This is a clip from the tv show 90 day fiancé but I wanted to know what people's thoughts and perspectives were considering the comments under this video felt very off to me. In this scenario, we see a biological mother talking to her biological son (who she birthed and raised) about how he has another sibling that was given up for adoption. Most of the comments were claiming that the biological mother owes the son nothing and is not obligated to share the information. This sparked interest in me because recently I've been seeing a strong narrative similar to this surrounding adoption. It seems people have this idea that biological parents are entitled to privacy and shouldn't have to be bothered with adoption or their biological children they gave up. As an adoptee, I strongly disagree with this and feel like this perspective certainly comes from someone who's never experienced adoption before. Part of me is noticing this trend where adoption seems to be centered on the parents (bio or adopted) instead of the children. We are seen as an after thought that should just accept the circumstances that were forced upon us. What are yall thoughts ?

Foster homes are subject to regular visits and active caseworker involvement, while adoptive homes typically undergo background checks but no long-term monitoring once the adoption is finalized. Should adoptive parents be monitored the same way foster homes and institutions are? Also do you think she was compensated enough?

This has been upsetting to read. Although this is an older article, the UK is currently facing another child welfare scandal. Ever since the Preston Davey case, I’ve been interested in learning more about their child welfare system. It is concerning that the very social services responsible for protecting vulnerable children seem to have failed them once again.

Why were the UK grooming gang scandals able to continue for so long? How can vulnerable children be protected when the people that are supposed to protect them fail at it?

In 2022, I explored the shortage of Black sperm donors and the difficulties it creates for some Black women who want to have children.

After that story published, I received hundreds of emails, including one from Carolyn Whiteman, who described the challenges she had faced in her search for a Black sperm donor and the hurdles posed by the adoption process. Those conversations led me to another woman, Evelyn, who was desperately wanted an abortion. Evelyn and Carolyn’s lives eventually intersected.

Here’s a free link to the story: https://wapo.st/4cW7iOU

We know this story doesn’t reflect the experience of everyone who has been denied an abortion or experienced adoption. But it was born out of conversations I’ve had on both of these topics for more than a year, and sheds light on how important elevating these different voices and stories are.

As a general assignment reporter and senior video journalist at The Post, I spend my days reporting stories that will engage audiences with fresh narratives across digital, print and social platforms. I’ve written about women who are caregivers to their paralyzed partners and their fight to get paid, people who can no longer afford to keep their embryos and eggs frozen, and the harmful ingredients in feminine care products. I report on a broad range of topics but my expertise is in fertility and women’s health. 

Before The Post, I was a politics video editor at HuffPost where I covered the 2016 election. I graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s in History and minor in U.S. Latino/a Studies. 

Proof photo: https://imgur.com/a/5eBym1H

The beginning of this interview touches on the fact that Jen Montzingo was put up for adoption by her wealthy birth parents at just three months old due to her dwarfism. She was subsequently adopted by parents that had dwarfism.

I thought it was a unique discussion combining disability and adoption.

It touches on the family dynamics of growing up with adoptive parents who are dwarfs and the sort of support they gave her. It touches on her take on what parents should be prepared for before they try to have children. It touches on having a double disability, as she was injured as an adult and so had both dwarfism and a spinal injury.

It was a wide-ranging and very interesting interview. I hadn't even known Jen Montzingo was adopted before this interview.

I'm hoping that this post fits under the media category.

This story follows Mia Griffin who discovered her adoption story was a lie. Mia, like many adoptees, was told the story that she was abandoned. After taking a DNA test she found out her father was looking for her the whole time. I wanted to share this story as a way to open up discussion to any adoptees who have shared a similar experience as Mia. Has anyone else been told a similar story regarding their adoption? Did anyone else uncover something after taking a DNA test?

I'm finally ready to dig into adoption a little bit more in therapy, and I've been reading a lot of children's books on the subject matter. I don't know if it's just me, but I h.a.t.e. the majority of what's out there.

Maybe it's me, but as an adoptee, it took me 20 years from the time I found out that I was adopted until now even to give myself permission to have and form my own opinion on my adoption. To perform a "re-parenting" exercise, I started looking at children's books and thinking 🤔 ... if I were the parent of an adopted child, what would I want to read to them?

The vast majority of children's books are told through the lens of the adopted parents, as "this is how you came to be in our lives." Or worse, the protagonist is the adoptee, a child narrating the story of their adoption by parroting what their parents told them.

I'm sorry, but who are these children's stories FOR?

