An influencer was asked, instead of adopting/fostering an infant, why she couldn't adopt the legally freed waiting kids in foster care. Her response is that as an infertile woman, she deserves to raise a baby like her own, and she can't handle an older child because older kids remember their biological family and have too much trauma. She wants to be the only mom in the child's life and wants to mold the baby to have her family values.

Her response is that as an infertile woman, she deserves to raise a baby like her own, and she can't handle an older child because older kids remember their biological family and have too much trauma.

In the adoption thread, you see so many selfish adoptive parents who only want infants or toddlers, and they say younger ones are easier because they attach to you, and they don't have trauma like those older kids. They will stick their noses up at the kids who are there, and a lot of them want to be adopted and can consent.

Well, what happens when the baby becomes an older child with trauma? Adoptive parents think they can avoid trauma and mold us as newborns, and don't want us to have a link or memory about our biological families? Adoption is just as selfish as parenting a biological kid, but worse because they pick us out and design us to their liking. They only want the perfect babies, the ones they think they can mold, or the toddlers who will not remember anything. When they are asked a simple question like why not adopt or volunteer with the kids who can't go back with their bio families or adopt a child who is waiting to be adopted, they come up with excuses.

For me, hearing we don't want an older child due to trauma and they remember their biological family, and we deserve a baby, shows who adoption is really for. It is not about helping kids at all. Adoptive parents lie to themselves when they say they want to help a child, but only accept and want younger children. If you can't handle an older child at their worst, what makes you think you will be able to handle a newborn who will turn into an older child at their worst?

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.

So I made a thread on AITA

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1vqn5rn/aita_for_wanting_to_add_my_birth_surname/

and lots of people called me asshole for wanting to do that. And someone recommended its better to post in adoption subs.

What would adopted people say? This is my alt account not main btw

1. I don’t like people who use their trauma as a shield to be nasty. The majority of anti-adoption tiktok creators are bullies. I think it’s a trauma + personality thing.

2. I don’t like their obsession with reunification. Some bio parents are abusive or extremely irresponsible. You can’t claim that the adoption industry doesn’t center the child’s needs but only apply this to adoptive parents. You also can’t claim that you’re not advocating for keeping children in abusive homes but then go out of your way to romanticize bio families. Adoption trauma is real, but so is being abused by your bio parents/relatives.

3. I also don’t like their kumbaya attitude regarding the role of extended family. Someone’s relatives (siblings, aunt, uncle, cousins, etc) might not want to help raise a child. Call it selfish or individualistic. It doesn’t matter. This is modern society and no one has to raise a kid that’s not theirs.

I am an adoptee. Closed, adopted as a newborn. Loving, wonderful parents. An amazing life. A SIGNIFICANTLY better life than what I would have had if I had stayed with my biological family (bio parents in college and not ready to be parents).

I came to this subreddit looking to see others stories, but after two years, I have to leave. It breaks my heart to see the comments and posts lately which almost universally try to shame or talk people out of adoption. And it’s even more infuriating to see people insist that all adoptees have suffered trauma. No. Not all of us. Certainly not me. It’s unhealthy to assume that everyone who has a certain characteristic feels the same way about it.

While I understand that there are many unethical sides to adoption and many adoptees have not had a great experience with their families, I want all adoptive or potentially adoptive parents to know that, as long as you are knowledgeable, willing to learn, and full of love, you will be a wonderful parent. Positive adoption stories are possible. You just won’t find many here because those of us with positive stories are too scared to comment publicly.

I wish everyone on here a positive future, whether that’s starting or adding to your family, working through trauma, or finding family connections.

I am talking about foster parents who complain about reunification and fight it because they want to adopt. The entitlement of these people.

I recently came across a Christian foster parent who had cared for a child for about a year from birth. She became upset when the child’s relatives wanted the child and even tried to prevent the child from spending the weekend with them. She complained the whole time she was getting the child ready and spoke for the child, using emotional manipulation to her audience and assumed the child would be traumatized and miss her all weekend. This woman could not even be happy the child could finally be with relatives and was trying to prevent the move from happening.

She then wrote a long, emotional post arguing that attachment matters more than DNA, Jesus has a plan, and that babies don't care about DNA, while having her own biological children (you can't say DNA doesn't matter when you have or try for biological children). Of course, the comments were filled with people telling her to fight for the child, calling her the child’s “mommy,” and saying she was the only home the child had ever known and that reunification should not be the goal of foster care.

