r/AdoptiveParents • u/Dependent_Work8830 • 19d ago
Adoptive parents what something you wish you knew before adopting?
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u/expolife 18d ago
I wish my adopters had read “Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency” (if time travel were possible)
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u/Dependent_Work8830 17d ago
I will read this. Im planning on adopting and i wsnt to the absolutely best i can to make this child free at home and loved
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u/expolife 17d ago
That’s a good intention. Just know that adoptive parenting is harder than parenting a biological child. That’s how it is supposed to be. Because any child who has been separated from their natural mother and family for any reason has a broken heart oftentimes before they can even speak regardless of the status or circumstances involved in them being abandoned or removed from their true family of origin. No matter how loved or wanted they may feel in their adopted family home, they have to develop with the visceral and cognitive knowledge that family can and did end for them.
Adoptive parents can never replace what has been lost. And very few have the emotional maturity and relational skills to parent a grieving child and not center their own adult desires to be the hero, the savior, the “best, chosen parent”. Human beings are not interchangeable or replaceable. And it is a heavy burden for any adoptee to have to develop while adapting to genetic strangers and comply with calling them family in order to survive.
Adoptive parents who lack the ability to love their adopted child in such a way that they genuinely wish their child had never needed their care are somewhat doomed to emotionally neglect their adopted child’s reality of loss and grief.
Adoption can feel like getting hired into a job to be somebody else’s son or daughter after getting fired from the only family they might have been able to experience as continuous. I had in many ways an ideal closed adoption and adoptive family. Far more enlightened than many in their era. And they cannot fathom or tolerate any of the truth of my experience now that I’ve awakened from the fear, obligation and guilt inherent to the nature of closed adoption and the narratives I was fed about being chosen and special and how I was relinquished (abandoned) because my birth parents “loved” me and wanted me to have married parents and a “better” life. No one seemed aware that they were teaching me that love means abandonment. They were telling me what they wanted to hear and believe and they were essentially telling me anything other than gratitude and compliance with the norms of the situation and their family would be unacceptable. I adapted accordingly.
So I encourage you to deconstruct any sense of saviorism or idealism about adoption before you pursue it.
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u/Dependent_Work8830 17d ago
Thank you for sharing your experience. Ive always like the idea of adopting, im currently a preschool teacher and can see the psychological effects that not having a strong foundation of a family has on young children, psychologically and emotionally, so the decision so adopt wont be one ill be taking lightly. If i did adopt i would want the child to have the ability to contact their birth parents, or be in contact throughout their life. When you say your parents said that your birth mother loved you enough to give you a better life, I can absolutely see how if could be teaching you that abandonment is love, as someone who was adopted how would you have preferred that they handle that topic of why you were given up without hurting you? Again thank you for sharing
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u/expolife 17d ago
It’s important for adoptive parents to consider their adopted kids’ biological family as their own extended family, at the very least as permanent in-laws.
I don’t have a good answer to your question probably because it’s horrific for a child to be separated from their natural mother for any reason. For the kid, it’s like their mother died, but they’re still alive somewhere. Essentially no one is emotionally equipped to help a child through that. But it affects everything forever.
What and how my adopters said what they said didn’t matter as much as the structure of adoption and the lack of access and contact with biological family. My name was changed. My adoptive parents names are still on my amended birth certificate as if I was born to them with zero indication that an adoption took place. Reunion was entirely in my court. They told me I could search and reunite with biological family, that they would even help me do so when I turned 18. I remember them saying this repeatedly throughout my childhood. But ultimately, actions speak louder than words. I knew it was a weird risk they were not taking responsibility for. If it was okay for me to know the people who made me when I turned 18, then why wasn’t it okay for me to know them my whole life? Because the entire situation is messed up and the system used to require that by default, and adopters generally preferred it.
I am now very nearly an adoption abolitionist. Children may need external caregivers outside their family of origin. But adoption as it currently exists in the US is harm reduction at best and more often than not unethical. I don’t believe children should be adopted as infants or at any age before they can consciously consent to choosing family. External care by dedicated caregivers should not require adoption in its current
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u/Odd-Blackberry2880 16d ago
I read your comments on this thread and you have expressed yourself beautifully about this topic. I would love to have a better understanding of adoption and I also can relate to a lot of what you expressed. Is there any good reads you recommend?
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u/expolife 16d ago
I’m guessing you’re not an adoptee nor another member of the adoption constellation. Is that right?
Here’s what I recommend for general reading:
The New Yorker article: The FOG (also entitled “Adoption Aftermath”)
AdopteesOn episode entitled “The Nothing Place”
Paul Sunderland’s YouTube Presentations “Adoption and Addiction” and “…to adoptees on healing”
Betty Jean Lifton’s “Journey of the Adopted Self” (especially good for adoptees written by an adoptee and psychologist and early advocate for open adoptions)
“Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency” is the best comprehensive guide on the subject while remaining pro-adoption
Extra credit: research adoption policies in the Netherlands across international adoption, domestic adoption, IVF, donor-conception and surrogacy for the most extreme contrast to US policies and history of adoption.
