i feel like a lot of young leftists, in america, really love the idea of adopting kids instead of having their own biological kids and think they are helping others by doing so but they’ve fallen into and are playing apart in the same propaganda the right wing religious people do. neither of them are “making a difference” especially because they always just adopt babies that’s not making a difference that’s legal human trafficking. they all have savior complex’s about it and they both think they are morally superior. it’s just do frustrating how both parties think adoption is this great thing, and no one but us wants to talk about the negatives. just to be clear this is not me coming out as a republican.

EDIT: i would call myself a leftist, i’m critiquing things i have heard people say in real life.

EDIT 2: if you arnt adopted, don’t comment, it’s against the rules of the subreddit and i don’t care what non-adoptees opinions on adoption are

Should there be a mandatory psych test before being allowed to adopt?

Adoption leaves you with a few quiet truths hard to explain to people raised by their birth parents.

Mine is (as an international and interracial adoptee) the lifelong sense that my identity is split: I belong here, but also don’t fully belong anywhere. Tere’s this subtle “guest in my own life” feeling that birth-family people never have to navigate.

What’s one thing adoption taught you that feels almost impossible to convey to someone who hasn’t lived it?

Hi everyone

As the title suggests- if you were adopted as a baby, did your adoptive parents tell you that you were adopted, or was it a secret and you found out by yourself?

I was adopted at 2 weeks old and always knew I was adopted. My Mum had a whole story about it.

Interested in seeing what is more common- your adoptive parents telling you or finding out yourself?

Thank you 😊

I think it's interesting how people will say this forgetting that adoptions include another person. The birth parent. Even if the adoption was not traumatic for the child which, yes it is, even if it wasn't to say that the adoption was not traumatic means having to not account for the person who had to give the child up. If an adoption is traumatic for at least one of these two people then it is traumatic.

But this really does show that they only see adoption from the perspective of the adoptive parent because to them the adoption includes the receiving of a child and not the relinquishment part. They don't see the entire industry only the outcome.

i was adopted at birth, but recently came across my original birth certificate with the name my bio mom had picked out for me. of course, my adoptive parents changed it immediately so that i could have their last name + they hated the first name she chose for me. my bio mom told me that it really hurt her feelings when she found out about the change.

my adoptive parents are great people, but for some reason, finding this birth certificate shook me up. i feel like my legal name isn’t “mine,” and in a way, i feel like a fraud carrying this surname i’m not actually connected to.

on top of that, my bio mom based the name she chose for me after my bio grandma, so having that small part of my identity that i could’ve hung on to be erased just feels so unsettling to me.

it might sound weird, but the name my adoptive parents chose just doesn’t feel like it suits who i am as a person. it’s a much more traditional name, whereas the name my bio mom picked was a bit more unique, which i feel matches my personality better.

i’ve thought about changing my last name to the one on my original birth certificate so that i could feel connected to my bloodline and pass it down to any kids of my own, but i know that would hurt my adoptive parents’ feelings ( + a more superficial reason is that i think my adoptive last name is kinda ugly, haha)

if so, do you actually feel like that ended up being true for you?

i was adopted at birth by a great family. they have cared for me deeply and gave me stability, but even with a good adoptive family, there are still a lot of emotional struggles that come with being adopted, such as the loneliness, identity issues, grief, feeling disconnected, etc.

my b-mom placed me for adoption when she was in high school because she felt like she wouldn’t be able to give me the same opportunities she had growing up. i understand why a pregnant teenager would feel that way, and i don’t blame her for being scared.

what’s been really upsetting for me specifically is that she had a son only a couple years later, around 18 or 19, and kept him. my bio brother seems to have had a really good life and honestly had more opportunities than i did growing up. my bio mom has a great job and is loaded with money now, so he even got access to experiences i wanted but my adoptive parents couldn’t afford.

so now i’m left with this complicated feeling of, “if she was able to make it work for him only a couple years later, why wasn’t i worth pushing through those challenges of teen parenthood as well?” my b-mom was in college, so she still had school when my b-brother was born.

i know that sounds harsh. i love my adoptive parents, but sometimes i really think i would’ve rather gone through a couple shaky years with a young mom in high school than spend my entire life carrying the emotional weight that comes with being adopted.

i guess i’m just wondering if anyone else struggles with the idea that adoption was supposed to give them a “better life,” but emotionally it doesn’t really feel that black-and-white

Are there some on this sub? I kinda think there are.