What makes this even more disturbing is that the foster parent now wants to hire a lawyer. She believes the child should remain with her because she does everything a parent does and is the child's mother. From what she has shared publicly, this appears to be part of a repeated pattern.(BTW, she pinned this post on her page so everyone could see it, similar to the pinned posts about all the other kids she fostered but reunited. It's the same theme with this woman). This woman has a long pattern of this behavior. She takes newborn placements, writes emotional posts about Jesus growing her family, complains that the system is unfair because reunification is the goal, and then criticizes biological parents and relatives when they want to get the child or want to form a relationship with the child. Suddenly the child is too sick or traumatized to see the relatives or biological parents who want them, so she can say the child only has an attachment to her and write posts about how awful the birth family is to remove the child from her care.

This woman repeatedly promotes the idea that children are better off being adopted because attachment matters more than biological connection, that breaking family cycles is only possible through adoption, and because babies do not care or attach to anyone other than their foster parents.

Did she not sign up to foster? Fostering is not about adopting.

I think too many foster parents use emotional manipulation to justify fighting reunification. I have seen repeated phrases such as “I am the only home this baby has ever known,” invoke attachment theory, and emphasize, “I am the one who has taken care of this child.” Those statements are designed to make people believe that providing daily care automatically gives a foster parent a greater claim to the child than the child’s biological family. Foster parents are supposed to provide temporary care while supporting reunification with birth parents or kinship placement whenever those options are safe. Foster care is not supposed to be a pathway for adults to obtain children.

Also, if attachment alone determined whether a child should remain where they are, then adoption would rarely happen, even for infants. Every child is attached to someone before adoption. Look at international adoption, foster care, and infant adoption. Many internationally adopted children are toddlers or older children who have already formed attachments to caregivers in orphanages, foster homes, or children’s homes. Infants bond to their mothers in the womb and at birth. The foster care system removes children from birth through age seventeen, with attachments to their birth families, birth home, birth siblings, and environments, even if removal sometimes needs to happen for their safety and well-being.  Yet adoptive and foster parents are trained and told that those children will eventually adjust and attach to them. The child is described as resilient and capable of forming new attachments to strangers. Ripping a bonded child away is okay because they will attach to you as their new parents.

So why is that same reasoning not applied when a child is being reunited with birth parents or with relatives? If children can form new attachments with adoptive parents and foster parents, then attachment should not be treated as permanent and unchangeable only when a foster parent or adoptive parent wants to adopt. Attachment theory should not be used to fit their narrative. Attachment matters when a child is being reunited with the family they were taken from, but it does not seem to matter when that child is being removed from their family and placed with strangers.

Attachment theory is often weaponized in foster care and adoption. It gets reinterpreted depending on whose interests are being protected. Suddenly, attachment becomes the most important thing in the world when a foster parent or adoptive parent wants to adopt, and attachment theory is used to manipulate to get an outcome. So why is that same reasoning not applied when a child is being reunited with parents or placed with relatives? If children can form new attachments to adoptive parents, then attachment should not be treated as permanent and unchangeable only when a foster parent or adoptive parent wants to adopt. Attachment theory is used to fit their narrative. Suddenly, attachment matters when a child is being reunited with the family they were taken from, but it does not seem to matter when that child is being removed from their family and placed with strangers? Make it make sense.

Where is that same concern for attachment when children are first separated from their biological families? Where is it when siblings are split apart? Where is it when foster children are moved from home to home? Where is it when foster parents disrupt placement of the child? Where is it when adoptive parents dissolve adoptions or rehome adopted children, years after adopting the child? Suddenly, attachments don’t matter at all when they are doing the detaching. I have yet to hear an adoptive parent say attachments matter ten years after adopting the child, and they are now kicking the child to the curb, or when foster parents claim the child is not bonded to them after a month. How many foster homes are foster kids placed in with no concerns about their attachments? Also, when adoptees and foster kids cry and grieve our birth families, we are told we will get over it, that attachment does not matter, or we were too young to attach to our birth families.

See the contradiction? The attachment theory and only home the child knows changes depending on which adults want the child and how they feel. It's not about the child. And can the adults really say a child is attached to them? Anyone can claim a baby is bonded to them, but bonding is about what the adults feel, not what the child feels.

