Take Off the Sugar Coating- the Adoptee Can Feel Rejected

To any mother considering adoption, I say  that you must listen to the adoptees. Please go read the adoptee blogs before you even call an adoption agency. You need to read their true words, their harsh truths, and imagine, as you cradle your belly, if you ever want your child to feel this way.

While there is no way I can say that ALL adoptees feel abandoned, or that every child adopted will feel angry at their mother, there is nothing that you, nor I, nor the adoption agency, nor the adoptive parents can do to completely prevent it either. The fact is that some adopted people DO feel very acutely feel the “Primal Wound” and on the other end of the bell curve, there are those that are not affected at all by their own admissions. There is a great range of emotions and thoughts, that like all of us, change over time, but in the end; when you relinquish you really do give up not just your rights, but your real ability to actually change the possibility of how your child will feel.

No Matter What the Story; Adoptees Will Feel What They Feel

We have a long history of adoption in the US, where we play with the messages, in my opinion, to sugar coat and hide the truth.

• “You mother loved you so much that she made sure that you had the very best life you could”
• “I made the strong and selfless decisions to choose life even though I wasn’t able to parent”
• “It was very important to me that my child have everything I didn’t; a two parent home, a stay at home, a good education, things I just couldn’t give him at the time”

I’m not mocking the reasons, they don’t matter here. We all have them. I have a bunch of doozeis myself. What matters that our children do not know the reasons. Oh, chances are they learn ” their story”. Maybe you even get to explain it to them yourself and answer questions. Maybe they are, by nature, not questioning, peaceful and accept them at face value and do not internalize anything of negative value, but again, nothing can guarantee that. It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself to rationalize the decision to relinquish, or on the other side, explain how your were forced to surrender; OUR TRUTH does not automatically revert to the ADOPTEES TRUTH.

I think this is actually true in all parenting.

My second son, who I did parent, was a tough teenager. Some of it his doing, some of it mine, some of it just life and beyond my control. I’ll eat my pieces of regret pie, but I do know that I tried. I tired so hard to do the best that I could with what I was given, even if it didn’t work out as planned all the time. In the end, even with explaining to him, truthfully, honestly, over and over again, WHY some things I did at the time were they way they were, he SEES his TRUTH and in certain ways, in his eyes, based on his feelings, I failed him. That might change as he gets older, but I can’t change that now. For him, it is as real as what I felt, but it’s just a completely different view.  And for me, I can’t argue with him that’s it’s wrong, I’s how he FEELS and is, therefore his valid truth.

Your Child’s Valid Truth Could Turn Out to be That Your Abandoned Him

These are all real adoptee comments.  Yes, they are form comments here and adoptee bloggers.  It took me five minutes to find them. If I looked for 15 minutes , I would have 20. I could go on and on and find more and more from tons of different people, different ages, all over the country.

Yes, we can say “well only the unhappy  adoptees ones talk about this stuff” but  that’s dismissive and I happen to know that many of the very same adoptees who DO speak honestly of the pain also had, byut their own admission “wonderful loving adoptive parents”. It’s really very simple, before you relinquish think.  I ask again, DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO EVER FEEL THIS WAY?

“I was very angry with my mother for giving me up, as she and my father had been married and I was her third child. I did need to “forgive” her for placing me in a situation that caused me so much pain.”

“Yes, I know, my first mother didn’t really reject me when she surrendered me for adoption, but it’s another one of those brain-heart matters that adoptees understand on the philosophical level but not on the emotional level.How can we? Breaking the mother-child bond is the most destructive thing that can happen to either mother or child. We shouldn’t be cavalier about it and invent euphemisms that make it sound less bad. That’s the adoption industry’s party line, to make adoption more palatable.The truth is, adoptees often feel rejected, no matter how good their adoptive circumstances are and no matter whether they eventually reunite, happily or not, with their original families. We have to deal with issues of rejection and abandonment every moment of our lives (and no, I’m not saying first mothers abandon, I’m saying this is how adoption makes many adoptees feel).”

We want our children to have the best I understand that this is why many of us think that relinquishment is the answer. Many of us did not make this choice freely, or were informed enough, and many more had no choices at all and were forced. I know that. The adult adoptee often knows that as well. It doesn’t change how they can feel.

Somewhere inside, they are baby who misses their mothers smell and they don’t have the words to describe that feeling. Someone inside they could be a 3 year old who is scared and angry and wishes that you could come and take them away. Someday, they could turn out to be a person who doesn’t care about stuff, but only wants to fit in with people that get them.  Or maybe, just maybe, they think that THEY should have been important  enough  to warrant a better plan on our part. That THEY were worth working harder, pinching pennies, putting off school, fighting the system, arguing with parents, going on social services.

And they would be right.