The Us Census Ask us to Differentiate
Last week, I received a very nice message inviting me to read a blog post over on Salon on the Census and Adoption, and so, I did.
Then, I saw that Jenna had written another blog post herself on the same subject which was the Census and Adoption. And I read that too.
Both of the posts, while one written by an adoptive mother and one written by a birthmother, had the same view on the US Census and the addition that, this time, they asked if one’s child was biological or adopted. Both, found it to be wrong for very similar, yet slightly different, both very intelligent reasons.
“Aren’t there enough traumas inherent in adoption as it stands as to avoid adding more insult to injury by looking to distinguish adopted from biological children.”
“Do we need to keep reminding adoptees that we view them as different, as not quite the same, as less than? Do we need an official form that states, oh yes, adoptees are different?”
Really, both are great posts and you should go read them.
Now, I have to admit that I had already filled out my own census information and went over those check boxes without much thought at all. But, the posts got me thinking. Not so much as they why aren’t I seeing it as a big deal..because I can see both their points as valid, but in the bigger sense..
Are Adoptees Different?
And I have to admit, that I want to say Yes.
How can they really be the same? While I know that all adoptees are not the same and it is not right to generalize and that all will have unique experiences and feelings regarding adoption depending on their own personal stories, their own internal makeup and where they are in life.. still, as a whole, it’s NOT the same as being born into a family!
Isn’t it not part of the many issues in adoption that we, as a society, as a culturally, as historically, tried to make adoptees fit in with families as if they were born into them? Is it not part of many adoptee issues that they were not told of their adoptions and only felt often, through some deep sense of feeling that they were different somehow, that they did not fit in? Is it not seen as wrong that that were not told, not given their own history, not allowed their own cultural heritage, denied, still, their own legal documentation, as if it didn’t matter? Don’t we now frown on “matching” blond hair with blond hair, a good Irish Catholic babies with good Irish Catholic Families? Wasn’t all that and more part of the problems?
So now, is it because we celebrate open adoption and the lack of all that “sameness” all that false pretend, that we think that it is OK? That if we remove those things seen as “bad” we can now completely mitigate what makes an adoptee different? If we acknowledge them as openly adopted then they are the same?
They Are Still Adopted, and that’s IS Different!
Even in the perfect adoptee world, under the best of all possible scenarios, an adoptee still has at least two mothers and two fathers. In fact, even more so now with open adoptions is that duel mommy action part of their every day makeup. Something that adoptees have to take in and process and other kids really don’t.
Does that not make them different?
Now, we are finally beginning to understand that some adoptees might have a certain sense of pain and loss form adoption separation. Not to start a major Primal Wound Debate, but we don’t have Primal Wound Debates over non adoptees. We just don’t. The fact that they might possible have some kind of Primal Wound, does that not make them different?
Who else but the adoptee and the siblings of adoptee have “birth siblings”? Even blended families don’t deal with the birth identifiers. They have step siblings and half sisters and regular run of the mill in-laws and ex laws and all that fun stuff. Who gets to deal with “birth mothers and fathers and biological verses adopted brothers”? Only adoptees.
Who else but adoptees are not allowed to have access to their original birth certificates? No one except those in the witness protection programs and, oddly enough, I just found out, my boss. Granted that is not THEM being actually different, but treated differently, but it obviously has a great affect on some!
I mean, I can get out almost any book on the shelf next to me, or pull out a research paper out of my filing cabinet and start listing “adoptee issues”. And again, I KNOW that not everyone will have all of the issues and NO, I KNOW that it’s NOT just adoptees who get screwed up like they say, but still:
Some Issues Belong To Only Adoptees:
- Genetic Mirroring
- Genetic Sexual Attraction
- Adoptee Loyalty & Gratefulness
- Self Esteem and Identity Issues
- Trust Issues
- Depression and Anxiety
- Over representation in the mental Health Fields, Prisons, etc.
Now granted i know that there is a whole slew of open mind parents who are listening to what the adult adoptees have to say rather than labeling “angry adoptees” and are really listening because they are trying to the best of their abilities to avoid having their own child have any of the above problems and I DO applaud them for doing so, but…
I can’t help thinking that no matter how hard one tries, not all will manage to avoid some of the less that desired feelings simply because, yes, your child was adopted! You can’t mitigate the very circumstance cause your child to BE who they are. And somehow, though I know that many adoptees are just fine or claim to be fine .. not everyone will escape it. And I don’t know who will have the most sensitive child or the one that just feels things so deeply or genetically doesn’t wish to talk it out and share no matter how hard a loving parent/s can try.. they are going to be affected simply because they were adopted.