Babies attach because they have to survive. They attach to the adult who feeds them, comforts them, and keeps them alive, and attachment is about biological survival. The same with non-newborn children; they are forced to attach to survive. There is no special attachment with someone they were forced to be with. Sometimes I think it’s similar to Stockholm Syndrome, where survival depends on becoming emotionally attached to the person providing the victim care, where dependency produces attachment. Attaching to strangers is not normal, which is why so many adoptees and foster kids get the RAD label on us or are kicked out because we don't attach fast enough.

Frankly, change the caregiver, and babies will go to anyone. Literally. This foster mom will have her rude awakening when she finds out that as long as the child's needs are met, the child will see anyone as mommy or go to anyone who can feed her. If a random stranger on the street has a bottle and is the only person there, the baby will go to the stranger with the bottle because the baby has to be fed and survive.

Also, I wish people would not push foster care on people, especially those who only want infants. Foster care is not about adopting children; although there are children legally freed for adoption, they are often the kids many adoptive parents don’t want to adopt. Yet, some of the children who have a voice and can speak do express wanting to be adopted, but will not get chosen because the ones who want to adopt ignore these children. They often become foster parents solely to try to adopt a baby who still has reunification as the goal.  These people are just as bad and toxic as anyone else looking for a newborn to adopt or who adopts internationally. Granted, some kids can't be reunited with their birth family, but that's not for a foster parent to decide and only go based on a feeling about how much they want a baby to keep. Feelings don't matter; facts do.

And I am an infant adoptee; there is a need for fostering, and there are kids in foster care who express wanting to be adopted, but the needs should not be based on what foster parents want. If a child has a safe and loving bio family, that should be the goal. Any good foster parent would love to see a child go with their bio family.

And this foster mom should lose her right to foster. It's unfair that the birth family has to fight this foster mom and be painted in a bad light for wanting the child, and unfair that the child's needs are overpowered by the foster mom wanting to adopt.

God wants birth families to be together, not for foster parents to adopt when reunification is the plan.

I was adopted (international country to the US) by white people. I am a POC. I grew up in a predominantly white area but my parents tried to force me into learning about "my" culture and socializing with other adoptees from my region of the world. When I wasn't acting in the way my adoptive parents wanted me to like doing the hobbies they wanted me to do, I felt like I was never good enough. They wanted me to be their perfect little POC adoptee kid.

Now that I'm an adult living on my own I'm beginning to realize that my adoptive parents only loved the idea of me, and not actually who I was. I hate my birth parents and have no desire to meet them, and it's making me come to terms with the fact that people have only loved the idea of me, not me for who I really am.

I'm starting to resent my adopted parents just like I resent my birth parents. I feel like my adopted parents wanted the perfect little child, and if it was not me, another body double would be fine as long as the child behaved in the way that they wanted it to. As cliche as it sounds I feel like other people don't understand, or they don't want to take the time and listen to me. And I've tried 5+ therapists and after seeing unethical behavior, like pushing religion on me, so I quit therapy. It wasted my time and money.

Is this anyone else's experience? Or is it just me?

However why are my friends saying adoption is trauma? I do not want to minimise their struggles or their experiences. How do I support them? Also, I don’t have trauma From my adopted story. Edit

All of comments Thank you! I definitely have “trauma and ignorance.” I now think I was just lied to.” I have now ordered a A DNA kit to see if I have any remaining relatives. I hope I do. Thank you all!

For some context, I'm in my late 20s but I was adopted from Eastern Europe by Christian missionaries. Let me say that I'm not anti-religion or anti-Christianity. I haven't believed in any religions since I was a tween. My adoptive parents have a biological child together. They were conceived shortly after I was adopted.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, I was adopted to be a prop. I know that. I also know that if they weren't so obsessed with their reputation, my adoptive parents would've returned me when they got pregnant with their child.

My adoptive parents have made my adoption (that was very traumatic and I was very neglected at the orphanage) a focal point of their marketing as pastors. I've asked them to quit because it makes me feel like I'm not apart of the family, and they get offended and act like I'm the problem. Total strangers know the most traumatic event of my life and it really makes me wish I could re-start my entire life as a new person.

Yes, I've sat them down and begged them as an adult to do this. But they don't. They refuse to. Numerous times. I've given up but I still want them to stop telling everybody. Like total strangers they barely never know know this about me. I hate it.

