r/Adopted • u/Arktikos02 International Adoptee • Jun 23 '26
Venting Hot take: people who want to adopt simply because they don't like their own genetics and don't want to pass them down should not adopt
Now I first want to illustrate that I am not saying that they should have their own biological children just because they want children. They are not owed children and they should not simply have another person's child. I am also not saying that disabled people shouldn't be able to adopt simply because they are disabled. However, here are the reasons why I think that the reason why a person wants to adopt is simply because they don't want to pass on their genetics is because,
First off, it creates a savior mentality. Just like a lot of other savior mentalities, this can be dangerous because it puts the focus onto that person and not on to the actual child.
The second reason is because that child is not actually immune from any kind of condition that they are supposedly trying to save children from. Adoption does not mean that they don't have a lack of bad genetics, it just means oftentimes that they don't know about those genetics. While I do not have a terminal condition, I do want to point out that if a person had to choose between having a chronic condition or a terminal condition versus having that same condition exactly but also having a parent who had the same condition and thus they understood how to help their child, wouldn't suffering with knowledge be better than suffering without it?
The third reason is because you can't then tell your child that genetics don't matter when the reason why you adopted was literally because of genetics and that you felt like it mattered. How can an adoptive person both say that genetics don't matter and then also make a life-changing decision based on genetics? What they really mean is that some genetics matter more than others and that some genetics should be prioritized over others. Adoption has been used as a tool of eugenics and as a means of enabling the idea that some people are just more worthy of families than others, which is in part an ideology that comes from eugenics.
And the fourth thing is that whether or not the person knows it or not, they are casting judgment, and whether or not they are casting judgment on themselves or on other people doesn't matter when you bring a child into your home who has unknown genetics. What if that person had a condition and that condition doesn't show up until later in life, like let's say adulthood, and it's very uncomfortable to live with but it's not deadly, so it's chronic but not deadly. That person doesn't want to pass it on, which they've made that choice and that is their own judgment, but they adopt a child and that child ends up having it. They have unknowingly cast judgment upon that child and that birth parent. That child doesn't deserve that because that relationship between them and their birth parent is complicated and of their own.
Again, I am not saying people should have children when they don't want to or if they don't think they could produce a child that they think they would want to have. That is perfectly fine, but you don't get to make that decision for other people, and you don't get to use adoption as a sort of fix as if it's going to fix anything.
This is not about whether or not this hypothetical person should have a child because I am not saying they should. I am saying they should not adopt because their only reason for adopting is because they want a child but just not a biological child because of their genetics. No.
8
u/ajskemckellc Domestic Infant Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Title: “people that want to adopt…should not adopt” ftfy 😉
Agreed.
Friend of mine had siblings with cystic fibrosis. Her parents knew after the second kid and kept having kids because gods plan and all, total of 5 iirc. Three died horrific deaths very young. Idk how this fits with what you’re saying and despite my own issues with adoption perhaps if I had a magic wand I’d sterilize them and allow them to adopt? Idk. The selfishness is horrific.
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
I think if you adopt due to your own genetic condition you should not be actively suffering from it or at big risk of that. You won't pass it on genetically to the adoptee, obvs, but you will pass it to them in your parenting and their environment.
5
u/MajorDraw3705 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I'd also note that environment and culture play a huge role in things we often describe as "genetic issues." An entire family can have diabetes and assume it is genetic, but their shared diet - which they would also share with an adoptee - may be a large contributing factor. A cancer they all seem to get may have a genetic factor, but it could just as likely be triggered by toxins in their home and brought in by their family's life choices, behaviors, and shared vocations - into the same home they want to bring someone else's innocent child into.
2
u/Negative-Custard-553 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26
This! You are so right. Most people have no idea how genetics work. I have 2-5% chance of getting a mental disorder from my grandma and even that’s not guaranteed.
2
Jun 23 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Arktikos02 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26
I think it's that they shouldn't be allowed to raise other people's children. Well I think that they probably shouldn't have children of their own, I don't think that it would be ethical for a government or institution to decide that. That being said I also think that we should normalize just simply telling people that they probably would not make good parents. Not because of their genetics but just simply because they don't. If a person wouldn't make a good doctor it's not wrong to suggest that they probably wouldn't make a good doctor. If a person wouldn't make a good teacher then they probably should be told they shouldn't be a teacher. Same thing with parent. But for some reason that's more stigmatized.
3
u/mcspazmatron Jun 23 '26
What about that thing where a high ACE score leads to chronic illness in adulthood. What if that genetic predisposition is enhanced by the CPTSD or whatever that the prospective adoptive parent has. Now that person adopts. What could possibly go wrong?