I guess I just don’t see the point in trying to make it out as if they are the same. Adoptees are not the same as everyone else. It’s like if we are all born clean and pure and without any crap and baggage, but then we heap on adoptees at birth this heavy load of crap. And somehow, they have to a) carry it around for a while when they don’t even know what the heck it is. Then they might realize that other people don’t have the same size load. Now granted, no escapes their own load of crap, so somewhere in it some might feel happy that they got their bad rather than someone else’s, but still that doesn’t make their go away. Now the lucky ones will have someone by their side and helping them carry the load and hopefully take things out when they can, teach the kids how to process it and repack it so it doesn’t bump them in the spine all damn day, but still.. it’s a load of baggage that anyone not adoptee just won’t have!
That Makes Adoptees Different!
And please, I am not saying that ANYONE who desires to protect their child of this is at all wrong.. it just gets me thinking.. and for me.. this is all processing anyway for myself.. so don’t get all huffy.. I’m open. But, I just wonder why it is that saying they ARE the same will help? By insisting that adoptees are the same won’t it just end up hurting them more?
Don’t they have the right to know that yes, they have a special bag of crap to carry that is only for adoptees? Don’t that have the right to be acknowledged as having something else to deal with? I can’t help thinking of how it is to be a birthmother and not know what it really meant for so long.. and then having other mothers come here to this blog or send me emails and they one thing that they say over and over again is:
“Thank you.. Now I know I am not alone. I know that I am normal. I don’t feel crazy anymore”
By protecting the adoptees from being different, do we deny them the rights to be acknowledged for their feelings? And different isn’t always necessarily BAD,( despite my previous reference to a bag of crap) it’s just different.
That’s what I wonder.
Adoption Makes MY Kids Different than other Kids!
I think about my own three sons and yes, they are different. They have their own bags to carry. Max, the adoptee, is not the same as Garin.. he has not the same issues, the same feeling the same life at all. And then Garin verses Tristan, though I have parented them both, are very different too. Garin had to deal with a divorce, and often absent father, a step father, etc. Tristan, only still a sweet seven, is probably the luckiest of the three so far in many ways.. we are ideal in that nuclear family way and also, he has a sister whom he has never been without and they might carry the same baggage and help each other out along the way? Or maybe not, perhaps their life’s traumas have still not come to them and they will carry their own too. Plus they will have to deal with the force, and loss, of adoption in their own lives. But, there is no way I could say that they all have the same issues though they are all my children, that they are the same. They are not.. and as clearly as I can state that Garin has issues from an often absent father, Max also must have some baggage from being adopted.. even though he too is from that ideal in that nuclear family way ( with another ideal in that nuclear family as well).
Aren’t I a better mother for seeing those differences and acknowledging them? Just in the same way that I see my two youngest as different people with different ways of dealing with the world with their own personalities even though they are from the same set of parents and the same genetic makeup? None of my kids are bad. But they are unique and they have different lives and different sets of feelings and some of them DO stem from adoption being part of our lives.
No bad, not horrible, not damaged; but Different.
So aside from the fact that I LIKE that someone is FINIALLY is trying to keep some stats of adoption and I DO hope that the census information might possibly show our governments that adoptee legislation is important, I can’t feel that indignation that they have NO right labeling adoptees as different than biological children.
I feel relief that they are seeing it; that the government is not pretending that they adoptees are the same. I can only hope that the rest of society can follow the lead and acknowledge that adoption comes with a whole set of things ( I don’t want to call them issues because that sounds bad, so we’ll just say things) that make adoption different.
And maybe I am all wrong, but I think I need the adoptees to tell me so.