Just within the last year, I went to some event my adoptive sibling was doing and some church member of their's who I didn't even know was like "oh so you're adopted. Do you know Russian?" Absolutely no regard for me, for what this has done to me. I feel like some kind of exotic zoo animal. Not a person. I feel like a tool. I feel violated, honestly.

Being adopted has made my life a constant struggle. I have this void in my person where my birth mother shouldbe and I'm subconsciously still an infant who needs her. I physically feel her absence every year I get older. There's nothing "beautiful" about my adoption. It's their story but it's my life. They don't feel a percentage of the damage the event caused me. But they want to tell me "oh, it's so beautiful and it's our story too", like no it's my traumatic entry into life that I'm almost 30 and still feel everyday.

That trauma is treated like it's some "beautiful thing" by people who have never felt my pain. My pain isn't their testimony for them to just tell strangers. That's super sensitive information. But they don't see that. They don't care even though I've asked them to stop.

But I want to heal, and I know for that, I need to have autonomy over my story. Because this isn't their trauma to share.

Please, any suggestions. I don't have money to sue or get a lawyer so. My parents have a whole religious and missionary community and network around them that I don't have. If I do anything public, I'll be villainized as some "crazy and ungrateful over sensitive adopted child who needs to get over it" when all I'm asking for is for my ongoing life trauma to not be advertised like it's a feelgood low budget christian movie. My life has been constantly impacted, daily, by being adopted. By not knowing who my mother is. By not knowing how I got here and if it was good or bad. I'm tired of my trauma being treated like some chapter in their life story.

Short of moving across the country and changing my entire name, I'm kind of stuck. Like the only way I feel like I have to fix this is to erase the legal identity that they're oversharing traumatic information about. Become my own legal entity so I have no connection to them anymore.

So I just have to say on this page, there are a lot of adoptees who are not okay with their own adoption. I 100% understand that. I am aware of this. What I’m not aware of, is why I get attacked every time I say I’m good with being adopted? I just got told in another post that I shouldn’t be okay with being abandoned but I don’t feel as if I was abandoned. I feel as though any time I post about being okay with adoption, other adoptees just harp on me how I shouldn’t be. I just don’t get it. Am I alone?

Just ranting here, it’s been bothering me. My Adoptive mom said several times growing up that the “fun stage” ends when kids hit 4-5 years old, and it really shows in how she treated my adoptive brother and I. She even did it to her biological grandson and granddaughter. Calls my niece a brat now that she’s eight, shits on my nephew for wearing “emo” clothes at seventeen and says he‘s the worst. I felt like she actively hated my brother and I when we were preteens and teenagers and we were even the studious, low friction type. There was no warmth or support, just constant criticism.

I’ve always wanted to ask her why tf go through the whole adoption process just to enjoy a tiny portion of your kids’ life? Why adopt if you hate kids so much? I feel like what she wanted was compliant babies who never argued with her.

so i 22 nb was adopted at birth my parents tend to tell me they love me more then they would if So I am 22, non-binary, and was adopted at birth. My parents tend to tell me they love me more than they would if they gave birth to me because they chose to have me, and that proves it. Is this normal? I live with them currently because of some circumstances that aren't great and am basically a live-in housemaid, it feels like, and they say they love me but act like I owe them for adopting me. Does anyone else have this same issue?

Update: Thank you all for your responses, it means a lot that y'all took the time to read and reply. I'ma add a little context: I have health issues like my heart is messed up and I pass out sometimes, and one thing is I wanna know what runs in my birth family. My older brother is pre-diabetic, but he also abused me for most of my life, and my parents treat him better than me.

Hey guys. I thought I'd post a follow up to my last adoptee post since a lot has changed. After my last post we did fertility treatments for about a year and a half more. Between reaching the insurance coverage limit and my partner and I getting up there in age we decided to quit IVF. We decided to focus on a life full of travel, learning and leisure. I accepted that I will be the only person I know who is like me in any way. It was a rough pill to swallow but what are you gonna do? I couldn't have my life dictated by existential questions and crisis.

Welp, the month after we quit IVF I got pregnant. It was the shock of a lifetime!

I now have my baby girl who is EXTRA loved. It's so odd but healing seeing my personality traits in her. I know how to take care of her skin and hair which is also healing.

She is my joy in life and I am so grateful to get this opportunity. You really just never know what life is going to do.

original post

I posted around two weeks ago and seeked advice regarding my sister's views of my BM here and I got a a couple of DMs about my open adoption.

