurites or concern and even go so far as to lash out at the adoptee, their child, need a serious reality check on who and what they are.
But am I reading too much into these questions and statements? For example, on a forum I belong to, an adoptee was in great pain and made a comment about birthmothers. The comment was mainly directed at her own birthmother yet so many people jumped on her for the innacuracy of a comment made in pain since it lumped all birthmothers together, rather than looking at what she was really saying. So, am I reading too much into the innocence of their question?
I think in a way I am because the average person doesn’t know how their question may sound and why should they. All they hear is the propaganda that adoption is a great thing. It’s rosy and pure and an unselfish and noble act. We as adoptees should be proud and oh-so-thankful for how lucky we were. They don’t hear about the abuse, the unloving families, the lack of knowledge, the pain, the search for self that is exacerbated by government/agency walls and secrets. Things are changing though. With each new voice comes awareness, with awareness comes change. Let’s hope its good change.
November 8th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
You took the words right out of my mouth. This is all too true. Too bad people can’t/won’t understand these very things. Just like abortion has side effects so does adoption. Parenting too has its side effects. Would I change my life — NO. Would have I changed my search and lack of reunion –NO Would I have changed my adoptive parents — NO They helped me be the person I am today. It has all made me stronger. It has helped create one heck of a scrapper out of me. But then again I was always a scrapper. It just took this one thing to make me express my voice, to not be afraid to make myself heard or seen. All I ever wanted when I began this was to see and read my first chapter. To understand some of my weird quirks. Lord knows that I am so different from my own family. I have to love all of the fiesty moms out there along with my adoptee brethren. I may not always agree with them but I respect that they are speaking and even screaming at times.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Fabulous. As usual.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:28 am
This is a perfect post.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Really amazing post Wraith.
November 17th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
[…] http://wraithswrealm.com/blog/2006/11/08/angry-at-adoption/ […]
November 17th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
KimKim is right about this post. Thanks to her for the link, and to you, for so much intense articulate responsiveness to questions with no answers. Nice to make your acquaintence. I’ll be back!
November 17th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Such a good post!
November 17th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Thank you all for your encouragement and visits. ;)
November 18th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Great stuff!
April 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Thank you for sharing your insight, I have found that sometimes I feel to guilty to express anykind of thoughts like this, and that maybe I was abnormal or something, but I am slowly beginning to realise that with reading similar stories and thoughts I am definitely not alone in my sentiments. I am just starting my search for my past and just knowing that I am not alone with these thoughts is pushing me more and more into feeling secure about my rights to know.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Thank you for sharing your insight, I have found that sometimes I feel to guilty to express any kind of thoughts like this, and that maybe I was abnormal or something, but I am slowly beginning to realize that with reading similar stories and thoughts I am definitely not alone in my sentiments. I am just starting my search for my past and just knowing that I am not alone with these thoughts is pushing me more and more into feeling secure about my rights to know.
October 14th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Honi Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
I have to say that as an adoptee who was raised by an aunt and uncle as a daughter, not a niece, who reunited at age 16 with my biological mother who was a heroin addict, I, am simply amazed at the bitterness of those adoptees who feel no love whatsoever for their adoptive families and total love and loyalty to the biological parents who relinquished them. That’s not to say those adoptees are here on this site, but they are on other sites and I totally disagree with this attitude.
I know first hand the pain, the loss of identity, the search for self that an adoptee feels. I also know the tremendous pain of a reunion with an unstable, selfish, and unloving biological mother and even a biological half-sister who kept insinuating that my adoptive family was not my family, that I didn’t have parents, and that she “just shattered my dreams.” Adoptees need to accept the reality that the circumstances of their birth prevented their biological parents from rearing them, but that there was nothing inherently wrong with them. Likewise, they should understand that there were real, serious, complex reasons for their relinquishment, and even if the relinquishment was “forced,” that was the circumstances of their birth. They need to accept that a reunion is more often than not, in my opinion, strained and can even be heartbreaking; looking at birth parents through rose-colored glasses while bashing adoptive parents serves no purpose whatsoever.
I do support full medical and ethnic disclosure so that an adoptee can know such history. I do support opening case files. I even support reunions if all parties involved have consulted with an expert who specializes in adoption and all parties are emotionally equipped to handle such difficult and complex relationships. However, I do not support the ideas that life with a birthmother for most adoptees would have been so wonderful “if only.” I do not support bashing adoptive parents or making them feel “less than” biological parents. While some adoptive parents may, in fact, be abusive, painting all of them as bad or adoption in general as bad is ridiculous. What would those adoptees have preferred; that they be raised in orphanages or with biological parents who were totally unequipped to deal with them? Wake up, folks!
Those who spend their lives embittered and angry at the world because they were adopted need to seek expert professional help so that they can resolve these issues and heal their lives. To spend a lifetime being eaten up by anger is to waste that lifetime and all the potential it has. I, for one, am totally glad that I wasn’t raised by my biological mother. She did, however raise my twin sister who is severely disabled and mentally retarded; she was abusive, neglectful and my sister would have been much, much better off if she had been relinquished as well.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Hi,
I agree with the last part of Honi’s comment “Those who spend their lives embittered and angry at the world because they were adopted need to seek expert professional help so that they can resolve these issues and heal their lives.”
I think staying angry and bitter about ANYTHING will make you not enjoy life as much. I also think that it’s good to keep an open mind and to not judge people based off of YOUR personal experience.
You might not agree, but at the same time, I respect Wraith’s views and how he came to them. I can’t fully comprehend his experience because by it’s definition, it is his and his alone. I can find similarities as well as differences between our experiences but I think it’s just nice to read and see what other adoptees have experienced.
Personally, I know I will always be confused about adoption because there are a myriad of variables and like anything, we never really fully grasp the whole meaning of it.
Ideally, I would like to live in a utopia where we don’t have the anguish of loss and separation, but that’s just not the reality of our world. So the next best thing is to make the best of your situation and to learn from others as well.
March 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I am an adoptee and know where you’re coming from. The thing that has held me back in life, if anything, was my bottomless anger towards adoption. Illinois is one of the worst places to try to get access or contact, mostly due to legislation.
Getting over the anger has been good. I still hope to make contact someday. If I don’t I’m OK with that.
Take care.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
My A-mother loved her natural son so much I was always 2nd best,
he is autistic but mother refused to aknowledge and he was hell teased at school
He took that out on me the little adopted sister that rounded off a family
He could do anything he wanted to me and she would allow it
Now tell me adoption is fine!!!!
PS my birth mother is a midwife and very well off, she sacrificed me for a life of her own and nk she dosnt wants t o know me, just as flipant as that!