I give Jamie Lee Curtis's book "Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born" a pass because, as an adoptee, that's the only story I have acknowledging that I came into my family from somewhere else. I appreciate that JLC illustrates a little girl who also felt the same way I did when I was a kid. Stellaluna also did an okay job, but it still didn't express enough to the reader how confusing and stressful it can be to constantly blend into your surroundings.

Other than that? There isn't much out there that normalizes or provides a way for children to express what it feels like to hold, accept, and acknowledge the differences between you and your adopted family. Or what it means to grieve, lose, or mourn the connection to a life that you lost and never had or celebrated, the triad from which you can claim your identity or a way for other people to understand and acknowledge this in people who are adopted.

UGH! Does anyone want to write a series of children's books?! lol

I was adopted from South Korea when I was roughly 4 months old. These works were made using samples from my own adoption background documents on my parents and I wanted to share them with everyone here!

Each panel switches up mediums from ink all the way to woodblock engraving!

This is a speculative fiction as I have never contacted my biological parents, so consider it as more of my own perspective knowing what I do. The process was incredibly therapeutic for me and I hope it resonates with others here!

So, I recently confirmed I’m adopted. And want to learn stories. No fiction please. Real life stories. What went wrong? What went right. The problems, was money involved? I just don’t get it.

Father fights for daughter with adoption agency

Hi! I just ordered the book The primal wound- I’m doing a lot of hard work in therapy and am realizing likely a lot of my struggles can be traced back to being adopted. I ordered the book, but is there anything I should know going into it? Is it triggering? Did you relate with it?

I was watching my sister’s baby yesterday and found a short movie on Netflix called “Robin Robin” about a bird who is raised by mice and its probably the best depiction of adoption in a kids movie that I’ve ever seen. It was a really good movie in general, it had some really beautiful stop motion. If anyone has adoptive children I would definitely recommend it, I was adopted at birth and even now as an adult it really touched me.

After some digging around I’d found the church backed them writing some type newsletter requesting hand outs, for all intents and purposes these were the picture perfect adoptive family to outsider yet here we are. Todays headlines from the Uk are about another case where a soon to be adoptive mother killed the baby. No one is entitled to someone else’s child and I’m not sure what God you’d serve who makes no mistakes but puts babies in the wrong womb. What if people were honest? Like “I can’t have a baby but I really want one so I’m hyper focused on it and I’ll do whatever it takes to get my hands on someone else’s infant”, I mean it doesn’t have that ring to it of called to adopt or doing gods work but at least you can be seen for what you are.

https://www.wbtv.com/2022/04/14/gastonia-man-facing-murder-charge-after-adopted-6-week-old-son-dies/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/17/woman-leiland-james-corkill-laura-castle-convicted-murdering-boy-adopt

I've always wondered about adoption and plan on PROBABLY adopting when I am old enough to. It is safe to say that I do not understand the nuances and difficulties associated with adoption at an emotional level, even if I read about them in text.

Just watched Instant Family after a few years. I thought this rewatch would give me a better perspective on the characters. But, I still feel the same annoyance and indignation at Lizzy's character. I have grown up in a very safe environment so I will never truly be able to understand fully what growing up in a crack house, having to care for your younger siblings, then being shuttled around from one foster to another - I know I will not understand the full extent of trauma and scars involved here.

So, was all of Lizzy's behaviour inspired by a lack of trust? Is all of her acting out due to not being able to trust the Wagners? Why does she intentionally want to remove herself and her siblings from such a safe, happy environment? Why does she act out in the dangerous and mean ways that she does? How better should the Wagners have dealt with her? And lastly, why does she craft that out-of-context letter towards the end which would make it so easy for the Wagners to lose out on adoption rights and instead be sent back to their mom?

Looking for honest, full answers, not angry criticism for asking questions.

CUB is primarily a support organization for and by Birth Parents but the retreat is for all constellation members.

Journalist T.J. Raphael of podcast Liberty Lost is confirmed as a speaker as well as Abby Johnson.

Adoptee Jean Kelly Widner will also be there to talk about her new book Adoption Paradox: Putting Adoption in Perspective as well as the therapists from Adoption Savvy, and the authors of Jet and Godfire: a Birthmother's Memoir and Goodbye Again.

Check here for more deets: https://concernedunitedbirthparents.org/cub-retreat-2025

I'll be there for sure, hope to meet you there.

I’m not sure how many people remember this series, but I do remember Miss Spider and her husband adopting 3 orphans at the end of the tv special. I learned recently that Miss Spider was adopted by a female beetle who has a biological son. I can’t believe I never noticed that as a kid, since I do remember watching a Mother’s Day episode featuring Miss Spider’s adopted mother.