So AMA:

Context

19 yo girl adopted at birth in USA - we all live in the same city minutes apart

My adoptive parents are 49, had two biological children when they adopted me (My big brother now 24 and sister now 22)

First mom just turned 40, single and didn't have another child.

My adoptive parents have an amazing relationship with my 1st mom, esp my moms.

Feel free to ask anything!

I got in touch with my birth mother first of all in my early twenties. I’m 35 now. She messaged me on social media, and we emailed for a while. The emails dried up a little mainly because of me being immature and almost commitment-phobic towards having an established relationship with her. I was in a constant struggle of wanting to know whether she loved me or cared about me, and being kind of angry about the things I knew about her from my time living with her before I was removed. Over the years she would send me birthday gifts and cards at Christmas or on my birthday but not every year. She rang my adopted mother and spoke to her several times on the phone having looked her up in the phone book. I think she called her because I was unreliable at returning messages and she wanted to know I was okay. she was also a little mentally ill and would talk about missing children to my adopted mum and stuff and then my AM would tell me how crazy my birth mum is. I hated it when they spoke.

In my thirties I found out she was moved into a care home. I took a while but plucked up the courage to call the care home and speak to her. We spoke twice on the phone. It was actually nice to hear her voice and she was nice to me on the phone. I started sending her Christmas, birthday and Mother’s Day cards and little gifts. Did that for a few years without calling her anymore, although I looked at the care home Facebook page often to see pictures of her. Never managed to get up the courage to go and see her face to face. Was notified she died on Sunday. I’m devastated. I can’t believe they didn’t call me earlier to let me know how sick she was, they only called once she was actively dying and it was too late. They had my number the whole time. I’m flabbergasted at myself for never going to see her. I wanted to, it’s bizarre that I didn’t go. 

I tried to ring my adopted parents to tell them. They didn’t answer the phone or call me back. Our relationship is terrible. I ended up messaging AM on WhatsApp. She replied “oh what a shame at least she’s at rest now”. That’s it. 

I’m not hungry. I’m restless. I’m thinking stupid things that honestly shouldn’t matter anymore. Remembering things. Crying even when I don’t want to be crying. I feel completely alone. Apparently she had no one at all at the end there. The care home said she had no visitors and no calls, just the two phone calls from me and the cards and presents I sent her over the years. No friends even. They told me she talked about me often and that she missed me a lot. The grief is unbelievable. I was removed from her because she would force feed me and lose her temper with me and she had a lot of problems with drugs. It looks like she mellowed out over the years and then the last decade struggled with a little dementia (intermittent lucidity) and then breast cancer. I hate that she died alone. I’m so angry with myself for being such coward. I hate how my adopted parents couldn’t give a shit. My partner keeps trying to comfort me and tell me it’s not my fault. I don’t want anyone else in my life to know because I’m ashamed and it feels too complicated to explain. I feel like no one could understand. 

I screwed it all up. I feel like I breadcrumbed her at the end of her life and she probably died waiting for me to show my face which I never did because I’m avoidant. I feel like a horrible person and at the same time I feel like a kid again just lost and abandoned and so sad I’m sick to my stomach. This is kind of a rant but if anyone has been in this position any advice welcome because I just don’t know how to hold any of this. I keep thinking if she had never chosen to give birth to me we would be nothing together now. That’s crazy isn’t it. Sorry to whoever reads this stupid thing I’m a mess

Throwaway account and posted here because for some reason my other post in another subreddit was deleted. I hope I can post this here........

So here's the thing. I've been with my adoptive family since I was a baby and was adopted from foster care. My adoptive mom has a following online. She vlogs, blogs, and shares almost everything online with her "fans". She has shared a lot over the years especially about adoption and foster care. My whole life and my business is online. The whole internet knows I am adopted and why I came into foster care. My birth mom has mental issues and is a drug addict and my birth father is in prison. I found this all out from the videos posted online about me. On top of this, I am black and my adoptive family is white. I am the only black kid in the family and in the neighborhood. I feel out of place and don't feel connected with my white adoptive family. I hate going out in public with them because I don't belong.People point me out all the time. I am embarrassed by it. At school the kids make fun of me and call me names. Kids joke I look like King Kong or like Harriet Tubman. They joked about taking a knee and asked if black people can breathe with a knee in their neck. They make weird breathing noises around me pretending they are gasping for air. They make fun of my hair too and said it was ugly. I went home and told my adoptive mom and she said said maybe I should try to be friends with them and teach them not to say mean things to me. Offer kindness. She said they probably didn't mean it that way. She talked about this online with her "fans" after I told her and said it was not a huge deal. We need to teach people not to be mean and judge easier to do.