The Census is just that a Census. A Census does not care about anyone’s emotional familial connections. The Census is taking count of the people who live at a particular address and their individual status/factual relationship within that place of residence. You will be listed as mother, father, in-law, grandparent, bio or adopted child, etc. I believe any person (who has either surrendered, adopted or has been adopted)that is attaching some kind of emotionality to the census, is just really playing the adoption card to the Nth degree. Anyone who has done genealogy with some fervor, has also seen other census that detail who is who living at a particular address. I found a Census in the UK back from 1900, where it listed my maternal grandmother who was 15 years old at the time..she is listed as ‘servant’. Did that registered fact throw me into a dither, how dare a census taker list my grandmother as ‘servant’? Of course not. Did that registered fact make me feel sad for my grandmother, yes it did..in the same way I would feel sad for any young woman (teen) who had to work for wages and a roof over her head as a ‘servant’. But those were the times and my grandmother was not born into a privileged wealthy family, hence she had to do what she had to do, to survive. I also was researching my paternal step-family and I found one USA census where my step-grandparents were listed which included my step-grandmother’s sister who was living with my step-gps..she was listed ‘relation’ to head of household (my step-grandfather)as “sister-in-law”.
I read at a blog written by a *birth mother* who wrote of her disdain of the 2010 Census and how her surrendered child would be listed as ‘adopted’. Well that’s the truth, that is the fact of that child’s relationship in that particular household. Honest to God, I do not understand the angst, the emotionality, over the census asking for factual relationships at a particular address. Seriously, this just leaves me shaking my head. And I am a former surrendering mother. The fact is…I surrendered and my child was adopted when an infant by other people. That is a true fact and should be recorded as such. Just because one receives an amended birth certificate, does not make that particular piece of paper a ‘true fact’..it is a lie. The adopted person was not born to the people listed. The adopted person was ‘adopted’ by the people they have come to know and hopefully love as their mom and dad. But the truth is the truth, a child was surrendered, the child was adopted. The Census does not recognize the emotional stance of “as if born to”. I would hope that people in this country would truthfully fill out this Census. A Census filled out truthfully, has great impact on ALL people living in this nation. And if you don’t fill it out and send it back, then paid Census workers will be knocking on your door to ask you these questions, in person.
adoption has made me different if I had my history I wouldn’t be any different that’s what is awful, adoption is preventable
I went to the AAC Conference this past weekend, and I noticed that there was a lot of desire to even out the pain issues between adoptees, first moms and adoptive parents. That EVERYONE had/has their own pain, and that we should recognize that EVERYONE is allowed their own pain.
While I understand this, and do agree with it to a point, something that overcame me while I went through the conference was that the adoptees are the ONLY people in the triad who were given NO voice in the matter. And I started thinking, “wait a minute! Even though we’re adults, WE are the ones this thing called adoption was done to! Why do you have to usurp our pain and make it your own? Why do you have to make it all about YOU, and not US?”
Why is it SO important that everyone have a piece of this pie? To me, it marginalizes what adoptees go through. And while I know this wasn’t the intent, this was one of the messages I received at the conference.
Thank you for not marginalizing adoptees, Claudia. Thank you for acknowledging that which society won’t; that we ARE different. I KNOW first moms have their own pain, and I KNOW that infertile couples who adopt have their own pain, and I will never purposefully marginalize their pain, but I just wish they would stop doing it to us in return.
Bio or adopted is incredibly important to be included in the census because the census is a fact finder. Being an adoptee I applaud the US for including it.
What I find strange is how fast people forget. The 2000 Census collected this same info and it was a talking point as it was the first time it had been distinguished (at least recently).
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-6.pdf
The whole point of the census is to count everyone in their various shapes and forms. If you are not counted in YOUR particular shape or form, that piece of you is invisible.
As Claudia so elegantly put it – adoptees ARE different. If only half of the adoptive parents out there accurately fill out the form, only half of the adoptees get counted AS adoptees.
What I would LOVE to see is a counting of the adult adoptees. Nobody knows how many are out there. I’ve seen estimates range from 2 million to 6 million.
We are invisible, which is probably the reason that US Passport Services doesn’t list “Order of Adoption” as one of the “Early Public Records” that you can use if you don’t have a “valid” (filed within one year) birth certificate. It’s also probably the reason why some RealID states ask that you bring your Adoption Order to document why the name on your birth certificate is different. They have NO clue as to how the states seal records. Why? Because we, as adult adoptees, are invisible.
Here’s a letter to the editor I wrote on it:
Dear Editor:
Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door. As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma. The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are. Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races.
Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race? Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.”
How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?
Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know”.
It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops.
Adoption is a 5 billion dollar, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children. It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates”.
Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities. Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.
If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated. Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself.
_______________________________________________
The truth is: The U.S. Government doesn’t want the truth or it would unseal millions of adoptee’s birth certificates.
