As a young child, the fact of being adopted really did not affect me either way. I do not think I absorbed the truth until I was 12. At that point in my life, I started feeling some rejection feelings. I love my adopted parents. I know my adopted mom is a very special person for taking care of a child that is not her obligation, to begin with. That makes her an angel in my eyes. A false assumption that people get all of the time is that the adoptee does not care about their adopted family if they wish to find their biological parents. This is a totally human thing to want to do. Adoptees need answers. We have real feelings of anger, rejection, and emptiness. No one should ever try to question that.
As a teenager my adopted parents were constantly fighting. They appeared to not love one another. My father and I had a very rocky relationship. As a child I was his “baby girl” as a teen it changed very fast. He was such a hard worker which I know now is a positive but along with that comes much stress. He seemed angry all of the time. They faught so much. This caused me a lot more feelings of rejection and disappointment. I know now that they loved me and the fighting had nothing to do with me but it effected me then. I wanted to find my biological mom in my teen years because for some reason I thought she would rescue me from the situation. What was I thinking? She gave me away! I had such mixed up thoughts as a teenager. Teenagers have crazy hormones as it is let alone having added stress on top of those raging hormones! I also dealt with an alcoholic as a child. I will not say who that was for privacy and respect of them but that in itself is a terrrible thing for a child to deal with!
So my continued advice to adopted parents is as follows….
- Do not adopt if your relationship with one another is not good
- Make sure you are ready to listen to your adopted child about thier adoption
- Answer thier questions with %100 honesty
- If you have biological children show all the children the same attention
- Talk and listen to your biological kids about the adoption
- Most of all you have to accept that they might find thier biological family one da
https://www.americanadoptions.com/state_adoption/when_to_tell_your_child_about_their_adoption