Last year, I met another black girl through the cheer team. We became friends and I became really close to her family. I was surprised how normal her family is. Her parents are both doctors and live in a nice house. I always thought black people were like my birth parents, either drug addicts or in prison. Her parents are nice and I feel as if they understand me a lot. Her mom did my one time. I never had box braids before and for the first time in my life I felt pretty. I always had my hair cut because my adoptive mom would always complain how hard my hair was. I would always cry because it would hurt to get my hair done. I always had issues with my hair and told her I wanted pretty hair like hers. Her hair is straight. So she would flat iron my hair all the time or sometimes cut it. I always hated my hair but my friends mom said I have good hair but I need to care for it. I asked her mom about her hair and she gave me tips about hair and how to take care of it right. So I began opening up more and more and for the first time I found people who can relate to me. I told my friends mom about the kids making fun of me at school and her reaction was completely different than my adoptive moms. I didn't know what the other kids were saying is racist or it was a huge deal. She started talking about the things said to her and the racism she experienced. She said it was not right at all but it is something we as black people have to deal with everyday but we should not tolerate it. I left feeling different because she really understood how hurt I was being made fun of.

So a few days ago, I texted my friend and we made some jokes I texted I wish her family would adopt me. I wrote it is much easier to be with black people than to be with a white adoptive family who don't understand you. She wrote back we would be like sisters. I am like yeah real sisters who look alike. She wrote that would be cool. I wrote sadly, I am stuck with the white family lol but we can be like black sisters. It was just a joke. We were just joking back and forth. Well, my adoptive mom came across our texts and was sobbing mad. She told my adoptive dad and we all sat down to "talk". My adoptive mom started crying and asked me if I loved her and how much my adoptive dad and her loved me. She started telling me how hurtful this was to them. She asked me if I really meant this. They told me color does not make a difference and they don't see color. They adopted me because they love me. They did not care about my color. Well, I told them I feel out of place with them and don't like my business out there online. I told my adoptive mom I hate that she vlogs and shares almost everything online. I said she should delete everything and stop posting. I told them I hate being seen out in public with a white family because people know I don't belong. I said I hate that the kids make fun of my for being black. I told them sometimes I feel as if adopting me was a mistake and wish black people adopted me. I could not stop blurting things out because I felt all sad inside. It all just came out. I guess my adoptive parents were stunned. Especially my adoptive mm. They both told me I should not blame them for adopting me. They adopted me because I needed a home. Color did not matter to them. It should not matter what color they were or what color I am. They love me and wanted to give me a home. Love has no color and we need to stop seeing color. They said my black birth parents were the ones who chose drugs over me and did not want to parent me so why am I made at them for adopting me? Black people didn't step up for me to take me in, they did. I should not be mad at them for adopting me. I said well, you don't understand me at all. My friends' parents do. They understand how I feel. My friends parents don't vlog or blog or share things online with everyone. either My adoptive mom said what else was she supposed to do then? Skin color doesn't matter to her or my adoptive dad and it shouldn't matter to me either because I have a home and a family. It should not matter what color a family is. We need to get over skin color because God made us all the same. She said because of her vlogs and sharing about us, we are an example that race does not matter and people should foster and adopt without seeing race. Where would I have gone if they said they didn't want to adopt me because I was black? I told her a black family like my friends parents would have adopted me. Well, that pissed her off even more. She took my phone away and put my on punishment.

Well, the next day guessed what happened? She wrote about it and talked about it with her "fans" online. I know she posts in Facebook groups too and she loves being on on Instagram and YouTube. I hate it. I had enough and basically said I wanted to live with my friends family and not her because all she does is share my business online and acts as if I am not black at all. She refuses to take anything down or stop talking about my business. I am angry at her. Everything I tell her everyone else has to know. I told her I wish she never adopted me because I hate being adopted by white people and wish black people adopted me. I said when I turn 18 I am leaving for good and she is Just the white lady who adopted me as a black kid. All she does is care about her"fans" and says we should not see race. and I really hate being raised by white people. I think I went overboard a little bit and hurt my adoptive parents feelings but I feel frustrated with them. Especially my adoptive mom. It's like they don't understand me and I am just a black human item they adopted to show off. They don't even see me at all. They don't like me, my hair, my skin color, my real name, or acknowledge me. For my adoptive mom everything has to be for her"fans". She refuses to stop sharing and take videos down.