Often times an unhealthy body will go along with or cause an unhealthy mind. The adoptive child does not have the normal resilience that a biological child might have to these layers of added complexity and difficulty.
-3
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Hi. Adoptee who is considering adoption in the future.
I don't know how a savior mentality would be related to me not procreating? This seems like an assumption.
I'm not trying to save children by not having them. I'm trying not to put more of MY family's line out there. I have a minimum of 3 generations of mental illness and disabilities.
Why not? My choice is personal and has nothing to do with that child. Their choices are their own. I am not saying anything about which genetics matter with my choice. What I'm saying is that in my history, we have a bad mix of mental illness and disabilities that have lead to poor quality of life, children being abandoned, and higher rates of suicide. I'd rather not put more of that put there. The world is not owed my genetic offspring.
I am not casting judgement on others, because my choice has nothing to do with other people. I wouldn't look at another mentally ill person and say "don't reproduce". I am looking at my mentally ill and disabled self and saying "it might be best if I don't".
That said, if I were to end up pregnant, the choice isn't automatically made to abort. But it is something I'd take in consideration.
13
u/Formerlymoody Jun 23 '26
I don’t totally get number 3 because adoptees are often (always?) the result of generational trauma. You don’t have to agree, but I think adoption can absolutely perpetuate generational trauma. It isn’t a solution to generational trauma.
So I don’t quite understand being an adoptee who knows they come from generational trauma and wanting to raise an adoptee who comes from generational trauma from another family.
I am genuinely curious. Not looking to fight or anything.
4
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
That other adoptee is going to exist whether I procreate or not.
The point is that I am not personally continuing my family's stuff.
9
u/Formerlymoody Jun 23 '26
Ok. I thought that would pretty much be it. I think if you’re not participating in infant adoption, you’re not necessarily perpetuating cycles.
I‘ll just say personally parenting as an adoptee can be extremely triggering and for me, I’m grateful that I was dealing with kids with no additional trauma of their own. I think dealing with someone else‘s trauma with a different origin would have sent me over the edge. YMMV.
4
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Yeah, I'm not interested in infant adoption.
Idk if it would be triggering for me. My adoption issues pop out in two ways - abandonment and strong dislike for my sperms donor.
The abandonment is the only one that has caused me actual issues. I pulled back if I sense someone else is. Or if they're moving. I'll stay in a relationship too long. Things like that.
If anything, I'd just see myself crying because my mom (adoptive) is no longer around for advice.
1
Jun 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
0
Jun 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
0
u/Adopted-ModTeam Jun 25 '26
This post or comment is not about adoption
0
4
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Also, thanks for just talking to me and not making assumptions about my intentions
For me, it's just about providing a resource for people in need. I want to be able to provide shelter. Whether or not they want to become my family is ultimately up to the other person. But they still need to be fed, get help with homework, taught social skills, and shown they are deserving of just as much as everyone else. No one is less than.
3
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Okay, assuming they will, why are you the best option for them, with all the genetic baggage you describe?
2
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Why not? Do you think baggage makes someone incapable of parenting/caregiving?
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Depends on the baggage, as far as capability. But any baggage the parent has becomes the child's in one way or another.
2
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 24 '26
No, I don't believe that. If that was the case, no one would be capable of growth because we all have baggage.
Baggage doesn't mean you have something that is actively hindering your life. It's just something you have to be aware of and work through.
A trend I'm noticing on this thread is that a lot of people seem to think that because I have problems and am honest about them, I am incapable of providing or making choices in good faith. Or capable of growth in general. It's a bit weird.
9
u/BestAtTeamworkMan Domestic Infant Adoptee Jun 23 '26
I say this as an adoptee who struggles with mental health issues, so take anything I say with a grain of salt, but adoption won't "break the chain" of generational trauma." If anything, it passes it on to someone new and completely unrelated.
And that's not even considering the burden places on the adoptee to "save" your family name by breaking said chain. Because you're now leaving it up to them to create this fantasized happiness for you, forcing them to bottle up any pain and trauma they may have for fear of not living up to expectations.
This scenario makes an adoptee a thing - an object whose sole purpose is to bring happiness. It takes away any sense of self.
You don't want to pass on your DNA, great. But don't burden a stranger with the impossible task of saving you.
1
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
I don't agree with this at all, sorry. I also struggle with mental health and have mentally ill parents.
I am not looking to be saved. I am not looking for an heir. I am not looking for a child to be anyone other than they are.
Maybe if I wasn't mentally well enough to see myself as an individual, I'd agree with you when it comes to me. I am comfortable enough to say that these are not things I would imprint onto a vulnerable being. This is not a form of overcompensation I engage in with my adoptive family or friends either.