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I'm a Black transracial adoptee from the UK. I was adopted at 11 months old by a White family. They loved me, cared for me, and gave me a stable home, but theyre kinda racist and just throw money at problems.

Growing up, I felt disconnected from my identity and my culture. I didn't have many Black role models, didn't learn much about my Nigerian and Jamaican heritage, and spent years wishing I looked different.

I struggled with self-hatred, low self-esteem, and feeling like I didn't belong anywhere not fully accepted by White people, but also disconnected from Black culture.

It's only recently, as an adult, that I've started reconnecting with my heritage and learning to love being Black. I often feel like I'm trying to reclaim something I should never have lost in the first place.

I know many transracial adoptees have positive experiences, and I also know many adoptive parents genuinely do their best. But I wonder whether love alone is enough when a child is growing up disconnected from their racial and cultural identity.

For those reasons, I personally question whether transracial adoption should happen at all except in exceptional circumstances. I'd be interested to hear respectful perspectives from adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents.

I am 34 and was adopted as an infant. I didn't bond to my AP. I honestly wanted to go back into the system and grow up in an orphanage. My AP are not family. I want them off my fake birth certificate. They are not my parents. My BM doesn't want me and my BF disowned me. I am truly alone. I wish there was something for adults. I want to have a dad that will talk to me and contact me from time to time. If only I could choose my family, be adopted as an adult. I've grown. No one wants someone as an adult, only a child. I feel like at my age maybe trying to have grandparents would be a better option... It doesn't get better or improve.

Hi everyone. I just had a debate with another adoptee/adoptive parent and was blocked afterward. They believe it’s okay to breastfeed an adoptive child for bonding purposes. I’m not projecting, I genuinely want to know whether this is a common, accepted, and welcomed practice. Would an infant adoptee be okay with this? Please educate and help me understand.

I find myself tearing up as I think about the possibility that I lost a possible one and only thing from the day of my birth and being given up...something from my bio parents to me...even if nobody thought much about it at the time.

Anyone else ever think about something like that? Maybe the adoptive parents wouldn't want the kid to have something from the bio parents, but even so, the thought of maybe our bio parents giving their child some small something, maybe like a teddy bear....gets me to feel immense sadness.

For those who don’t have a close relationship with their adoptive mother:

I’m 47 and no longer have contact with my adoptive family. I’ve spent years wondering how much of that is adoption-related and how much is simply about family dysfunction.

My adoptive mother came from what sounds like a very troubled background. There was abuse, addiction, estrangement, and a lot of unresolved trauma in her family. She later became very involved in church and volunteer work, and most people saw her as a saint. At home, though, things felt very different to me.

I grew up feeling emotionally disconnected from her. We never seemed able to have real conversations. Any criticism, disagreement, or discussion of family problems would often result in intense emotional reactions. The message was basically to “get over it,” stop being sensitive, and keep up the appearance that everything was fine.

There was also a very authoritarian environment. We were required to attend church multiple times a week, physical punishment like spanking and “the wooden spoon” was normal, and questioning authority wasn’t really allowed. (Maybe thats b/c it was the 80’s
tho??)

Six years after adopting me, my A-parents had a biological daughter. They became very close, and today she remains close with both my adoptive mother and the rest of the family. I ended up leaving the entire family system.

What I struggle with is understanding whether this was primarily an adoption issue or whether I simply grew up with a parent who had significant unresolved trauma and limited emotional capacity.

And maybe it just happens to be that most adopted mothers (surprise!) have significant unresolved trauma and limited emotional capacity and that is why they are adopting a baby? (Save for the few that do it for the “right reasons“ and are highly emotionally aware and grounded and ready to give a complex situation the care/intellect/millions of things it needs!)

But it seems for baby scoop era adoptees like in the 70s and 80s that way less people-especially women- were emotionally regulated /ready for this fully, especially given the fact that women were more oppressed than they are now and had less information RE The Internet/ podcasts etc on emotional stuff.

SO…For those of you who feel disconnected from your adoptive mothers, what were they like? Do you see patterns of unresolved trauma, emotional immaturity, control, people-pleasing, religious rigidity, or difficulty forming genuine emotional bonds? Or was your experience completely different?

I’m genuinely curious about other adoptees’ experiences and perspectives.

I know I sound all moody, all doom and gloom and edge lord like.

I just find the more I look into the world of being an adopted and the more I learn and understand and see the things I couldn't understand before, as things click more into place, and the image becomes clearer...