Claudia< a great post! Adoptees of course have different issues because they start out with a "difference" by being removed from their biological family and inserted into another, for whatever reasons. I liken this debate over telling the census the truth with the adoption reform movement to give adoptees their original birth certificates. If adoption were nothing, if adoptees were not different, they would not need to ask for their OBCs. If adoption is the same as not being adopted, who needs that? So all this commotion over just checking a box indicates that to the person who objects, yeah, adoption is a big deal. A very big deal. I reckon such adoptive parents are the ones who have a great deal of trouble if their children god forbid ever want to search. This is only an issue because people are not dealing with adoption realistically: that one is removed from one family, the original family, and placed in another, and the person so removed will always have some connection to that first family. –lorraine from
Birth Mother, First Mother Forum
It angers me that adoptive parents and some first mothers are in a tither about listing their children as “adopted”. It is just more of the same attitude that tries to DENY the life-long issues of adoption and buy into the myths that the adoption industry has duped our society into believing.
Hmm. Now see, I don’t love that it’s listed. If they just want to know how many people live in my house, why not just ask that? I think I don’t like haveing to differentiate dd because I don’t want her to feel differentiated by me. And I really don’t like the thought of her being set apart from or viewed differently from my other children. I kind of think acknowledging that a child might have specific issues or things to work through due to adoption and recognizing the validity of their other family are different from setting them apart because they were adopted.
Of course, I haven’t read enough on the census issue to have a big opinion one way or the other, nor do I know what they want that specific information for. Those things might change my thoughts on the subject.
I honestly don’t think that the point of my disagreement with marking the box on the census form was accurately represented here. My daughter and family ARE different because of adoption and I am not trying to pretend different or homogenize her into a reality that doesn’t include her adoption. I’ve begun to think that I’ve truly failed at getting my point across on this matter.
I don’t have shame about her adoption. I don’t want to pretend that she wasn’t adopted. I think that people are attributing very facile explanations for complicated thought processes here. I do have to explain that I’ve never been that simple.
Let me copy from one of my last attempts to explain this on Love Isn’t Enough, where my post was recently crossposted:
First, I discussed this issue with Z’s firstmom who had the same type of negative gut reaction to the question as I did. She was very supportive of my not answering whether Z is biological or adopted.
Next, as both a researcher (I’ve got a degree in epidemiology and biostatistics) as well as a dabbler in medical ethics, I understand both the position I’m asserting (unfairness) and the one of the importance of acquiring data. Yet for me, the problem is not that Zara herself will necessarily directly feel “othered” right here/right now by my marking the adopted box. Heck, she is not even three and doesn’t get that Dora the Explorer isn’t real. But the principle behind the inequity of the question doesn’t sit well with me as an ethicist.
The ethical thing to do is to be inclusive of *all modes* of family building if that is indeed the goal of asking the question. Again imagine census questions on religion that asked only “are you Christian?” and “are you Jewish?” with no other possible choices. What are Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists supposed to feel about those questions? And it also sets up an either/or false dichotomy about religion (either you’re with us or you’re against us). Most ethicists would say that either you add an inclusive religion question or you don’t bother, that way you ensure fairness.
So though Zara herself at almost 3 doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about what I mark or that I’m even marking a box, one day she will. And perhaps before the 2020 census she might ask me what I chose to put for her in 2010 (assuming they don’t get their acts together and add other family building modes to the survey by then). I have to be able to ethically justify what I did this year sufficiently. For me to mark a falsely dichotomous box when it is not fully inclusive feels like *I* would be “othering” or labeling her. Now if donor gametes were included as a choice, *then* I would feel as though ethically I could then give a valid answer, though I still have questions about the use of this information.
Sure, get over it, some would say. I’m thinking about this too much and going too far down the path. (It wouldn’t be the first time this has been said to me! 😉 ) Yet, my ethical framing of my actions is central to who I am. So yes, this is my very long-winded way of saying that it is about the principle of the issue to me. Ask about all family building or ask about none. *That* is my point.
Now of course, during her preadolescence Zara might take the position espoused here that I lost her opportunity to be counted in 2010. And that is something I weigh very seriously. Yet she could just as easily take a different position, feeling that not being listed as either bio or adopted was the right civil disobedience for a flawed, “othering” question/survey. (She is my kid, after all.) Again, no right answer here. Just going with my ethical “gut” on this one. And in 2020, she will decide for herself.