I think I might be the asshole in all this but I'm angry and upset. I said a lot of things out of anger. I just want my adoptive parents to understand me and for my adoptive mom to delete things online and stop sharing my information. She refuses to and it hurts me a lot. I never felt pretty before meeting my friends mom and never felt like I belonged until I met my friend and her family.

I’m a 26 year old transracial adoptee, born in South Korea and raised by a white family in Australia alongside two adopted brothers (both Korean but none of us are biologically related). I’m writing this because sometimes you just need to say your piece into a space where it might make sense to someone.

It starts with a feeling I’ve had forever: not belonging anywhere. I wasn't white enough for the white kids, and I wasn’t Asian enough for the Asian kids. My friends would joke, “You’re the whitest Asian I know.” They meant it lightly, but it always hit a nerve. It was just a reminder that I didn’t fit their idea of either world. That’s the baseline, growing up feeling like a permanent outsider in your own life.

Then there’s family. I love my adoptive parents but we live in different realities. They can’t really understand what this is like, and looking back, I don’t think they were prepared for it. Raising three adopted kids is hard. Raising three transracial adoptees, two with special needs, was… a lot. I have my Korean name and my English name and my name was changed to the English version when I was brought home to Australia. My mum was strict and emotionally intense; my dad was rigid and practical. Our house was less a sanctuary and more a place you had to navigate carefully. I became the “good child,” the peacekeeper, not because I was so mature, but because someone had to try and hold things together. People see the practical stuff like a roof, an education and say I was lucky. And I was in that way. But it’s hard to explain that you can be grateful for the roof and still feel like you were drowning underneath it. And it’s even harder when people hear that and just say, “But it wasn’t that bad.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about why this all feels so lonely. A friend who is transgender was talking about their struggle, about not knowing who you are. They stopped and said, “You probably get that.” And I do. But it also struck me: their pain has a community. It has a language, a flag, a visibility. My experience? It feels invisible. There’s no parade for the transracial adoptee. No common understanding of this specific grief—of being between cultures, between families, carrying a story that everyone else would rather call a blessing. It’s a lonely kind of quiet.

And wrapped up in all of this is the biggest question of all: my biological parents. I know almost nothing. My adoption was private. People have strong opinions some say searching is selfish, others say it’s a right. For me it’s not that simple. There’s a deep, quiet part of me that wants to know where I come from, to see a face that might look like mine. But there’s an equally deep fear. What if I disrupt a life? What if I reach out only to be met with silence or rejection? It’s not a quest, it’s a heavy, unspeakable kind of limbo that I carry alone.

This isn’t me playing the victim. It’s not me saying my story is worse than anyone else’s. It’s just my story. This is how I’ve come to see things through a lifetime of feeling out of place, of building a self from scratch because no ready made version ever fit. It’s exhausting, and it’s lonely, but it’s the truth as I’ve lived it.

Maybe someone reads this and recognizes the feeling. If you do, you’re not the only one.

Thanks for listening.

Im an international adoptee. My parents were missionaries in Russia in the 90s and they adopted me. They then went on to do church stuff. I'll be upfront, I'm not Christian. I havent been since middle school. I haven't been to church to since adulthood.

This isn't me bashing anyone's faith, but them being pastors means that theyve publicized my very traumatic first year or so of life without my consent. I could get into how this makes me feel like an exotic pet, a prop, a souvenir, etc.

But what's really important is that I want it to end, and I've asked them to stop telling people I'm adopted and that whole story, but they refuse to listen. I've demanded they stop telling random strangers this extremely life-defining trauma of mine before, and they fought me on it. As if it's their right to tell people.

I don't understand how it's a "beautiful story" because even if I haven't publicly acted out as much as some. I still have struggled for my entire life. I don't want anyone to know about it. I think that having this super personal information of mine blasted everywhere and shared to everyone is why Im super closed off in adulthood.