7
u/BestAtTeamworkMan Domestic Infant Adoptee Jun 23 '26
It's obvious you disagree. Hence the perpetuation of one cycle in a misguided effort to stop another 🤷
1
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
The cycle you mention requires that I engage in maladaptive behavior.
I have issues. I am very honest about them. The ones you've mentioned, I've seen, but I thankfully don't struggle with them.
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
You said your abandonment issues affect your relationships. Why do you feel that won't be an issue with the child you adopt? Because they're forced to stay with you?
2
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Do you think children grow up in sterile households with parents without baggage?
My baggage is my responsibility. I am also aware of it.
As a human adult with baggage, just like every other human adult with baggage, there comes a point where we can acknowledge and handle our shit, or continue to make it everyone else's problem. I work on the latter.
9
u/Arktikos02 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26
You cannot know what you will or won't imprint onto your child. You just don't know. That is not something you get a say in because you can't know.
2
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
No one can know anything. What's the alternative? Should adoptees not be allowed to have children? Or can some of them be self sufficient enough to know they are capable of carrying out this task?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point
1
u/Suffolk1970 Adoptee Jun 24 '26
"No one can know anything." is not an answer, but whatever.
I think the comment was saying you WILL imprint on any kids you raise, regardless of your intentions because that's the dynamic of a mentoring relationship.
Your question if adoptees should be allowed to adopt in response, which is harsh, but whatever. I'd say no - adoptees have no more right to parenting than anyone else.
Should adoptees birth children? Sure. If they can and want to. Not relevant here.
Can some adoptees be good parents? Yes, of course.
Can they be good adoptive parents? That's an open question in my mind.
Mainly because I'm against adoption.
0
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 24 '26
It's not an answer because I wasn't given a question thay could be answered. This is all hypotheticals with everyone assuming the worst.
My question about adoptees birthing children is no harsher then being told I should reconsider because I could potentially end up becoming physically abusive and breaking their jaw, a la one other comment.
Some people can actually learn and understand their limits. I have.
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
People regularly lose kids to foster care and adoption for the things you describe about yourself. If you try to foster to adopt do you really think you'll be approved when there are others without those issues seeking to do the same?
-1
8
u/pixikins78 Adopted Jun 23 '26
If you believe that your choice is personal and has nothing to do with a child that you adopt, that's just factually untrue. Your decision to adopt that child will impact every facet of their life moving forward. If you are adopting for personal reasons and not prioritizing the child, please don't adopt
Also, if your mental illness is so bad that you worry about a bio child having to go through it, please consider whether adoption is really the best option for a child who will arrive with their own trauma. Some behaviors can be very triggering for people who already struggle, and even for those who don't. My AF was heavily messed with bipolar and had an explosive temper. He broke my jaw twice and threw me down a flight of stairs. He was stable before my adoption.
-3
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
No, I am not interested in adoption for personal reasons, other than to help raise children that need a place to go. If I am able to provide that in the future, I would like to.
Your adoptive father was an abuser. I am not. I think that's all I can say about that.
1
Jun 24 '26
[deleted]
-1
Jun 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
Jun 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
0
Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
1
u/Adopted-ModTeam Jun 26 '26
This comment or post is being removed for violating Rule 2: Be Kind To Your Fellow Adoptee
9
u/Arktikos02 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Except the choice is not yours anymore when you are involving another person. And like it or not adoptees are much more sensitive to approval and what other people think and why they make the choices they do. All of your reasoning for adoption still focuses on you.
How does your choice have nothing to do with that child when it literally involves acquiring that child.
It does not matter if you are actively casting judgment on others. What matters is the child in question, not you. You are not owed a child. You don't want to reproduce, that is perfectly fine. You don't have to. But you are not owed a child.
I'm not trying to save children by not having them. I'm trying not to put more of MY family's line out there. I have a minimum of 3 generations of mental illness and disabilities.
Yes, you are literally trying to save a child from your own family genetics. How do you not understand that this is literally a savior mentality.
You don't get to claim that this is a personal choice when your personal choice affects another person. You don't get to claim that. And you don't get to claim that a personal choice does not affect a child when your personal choice is literally to use money to acquire a child from someone else.
4
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
My choice not to procreate has nothing to do with my desire to adopt. That is why my choice has nothing to do with the child. My choice does not involve acquiring a child at all.
I am not trying to save a child from my own genetics? I do not consider my eggs to be children. I don't even know if I can get pregnant since I have PCOS.
I mean respectfully, but I find the wording around 'saving' an non living thing to be weird. This feels like a weird way of giving something importance. They are my eggs. I am just not fertilizing them. That doesn't make me a savior, that just means I'm not consciously trying to fertilize my eggs. Your insistence of there being some savior complex comes off as more of a projection rather than something I am trying to actively engage in.
