are adoptees really abandoned?

I was shocked after getting to know my son to see his abandonment issues. It manifested as his being very needy and distrustful.

I know I didn't abandon him and I fought as hard as I knew how to keep him. But I do think that sometimes no matter what the truth is or what we tell them - our adopted out children may feel on some primal, visceral level that their mothers left them when they were small and helpless and that felt like abandonment to them.

That's one of the major tragedies of adoption. Both mother and child can suffer irreparable damage that even reunion can't fix.

Every story is different. Yes, in many cases during the Baby Scoop Era many women were coerced into giving their children for adoption. Some coercion continues today.

Sometimes, the adoptee /was/ abandoned, though. Sometimes, the mother made a free and conscious decision to place her child for adoption.

Some adoptees may think their first mother abandoned them because in some cases, that might actually be the case.

A lot of adoptees don't know about the coercion unless they have made an effort to find their first mother. If they never went searching for any information, they never learn about it.

There was a poster on this board who was a guy who never searched for his birth mother. His thought was that if she hadn't found him, she's not looking or interested in him. Huh? Clearly, this guy has no idea the hurdles involved! And that is mostly because he never searched himself.

I am not sure, but I believe that part of the process when our rights as parent's were terminated was to legally determine that our children were 'abandoned' by their parent. I believe that it is a legal term, only, but evidently one that was reinforced to our children.

Like Carol, I also fought to keep my son, as indicated in my records from the agency. During the BSE, it really didn't matter if we fought. We lost. And, apparently so did our children.

Those children who think they were abandoned are just angry. When they mature many of them will come to realize that their mothers gave them up so that they could have a better life living in a more financially secure environment. The mothers wanted a better life for their children; better housing, a good education, a chance at college, etc., that she alone could never afford for them. To me this is a greater love. Hanging onto children you delivered into this world simply to make yourself feel better is selfish and very unkind to the child in my estimation.