What ethnicity do adoptee's identify with?

It is very common for adopted children your friends age or older to identify more so with the ethnicity of their adoptive parents why exactly I dont know. But it is much more common these days for adoptive parents to embrace and learn about the culture of their adoptive children.

I was always told I had a good amount of Irish in me from day 1, although I never knew how much exactly. There was always a tiny bit of pride in that though...

My adoptive family just did what they did, and I participated, however no one ever said "you will do this because it is your culture". That would have been silly, as I don't know most of my "culture" due to not knowing who my father is...

When I got older I found I was half Irish and half "mystery" (still don't know who/what father is). It suits me fine and in all honesty I do have a little pride from my Irish heritage. I think heritage is really cool and I wouldn't like anyone to tell me what culture I should follow, as I make that decision for myself, just as everyone (adopted or not adopted) SHOULD.

I am an adoptive parent, not an adoptee, so I hope it's OK with you if I answer.

My son, who is 11, has no idea what my ethnic heritage is, so he can't possibly identify with it. He is of Latino origin (we assume Mexican, but don't know for sure), so we tell him that he is Latino and Caucasian.

I think that GOOD adoptive parents find out what their children's ethnicity is and try to encourage identifying with that. It's not as if pretending to be Dutch or Czech would make my son Dutch or Czech, so why bother? (I don't care if he's Dutch or Czech...I'm just making a point.) It sounds as if your friend is drinking a big ol' glug of the adoption Kool-Aid, poor thing.

ETA: As I reread this thread this morning it reminded me of a woman I overheard a few months ago, talking about her adopted daughters. We live in Hawaii and the children she adopted are Asian. I don't know if they're Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean...but they're Asian. She was telling the person she was talking to that it's SO important for her daughters to take hula because it's part of the culture here and they WILL identify with their culture. Um, excuse me? Those girls are NOT Hawaiian! I wanted to say something to her about there being all kinds of cultural activities -- ESPECIALLY here in the islands -- that her daughters could participate in that would actually have meaning for them (Taiko drumming, for example, if they are Japanese), rather then being forced to do hula as if they were Hawaiian. So maddening! There is nothing wrong with hula; it's a beautiful art form and there are kids of all ethnicities here who dance hula. But to force it on a child and say that it is her culture is ridiculous. Hula is no more part of those girls' culture as it is mine. Ugghhh. Some people are just SO entitled.

it really is terrible that you felt this way growing to be up. i'm a foster figure and we in simple terms followed our little female very last week. i'd assume her to have all of those emotions, wonders and sadness. We knew that going into the adoption. We plan on being honest about her previous and assisting in besides accessible to discover her delivery mom and father at the same time as she needs to. I truthfully have not some thing to concern. i tried to get her previous delivery cert. yet change into not allowed. i did even if make efficient I wrote down her mom and father names. :) So sometime we will be on a project, her project to ascertain her historic previous and observe the position she got here from. i'd desire different Adoptive mom and father would understand that it really is organic for each toddler to need to entice close their mom and father and their historic previous. we are now the proud mom and father of a touch angel. we followed her to fill in the lacking products of her existence. not ours. all of us recognize it is now unlikely to continually be undemanding. yet we will be there for her continually no remember what she needs to do

I am adopted and identify with the ethnicity of my birth family.

My kids strongly identify with being black and West African. They are starting to identify some with the African American culture, but they will both say that they are African and that's not the same as AA. They also find things about my heritage and my husband's heritage interesting, but don't see it as theirs. Doesn't stop them from having fun at the Celtic festival!

I identify with the DNA I carry and the blood that runs through me from my ancestors

My adoptive family's ethnicity and genetic origin is interesting, I've helped them research their heredity too, but it's not mine.

My kids identify with my husband and I's ethnicity because we are their family and parents.

with the adopted parents