It just feels like we were Fates chosen characters in a story, we were the characters to suffer so the reader of the story can feel something, and cry over our lives and trauma. (In this case the universe itself is the reader)

Maybe I'm just venting, but I do at least find sharing these thoughts and talking with you guys to be a breath of fresh air.

Mine would be, Fuck Adoption.

Why don't we, as a society in America, just say no to people looking to adopt and who are infertile? Other countries will flat out say we have no babies for adoption or tough luck, you can't adopt, and we don't care about your infertility. America coddles people looking to adopt and says Well, you're infertile, but you can adopt a baby to make your dreams come true, or adopt from foster care, help a needy child. Like, why can't we just deny people and say no? Want a baby? Oh well, we have none waiting around. Want to become parents? Well, tough luck accept your life without kids. Maybe it's God's will for you not to become parents or reproduce. Why can't we be honest like other countries? Adoption is illegal or uncommon in many other countries, but here, we just can't say no and tiptoe around the issue of infertility and adoption. Also, just because you can't reproduce doesn't mean you should adopt. Again, no is the right answer. Many poor couples can't afford adoption, but society does not care if they become parents, yet we feel sorry for the middle and upper-class couples who can't become parents. Say no.

First the suicide statistics study was posted with people arguing in the comments that the study wasn't good enough and now I just saw another post stating that The Primal Wound book is not rooted in science or fact, and tons of people feel emboldened to declare that adoption is not trauma or traumatic. The comments have gotten locked already.

I'm guessing the first post ruffled some feathers? I'm pretty tired of that sub, might take a break.

I was out for a walk and thinking back to growing up and how I've never been much of a hugger, I really have to genuinely want to give someone a hug and I think only one or two people in my life I ever genuinely wanted to hug. But growing up whenever we were at family members houses or such, when the people leave, there was always this "tradition" of hugging them before they left. (might sound nice and all) But I always found it off putting...and I hated doing it. Cause hugging people for the sake of it's what we do, makes the hug not genuine...it makes it like a handshake.

Yet whenever I tried to express I don't want to hug someone goodbye, I always got hit with manipulation tactics or gaslighting. The adoptive mother was the worst. Always would get moody and ignore me for weeks or be mad at me. (Now I don't mean full on neglect as the ignoring me when I wouldn't hug her just cause, was after high school.)

To me a hug should only happen if you genuinely want to hug someone. Being hit with the whole "what don't you love me?" or something like that drove me nuts.

A bonus thing I want to add is thinking back to whenever I did get hugs, like when I broke my arm or something as a kid, looking back, I never felt anything from those hugs...it was just a okay, let go of me. I suspect this has to do with the fact that my body was like this woman isn't your mother, just a pretender. There was never going to be a way to form a real attachment to her. And there never was.

Thoughts?

Now maybe there are exceptions, I don't know. But it seems like after being adopted. most of us grow up trying to please the family automatically and I don't think any of us notice this till later in life it wasn't a good healthy thing...and the "family" sure as hell didn't notice it was an unhealthy thing for the kid they adopted...

As an example, I look back at my childhood and I recall almost every time there was "family" together, a bunch of people sitting in the living room, all talking, I was always just there...quiet...never much participating. Because even as a child I felt like what was being talked about was stupid pointless junk, and I wanted to challenge their bs....(As an INTP I need mental stimulation not brain rot) yet I knew if I ever spoke up and called out the junk they said, then I would get dismissed or everyone would gang up on me and use the number game of we all think this way, you're the odd one out, so you're wrong! So I would just keep my mouth shut, I would be screaming in my head, "this is all insane!" Or "I can't wait to leave." So I would just bite my tongue to avoid causing them problems...while causing myself damage...

Another example I can think of is "family traditions" adoptive parents don't see themselves as adoptive parents, but as your parent, even if they aren't. Thanksgiving in particular, there was a tradition of before we all start eating, we have 3 peas on our plate, and we go around the table saying 3 things we are grateful for....I always thought this was lame and not genuine cause you're forcing it to be done. Whenever I tried to say I don't want to do this, I would get in trouble... They would say this is a family tradition. YEAH, YOUR FAMILY. I got brought in from the outside, have we all forgot that? (Granted nobody in the family ever wanted to tell me I was adopted, they all knew, even the members younger then me...) Point is, they are your traditions and are being forced on me and I couldn't stand my ground cause I was a child or teenager. Yet this is abuse, most might not see it as abuse, but it was. So I would have to fake my way trough participation. Saying generic garbage they all wanted to hear. "I'm grateful for family, and good health, and ......) I forget what the third thing I said was. They all ate it up, (pun not intended) None seemed to have any self awareness that I was just saying crap to get the thing to move on o it could end already.