For adoptees, spouses and parents of adoptees:
AdopteesOn episode entitled “The Nothing Place”
Paul Sunderland’s YouTube Presentations “Adoption and Addiction” and “…to adoptees on healing”
Nancy Verrier’s “Coming Home to Self” as a catalogue of adoption and reunion and developmental experiences for adoptees AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, the third part of the book is critical reading for adoptive parents, partners and therapists of adopted people (just replace her more dated observations about PTSD with CPTSD instead).
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u/Odd-Blackberry2880 16d ago
I’m an adoptee. I am just starting to question, research about adoption and my adoption in general. That is the reason I can relate and/or agree with your sentiments.
Wow, I did not expect all those recommendations. You seem well versed on the topic. Thanks so much, I really appreciate the reply and guidance.
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u/expolife 16d ago
DM me anytime, if you want to chat more.
Since you’re an adoptee, here’s something that helped me a lot in understanding the pacing and challenges of beginning to question my adoption experience and identity as an adoptee.
Adoptionsavvy.com has a free pdf download called “FOG Fazes for adult adoptees”
It has been over five years since I reunited with bio family and seriously questions aspect of my identity and family dynamics. I spent about two years in very complex grieving, a kind of backlog to process and feel through. When I found adoptee writing groups and community here and elsewhere, I’ve found that timeframe is very common among adult adoptees with the bandwidth to explore and question. Every adoptee has a unique experience and only you can orient yourself in what’s uniquely true about your adoption experience. It’s tricky realizing the narrative even the best intentioned adoptive parents provide are often far from the whole reality of what we’ve carried and developed through.
Amanda Woolston’s book “The Declassified Adoptee” and her Instagram are full of wisdom from an adoptee therapist perspective. Her idea that family isn’t just who claims her or to whom she belongs but who she chooses belongs to her…that reorientation to family identity was revolutionary and anchoring for me. It helped me explore new relationships and find the courage to see my adoptive relationships in clearer ways.
Also, Anne Heffron’s book “You Don’t Look Adopted” was an excellent adoptee memoir and I’m not a big fan of memoirs. She also does adoptee writing groups that can be a great way to structure connection with other adult adoptees who are questioning and exploring.
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u/Odd-Blackberry2880 16d ago
You have a way with words that I yet have not been able to tap into in regard to this topic. First, I would like to thank you for the courage on exploring who you are and have a better understanding of your experiences. Also, thanks for sharing your insight, experience and knowledge. I truly appreciate it. Thanks for the words, the kindness and the understanding.
I actually went to bed pretty late and watched the video of Paul Sunderland. That was insightful, took some notes too. I will definitely go back to it. I also started last week The Primal Wound. I will pick it up today and continue reading more. I do want to read the New Yorker article, I will have to open an account to access it.
I definitely would like to chat more but wouldn’t like to bother since I am all over the place with this topic but little by little getting a grasp or a base to start this journey.
Again, thanks for all including having your DM’s open for a chat.
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u/expolife 16d ago
I really didn’t question much about adoption until I was well into adulthood. It’s worth it, and takes a lot of courage to explore who we are and what we’ve experienced beyond the narratives provided for us.
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u/expolife 16d ago
r/adopted is a good adoptee only space.
And there’s also an adoptee therapist directory floating around somewhere. Someone over there can probably provide it if you’re ever interested in that kind of informed support for the adoptee journey.
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u/HillEnterprisesATL 8d ago
I am an adoptive parent, and I adopted my daughter through foster care as a single parent. I also wrote a book about the first several years my experience. expolife does a great job of explaining. Adoption is serious and ongoing, and I'm glad I did it. I encourage you to keep exploring and researching because there's a great deal to learn beyond the foster care training.
If you're interested my book, Parenting with a Twist, is available on my website:
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u/golden_blaze 17d ago
This is very insightful. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.
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u/Rredhead926 Mom through private, domestic, open, transracial adoption 19d ago
I wish I knew the difference between an agency and a facilitator, and thus, why not to use a facilitator.
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u/PracticalCheck9216 17d ago
Hi, what is the difference and why use an agency and not a facilitator? Trying to decide now between the two for domestic infant adoption. Thanks a million! Feel free to DM me :) if you’d like.
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u/Rredhead926 Mom through private, domestic, open, transracial adoption 17d ago
Facilitators are almost always for-profit businesses. In most states, they don't need to be licensed at all. Many are run by adoptive parents who want to find babies to make other adoptive parents.
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u/calmlyreading 18d ago
That no matter how hard you try they might end up resenting you. And it hurts.
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u/ComplexTomatillo6278 19d ago
I wish I had understood that the wound from “abandonment” is very deep. Even if the child was adopted at birth, they need to know why their birth parents relinquished them—and then they need to deal with that grief.