How many of you grew up hiding your adoption from friends?
I've read plenty lately about how some kids "hide" their adoption. If you did hide it growing up, did you continue that practice into your dating years, adulthood, etc? Who did you tell growing up and why?
2010-07-14T13:29:33Z
My uncle said he was extremely uncomfortable telling girls (when he was growing up) and then later on the women that he was adopted. He didn't have any background info on himself and he said he was self conscious about his "unknown" genes when it came to fathering future children and he was hyper aware of this when he was getting serious with a woman. He said no women ever brought it up but he was extremely aware of it.
?2010-07-14T15:16:14Z
Favorite Answer
I went through several different phases when I was a child. When I was very young, (pre-elementary school til maybe 2nd grade) I would tell anyone. My ap's made a big deal out of being "chosen", "special", blah blah rainbow-y-blah, so I figured I should tell everyone, lol.
Once I figured out those things were not true, and I started realizing exactly what adoption meant, I hid it...and sometimes even lied about being adopted.
When I was a teen, though, I would always tell whomever I was dating, along with asking their birthdate...just to make sure I wasn't dating a relative.
I didn't hide it, but I didn't have a lot of choice either considering I look nothing like the rest of my family. Literally, nothing. Other than that we are all human and therefore have the same number of limbs and facial features, we are physically complete and total opposites.
Every once in awhile when someone would say "Why don't you look like your family?" I might come up with some random BS story instead of saying I was adopted, but that wasn't so much me hiding my adoption as it was me just being a smart a$$.
I was adopted as a nine year old and the majority of the friends I made from then on where kids of my parents' friends, so they knew I was adopted. Besides them though, I didn't go shouting it out. I didn't actively hide it either, though it is quite obvious if you see me out with my parents. My skin is quite a shade darker than theirs. Pretty much, if anyone asked I said "yes, I'm adopted." If they didn't, I didn't say anything.
Both my aunty and mother were adopted within a year of each other (both called Anne-Marie before my Nan changed their names) but my mum never told me she was adopted, but really i should haved noticed that something wasn't right when i was round her family as they were black. It wasn't untill i was about 9/10 my cousin (his mum being adopted too) said that our mum's were adopted. It was then when i was about 12/13 and was on Scout camp with my Aunty wen she started talking about adoption and how she things of my Nan as her one and only mum and talked about where she came from but our Island where we live is our only home. I've still never talked about my mum's adoption with her but i will hopefully one day.