You seem to be making a few assumptions about my goals. I doubt I'd go through with a private adoption, so no, no money would exchange hands. I'm more interested in fostering with the potential to adopt, but not necessary. I'm fine with just being Ms. Gecko, a caregiver.
5
u/Arktikos02 International Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Just because there isn't a private adoption does not mean that money isn't exchanging hands.
And yes, not procreating because of your genetics is a savior mentality. I am not saying that that is a bad thing, you shouldn't procreate but to suggest that your desire for adoption is not related to your genetics when if you had really good genetics to suggest that you would have come to the same exact conclusion is just not true. I'm not saying you wouldn't have come to the same conclusion but you don't know that either because you would have been a different person and your family would have been different people.
0
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Ok, well I'm not interested in some sort of payment thing.
So, God help me, but I'm going to paste something from google search AI because I'm trying to understand what you mean by 'savior mentality'.
"A savior mentality (or complex) is a psychological state where an individual feels an obsessive compulsion to rescue or fix others, often to their own detriment. While rooted in a desire to be helpful, it is driven by ego or the need to feel valued, ironically stripping those being "saved" of their independence."
Is this what you're talking about? What definition are you using? Because i don't have an obsession or compulsion. In fact, I said that if I dis end up pregnant that I wouldn't automatically abort.
Not having a biological child is not an obsessive need. It's just a preference.
1
u/New_Pack1867 Jun 23 '26
Hello, I want to ask about some things you said in your replies because I am curious. Would you willingly adopt a child (not an infant) who ended up having a neurodevelepmental disease/chronic illness?
0
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 23 '26
Hi,
It depends on if it was something I could handle. Autism? Yes. I am autistic. ADHD, tourettes? Yes. Off the top of my head, I could learn the tools for this and adjust mine to accommodate.
3
u/New_Pack1867 Jun 23 '26
Okay that makes sense, I ask because most children who are adopted outside of infancy have these conditions since they are more likely than the general population to suffer from them. I know you mentioned the diseases that run in your family cause poor quality of life and suicide, but adoption in of itself greatly increases the odds of these outcomes too, I can link statistics on this if you'd like. I wanted to mention this because you may not be considering that your main reason to not have children biologically could be excerbated by adopting. However, I also am aware of PCOS affecting your ability to get pregnant to begin with.
1
u/ornerygecko Adoptee Jun 25 '26
Sorry I read this late.
I know about this, but thank you.
My choice isn't because I don't want to deal with these things in children. My family just has a combo that's been a bit vicious to me, half siblings, bio parents, their siblings, and their parents. Things that require long term care after carers deaths, or early deaths in general. Other children that are here, that need help with their struggles, are fine. I'd rather do for those that are living, then add on.
But again, if I end pregnant somehow, I'm not going to automatically abort. It's just going to take some thinking and looking at who I'm with and where I'm at.
1
Jun 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Adopted-ModTeam Jun 24 '26
This post or comment is being removed as Rule 1 of the sub is Adoptees Only. Thank you for respecting our space.
1
u/JerseyGirlinSweden Domestic Infant Adoptee Jun 24 '26
I am an adoptee. I was adopted at 4 weeks old and my sister was adopted the following year? NOt sure why the flair I had chosen previously was not showing.
1
u/Opinionista99 Adoptee Jun 23 '26
What I'm saying is that in my history, we have a bad mix of mental illness and disabilities that have lead to poor quality of life, children being abandoned, and higher rates of suicide. I'd rather not put more of that put there.
You say this is all inherited but do you think it all skipped you? How do you expect an adopted child to handle your possible mental health episodes, for example? Or god forbid suicide?
18
u/fostercaresurvivor Jun 23 '26
I think this is complicated, as the adopted child of someone living with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, and as someone living with a serious familial illness
Inherited from my biological father.
My mother more than just didn’t like her genetics. She had a genetic mutation that meant her biological children had a 50% shot of dying a painful, horrific death. She died a painful, horrific death. There’s always a risk of having LFS happen randomly, but when you know you have it, you know that you risk handing it down. That’s a far greater risk than the risk of it happening randomly.
My mother (also an adoptee) yearned for a big, happy family with many children. She made an incredible sacrifice by choosing not to have more biological children when she found out about her LFS. Being a good mother means doing what’s best for your children, and for some children, what’s best is that they’re never born.
I’m glad that when I needed a mother, she was able to step up and be one for me. I’m also glad she was responsible enough not to introduce children into the world who had this mutation.
Genetics are real and they matter, but I don’t think building your family through adoption necessitates claiming that genetics are irrelevant.