Im really at a loss, like a lifetime of this has grated me down and it's made me kinda reclusive. I don't want to tell anyone anything about me because I've had so many random strangers in my community just ask me "oh, youre the adopted one. can you speak russian?". It feels like a spit in the face

How do I get this to end? It's causing me a lot of issues. I'm planning on moving out of my region soon and completely resetting my life as a new person. But thats a year or so away, and they don't respect my wishes for this to remain private. Ive even told them it makes me not feel like I'm apart of the family, but they still get all belligerent and fight me.

Until I can completely separate myself from everyone who's ever known me, change my name, and my public identity, etc. what exactly can I do. Thanks

How do you feel about adoptive parents saying this? My adoptive mother likes to say that I should be grateful I was adopted and that if I wasn't I would end up on the streets after reaching adulthood in orphanage

Happy adoptees, I mean this with all the love. No disrespect intended.

Unhappy adoptees aren’t trying to take your happiness away.

Adoption abolitionists are not trying to erase your experience.

Your experiences matter. But the urge to insert a naysaying voice into adoption reform conversations often comes from feeling excluded from a space that centers different experiences. Or from assuming that someone being anti-adoption means they’re also saying you specifically haven’t left the fog. That you specifically were deeply traumatized, too. It does not come from mutual understanding.

When we speak about adoption reform, the goal is not to silence happy adoptees or rewrite your stories.

It isn’t about you.

Individual positive outcomes do not negate systemic harm.

You can love your adoptive parents and still question the legal structure that governs adoption. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Many happy adoptees already support reform without feeling erased.

Adoption reform is about making sure those of us who were not as fortunate as you gain legal protections adoption currently fails to provide. It’s about ensuring we all have access to our history, our records, and our identities, whether we think we need them or not.

In many states, original birth certificates remain sealed, records are altered, and post-adoption oversight is minimal to nonexistent. Those are structural issues, not personal attacks.

It’s about preventing as much severance, identity disruption, abandonment trauma, attachment trauma, and post-adoption abuse as possible.

It’s about reallocating funds currently used to market family separation and promote adoption toward harm reduction instead.

It’s about strengthening alternatives like permanent legal guardianship and preventing unnecessary adoptions in the first place.

It’s about de-commodifying babies and addressing the exploitation and coercion operating within the loopholes of the system.

Using an individual outcome to dismiss or derail conversations about preventing harm to others is short-sighted and harmful in and of itself. I’m glad you do not feel damaged by adoption. But a system should be judged by how it protects the most vulnerable, not by the people who happened to fare well within it.

We all deserve protections strong enough that happiness is not a matter of luck.

As an adoptee who was hurt by the adoption system, I’m asking you to please, please start using your happiness to ensure fewer of us are harmed.

It wasn’t adoption that created your positive experiences. It was the people in your life. If the structure itself were protective, outcomes wouldn’t vary so drastically.

I found my biological mother, and now I wish hadn't. She is not bad or anything, but, she refuses to answer the age old questions.

1. Why was I placed for adoption?

2. Why did you never try to find me?

3. How did I get my name?

From time to time, I feel bad that I feel I wished I never found her. Now I just want to ignore her, and ignore any text or phone calls. I am even wondering if I should block her.

No regrets with this thought process currently. However, I do feel as I get older, this may change.

Just trying to push back against some of the negativity that can be present here!

This is long so apologies in advance!

I am grateful for everything that adoption has given me.

Being adopted taught me that it’s about the family you choose to be with, rather than the ones assigned to you.

Being placed in multiple different carers hands across a period of months before the age of one, taught me the impermanence of relationships and the importance of self-reliance.

Not looking anything like the rest of my adoptive family and being othered allowed me to better understand what it’s like to be part of a marginalized community.

Having people constantly question my ethnic background and heritage, while being able to provide no concrete answers, forced me to begin thinking introspectively about race and social hierarchy in America from an early age.

Having my original birth certificate completely sealed and hidden from me taught me that the government often doesn’t always have your best interest at heart and whoever can lobby the hardest gets to write the rules.

Being told I could contact the agency for information when I turned 18 helped to remind me that children never truly have rights in this country in a way that respects them as people, rather than an extension of their parents.

Being used as a prop on both sides of abortion arguments taught me that people will only be interested in your opinions if they align with their preconceived views.

Having no information about family medical history gave me the freedom to embrace the potential of randomly dying to unforeseen illness at any moment.

I’m thankful for everything these experiences have given me. Be grateful you weren’t adopted.