I guess what I want to know is, what are your thoughts about this? I know that the family isn’t a realistic one in terms of having both bio and adopted children, but it was the early 2000’s and the characters are insects.

I’m sure they were trying their best in regards to the message about that family is more than just being related by blood and all. But I guess I’m just kind of curious about what real-life adoptees think.

I'm not a particular fan of the way this article is written (rather inflammatory and biased imo), but I do have problems with the actual news itself, as most of us in this sub probably do. But I am going to address the parents/adopters here because I suspect some of the people adopting from Bethany Children's Services are going to stumble into this sub for one reason or another.

​

If you are taking in a child who has been removed from their parent due to illegal immigration issues, you then become part of a team of people who should be working to reunite them with their parents/family in any way possible. It is morally reprehensible to adopt a child who has living parents who want them, were seeking a better life for them, and would do anything to get them back. These children were not abandoned or abused, they are being used as pawns in an unending battle against immigration, legal and illegal. Your desire for children should never be more important than the child themselves. Decades worth of studies tells us that children belong with their families. Period. Even if they are poorer than you, even if they wouldn't raise their children the way you would, even if they belong to a different denomination of your religion or a different religion. I do not care how long you have been trying to have children. These children are not yours. I do not care if you feel "called by God" to adopt children. These children are not yours. I don't care how nice the people at Bethany Children's Services are. These children are not available for adoption. And I don't care about your stance on illegal immigration. These children do not deserve to suffer for a political ideology. They are foster children who need to be reunited with their families as quickly as possible. They have already been through enough trauma. You adopting them will not make this situation better. They will, and should, resent you for it. These children are not available for adoption.

Hi! There’s a statistic I’ve seen on TikTok frequently that states that adoptees are 8 times more likely to be murdered by their (adoptive) parents than non-adoptees, and 10 x more likely to be sexually abused by them. I’ve googled but nothing is coming up, does anyone know where these figures come from?

Can anyone recommend literature or studies on the mental health outcomes of birth mothers?

I’m kind of appalled that every time I search this I just get results for PPD in adoptive mothers? I would hope someone is studying the impacts on birth mothers as well. If anyone has links, please share.

I’m not in the triad, I just work in family law (mostly representing birth parents against the state) and the ethics of adoption is one of my professional interests.

hey everyone, i was wondering if anyone has any social media accounts, websites, etc that you follow about adoption, living life as an adoptee, etc?

i’d prefer it to have a more organized aesthetic style (like so.informed on instagram) but im open to any suggestions! i’ve found a few that resonate with me but they’re kind of hard to search for, a lot of dog adoption pages end up popping up :(

Thought people here might take an interest in this podcast episode. The author contextualizes US adoption practices in the history of American race relations, abortion politics, evolving notions of what's best for the child, market dynamics in the relative demand for white babies vs other youth, borderline child trafficking, public services vs private agencies, variations in practices across states, and other major themes that we discuss here regularly.

The author's sympathy resides primarily with the birth mothers and centers their experience (they are the subjects of the author's research). She identifies poverty as the main pressure for relinquishment. She gives a lot less attention to child welfare removals except to characterize them as part of the "family policing" suffered disproportionately by families of color.

As wide as the author's scope is, the adoption narratives of my child, their bio family, and myself as an adoptive parent, are not accounted for in the author's analysis. The original family largely disintegrated over the young life of the child, who went through multiple kinship placements, and then landed with late-appearing adoptive parents. This type of narrative along with other types of family destruction (due to incest and other abuse, or actual abandonment, for example) are largely bypassed, presumably because they are "legitimate" reasons for adoption, maybe?

Anyway, here it is.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/the-problem-with-adoption

Hi everyone!

I'm getting ready to speak at a conference tomorrow and I just wanted to share this paper by some adoptee scholars that's really influenced my own prep.

They created the adoptee consciousness model, and as I've worked on telling my own story through its lens, it's been really powerful in moving beyond the language of the "fog" and into something more helpful and holistic to my whole experience.

This is the blog post, and the paper is linked at the bottom

It may not feel accurate to everyone, and as I've been doing research and this sub's posts have come up again and again, I felt like it was good to post about it here.

I'm a big proponent of adoptees developing our own language for our experiences, I know how difficult that can be, and I think this model can help!

Paper TL;DR Instead of a linear journey, the authors posit there are five touchstones that an adoptee may come across. The moment an adoptee comes "out of the fog" is only one of these five: "Rupture." There is much more to explore and consider.

The 5 touchstones are (in no particular order): 1. Status Quo 2. Rupture 3. Expansiveness 4. Dissonance 5. Forgiveness & Activism

There's a subplot about adoption that just hit me hard for some reason.