What do you think is or was the worst part about your adoption...?

from your adoptive parent's perspective? This past year has been very healing for me, as far as my adoption issues go. I know how my adoption has affected me, my children, my first parents and my n siblings, but I really think I had a rather sad breakthrough when it came to my adoptive Mom. It was extremely hard for me to admit it, but like any painful subject, you have to acknowledge it to get through it.

For me, I realized just how unfair adoption was for my ap's. They were told the typical agency crap- "If you love this baby enough, she will never want or need to know her real parents". That is a direct quote from Catholic Charities. they bought into the "blank slate theory".

It was unfair, because no matter how much my adoptive Mother loved/loves me, as a child, it wasn't good enough. I didn't want her. I wanted my first Mom. That is as raw as I get. That, to me, is probably one of the most painful things for me...that BOTH of my Mothers were lied to, and nothing was ever the same.

It makes me so sad that my Mom really believed the lies the adoption agency sold her.

So, that is what I think is the worst part for them- that even though I love them, and they love me, it just wasn't enough.

2009-10-03T23:54:41Z

eta for Merc8dees:
Clueless as to adoption are you? Obviously.
There is NOTHING to glamorize about adoption. Why on earth would I start lying to my adoptive mother now? That would NOT be loving OR fair.She is NOT all I ever needed. That is the BIG LIE in adoption, and only adoptees know it. My a Mom knows I love her...that's not the point. My a Mom knows the difference between her adoptive kids and her bio kid. There IS a difference. She, like any educated a p knows the trauma a child faces when they are separated from their first Mother. Your answer is typical of someone who knows nothing about adoption.

2009-10-04T10:11:06Z

eta for monkeykitty: I asked adoptees what they "THINK" was the worst part of their adoption from their ap's perspective. I wanted to know THEIR perspective on what THEY think it could be....from their perspective I did not ask them to "put words in anyone else's mouth". If you read my question, I say "I think" several times. I would never ask anyone to speak for someone else- they cannot. Sorry if I did not make myself clear.

2009-10-04T14:48:34Z

eta4 Monkey: No, it is NOT ok for someone to answer for an adoptee, if they are not adopted.Too many adoptees are dishonest when they are kids about their true feelings about adoption with their ap's, b/c they're afraid of hurting them. I was guilty of doing that when I was a kid. I am not answering for my ap's. They have told me they believed the agency lies, just as most BSE ap's did.Again, I think this is the worst part of my adoption for them, because I live it. And because they have told me. Im not going to argue semantics with you. I did not put words into anyone's mouth, not did I ask anyone else to do so. I may have not conveyed my ? in a clear way, but I would never ask anyone to assume, or lie. Im adopted- I have enough of that in my life.

Sunny2009-10-04T14:17:17Z

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Well, unlike Monkeykitty, I am adopted (that's who was called to answer the question, no?) and feel I can answer for my amother, because we have discussed it on SEVERAL occasions, all in the past couple years. So, yeah, it goes BOTH ways when formerly taboo topics are actually brought out to the light of day...

My amother also feels that she was led to believe that adoption was the perfect solution to her endless infertility (she had 13 miscarriages before I was adopted) issues. She was sold and BOUGHT the "as if" theory. My abrother (we're from totally different families, of course) were going to be just like her and my afather. And given enough LOVE, and knowledge (which for her was 'you know you're adopted, isn't that enough?) we would be just fine. We would never want to meet "the women who gave birth to us".

She now knows that all of this was agency garbage that was fed to a very naive, young (22) woman who was devastated by her ability to produce a child. They told her EXACTLY what she wanted to hear.

morris the cat2009-10-04T07:22:24Z

I think my mom never really came to terms with not being able to have her own kids. Her whole dream in life was to get married, have kids and be a mother. Adoption was definitely second best. She believed also that adoption would be no different,that love was enough but it wasn't. My sister never bonded with her ever, and always resented being adopted and was very open about it. She was pretty much a delinquent and they have not talked in years. She adored my brother and I. We were easy, kids but we are nothing like her at all. She has an identical twin and her nieces are exactly like her. I think watching them grow was bittersweet.

I never felt like my mom loved me any less because we were adopted. But if I look at the big picture, it hasn't all been a fairy tale for her either.

Anonymous2009-10-03T23:25:58Z

I think the worst part for my afamily (since all of my family love me, not just my parents) was my behavior. While I wasn't - in hindsight - the most wayward of kids in the`world, I was definitely harder work than I suspect I would've been were I born into the family.We can't, of course, say for definite that this is true, but I am - as far as we are aware - the only one from my family with, for example, such a high level of promiscuity.

I think, until I recently met my bfamily, we thought that this was more to do with the whole 'adoption trauma' stuff (the wanting love because I'm obviously not worthy of it because how can I be if even my own mother couldn't love me enough to want to keep me/giving it away free on a plate in an attempt to get people to want to stay with me and not abandon me), but having met my maternal bfamily (the immediate ones at least), I've since discovered that I'm not exactly wildly different from them.

There's also the part where the ways in which I think are completely different to my afamily, and even this caused some trauma for my mom at the very least. It's difficult to explain without going specific into examples (which I'm certainly not going to be doing in here), but suffice to say, my mom's had many a tearful mom's while raising me because she simply could not understand me, nor did she have a clue how to help me. It's only very very recently that she's come to see that while I may've caused her heartache whilst growing up, she did manage to get enough of her own ethics and ways of thinking through to me to enable me to become at least someone who *tries* to be a 'decent member of society', even if I don't always manage to pull it off.

SJM2009-10-04T07:05:18Z

I would have to say it was the same for my ap's. I can remember as a kid my amom telling me that when I turned 18, I would be allowed to know the name of my mother, but that she hoped by then I wouldn't have the need to know. She always expressed her hope that I would realize how much they (my ap's) loved me, and I would lose the desire to search. Of course, we had these conversations because I was asking how I could get the information, and I was very young at the time. The desire to know was always there. Always. And it had nothing to do with my ap's.

Wannabe Swan2009-10-04T08:32:45Z

From my adoptive father's POV: That I'm not model pretty, that I'm not a boy, that I'm not good enough for him.

But then again he's not really nice.

From my adoptive mother's POV: That I'm too quiet and that I don't talk enough. She doesn't really know about all that I've been through, and like you, she believes in the blank slate thing. She tries really hard, and she knows it, but it just seems that we can' connect so that would be her biggest disappointment probably.

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