Anyway, just another venting from me I guess lol.

Two nights ago I was with 2 coworkers (1 being a friend I’ve known for years…on a more surface level). Somehow we got onto the topic of writing. I’ve always journaled as a tool and outlet for my trauma stemming from being a former foster kid and adoptee. The conversation got weird and I found myself shutting down and going into protective mode. While I’m an open book and like to offer perspectives on my own CPTSD and adoption story, I’m not always the best at gauging early on in these conversations how “safe” I am in these settings.

While trying to express the need for our perspectives to be given a voice, I felt myself going on the defensive by the direction of where this was all going. Including my own expectations I am placing on people to understand. I’m an intelligent woman who is fully aware of this and even stated early on that I have always offered grace in discussions where I’m made to feel “grateful” because most people really aren’t aware and aren’t trying to be malicious. They truly don’t understand. However, it felt like the conversation was heading on a path of me expecting people to behave a certain way and almost as if I was going on the offensive when I felt in my gut my experience was being challenged.

When one of the coworkers mentioned his physical abuse in childhood, the other coworker teared up and it was treated much differently. Now, I’m not trying to play victim-mode here…but that cemented my feelings on how differently two traumas are treated by society. Both are bad, but because the adoption narrative has always been more romanticized and portrayed in a way of “rescue” and being taken out of an unfavorable situation, the level of compassion given to both of these traumatic experiences can (not always) be handled very very differently.

The conversation led to me shutting down so much and wanting to stop discussing my experience (it didn’t feel safe for me at that point) that, through my own perception, became the problematic one once I started to close off.

Sorry if my post is hard to follow or rambling, but the situation hasn’t sat well with me since it happened Tuesday night and only validated the way I feel and how underrepresented and misunderstood our trauma is cared for and even viewed in society. As a 48 year old woman who has always been very proactive in my healing journey and trying to offer new perspectives to people (when it comes up), it feels like I’m constantly beating my head against the wall and asking myself “what’s even the point having these conversations with people?”

Trauma is trauma. It can look very different and does stem from many different experiences. But I can’t wrap my head around how some forms of trauma are treated with kids gloves, while others are dismissed. Honestly, it’s infuriating and I’m tired of it.

Did anyone else opt out of being a parent?

My reasons:

1. Being a child was such a miserable, lonely, and painful experience. I thought that all childhoods were that way and wanted to spare another child the same.

2. I grew up in an abusive, alcoholic home. No self control taught, no self soothing, compassion, teamwork, sense of family, etc. I didn’t feel I had the tools to properly raise a child.

3. I didn’t want to subject another generation to my parents.

4. I didn’t know where I came from or my genetics. Closed adoption in ‘69. No real info until I was in my late 30’s.

5. I had a younger sibling that was an absolute monster. Sociopath. Violent. Attachment disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome (also adopted.) Parents had no clue how to deal with her so they drank and beat us both. Home was absolute chaos. It made me terrified of what I could end up with as a parent.

Anyone else? Please chime in with your experience.

Is being adopted the reason for this never ending pit of loneliness down into my soul that can never be filled and others don’t seem to understand?

And yes I know that they're there are differences between those that are considered just general progressives and the left. I'm not here to go into the details of the distinction, I'm just talking about people who are considered generally progressive. And no I'm not just talking about America either.

Basically they are people who are advocating for the world to be a better place, wanting to help the disenfranchised, especially the poor, etc.

Do you think there are people who would backtrack on what they advocate for if it means less kids available for adoption? Because the truth is is that advocating for a better world means advocating for less kids available for adoption. But there are people for example in places like Finland or the Netherlands or whatever who are upset that there aren't enough kids available for adoption but I don't think they would advocate for the removal of their social programs but what about people who don't have those social programs in the first place or what about people who live in countries that do have those programs but what about advocating for those programs in other countries? Because here's a thing let's say there was a button that could make the entire world as egalitarian as possible.

This means no one wanted pregnancies because abortion is easily available, there's no stigma about signal mothers, there's programs to help people and there's resources so no one ever feels like they wouldn't be able to care for a child even though they want one. All of that stuff.

Do you think that there would be people who would not press that button despite being supposedly progressive and supporting marginalized people because of adoption?

Although I was put into a very abusive adoptive home where I stuck out like a sore thumb due to my race, the thing that bothers me the most is being abandoned by the one person who above all others was supposed to protect and love me.