I hope I’ve made it clearer for those who would make my argument into simple shame or avoidance of adoption. Not even.
I have recently come into awareness that YES adoption makes you different. I come from a divorced family and at the early age of 6 my step dad adopted my sister and I. Even though I knew who my daddy was and still saw him periodically, my sister and I lost our identity not only by a name change but also our own identity of who we are. Through my reunite with my son that i lost to adoption, I was able to recognize all the side effects of adoption that I too share, even though I was not seperated from my mother… (I dont have the primal wound problems) but I did come to a realization that we inevitably become our ancestors… it is much harder to accept who YOU are if you can’t accept WHO you are through your blood hertitage. It is what it is. The truth and “disfunction” is much easier to deal with than the “lets pretend we are a perfect happy fake family”. I love my adoptive dad and everyone that comes with it… but it is what it is and i have a very different relation and connection with my blood relatives verses my adoptive.
I think Mandy said it best, and just agreeing with everything she said. The census counts people, and as far as I know, the number of adoptees have not been counted before. I too would like to see adopted adults counted as well as adopted children.
We cannot have any meaningful statistics about adoption if we don’t know how many adoptions happen. This is a good start on keeping track of that.
This is not an emotional issue and should not be. If some adoptive parents have trouble checking “adopted” for their adopted kids, they have a problem, not the census form. Yes, being adopted is different. There is no way around that.
I agree with Gaye, what annoys me is that they list separate checkmarks for adopted children but not for adopted adults. That to me says much: that we are not supposed to exist, that we are supposed to remain children. I am tired of being invisible.
And I think adoptees are different. Yes, everyone has their own pain. Yes, everyone has their own baggage. But adoptees are affected by decisions that were made for and about them before they ever had a chance to speak for themselves… and then are completely marginalized once they are adults and do have voice. That is not to dismiss the pain of first mothers or adoptive parents or anyone else. As I said, I’m simply tired of being invisible as an adult adoptee. The census is yet one more reflection of that, that we “count” as long as we are docile children but once we grow up we are supposed to disappear.
Hi’ll..
I love the fact that some thing that I can just be pondering about in my head and, really, I write to get out of my head and try to make some sense of in my own way sparks such real meaningful dialouge.
I did honestly feel like I was out on a ledge here with this idea…I don’t like to speak about what adoptees are or are not, because I am not one. Heck, I can’t even speak for all mothers, but rather I can only speak for me and my truth.. so writing something like this..alone feels wrong to me on that level.
Still.. the thought kept on sticking with me; that adoptees ARE different so I am glad that I put it out there.. of course it’s not about “right” or wrong, because not everyone will see of feel things the same way..but I did want to know what “my’ adoptees thought of it all. And so I thank you for sharing your truths. Even more to think about..especially now for me the thought that the adoptee status is not carried to adulthood and you are yet again invisable. I hate that for you all. I hate that for my son.
The flip side now, feeling better about writing this out, is that I feel badly, Teendoc.. because it was never at all my intention to make you feel that you had to defand your position at all! And the questions that I posed here were not ever meant to you personally..to question how your logic worked or the validity of your feelings.
As I said in the Salon comments, I DO agree with the fairness aspect of the census question completely. What I also found was that for me, thinking about the subject brought forth these other questions that I posed here. In fact, it was your very thoughful post that only made me get thinking on this at all..and for that I thank you. I found that I could have very well continued to develope these my questions on your original post, but it did not seem right to dump my written ponderings all over your house where the discussion had validity on it’s own.
There was not, to me, any need to re-represent what you said best there. Which is why I did recommend that readers here should go read at Salon and on The Chronicles for your’s and Jenna’s views.
And I am sorry that you feel that I did not accurately represented your views here and I do hope that you can see that I wasn’t even trying to.
CCD~
I filled out the census today I left off the crazy person who stays with me. We both loathe the census so why subject him to the scrutiny of the government we both loathe? The only difference is that he wants to save the state and I want to smash it.
By not asking adoptive status of adults in the home, the government continues to marginalize us. Of course, we never count. It’s only diaper wearers that matter.
As for questions of race, etc, I wrote “don’t know–adopted.” I do know, but so what? Most of the questions on the short form are illegal, and if they don’t like it–tough. I’m not bowing down to the state.
You rock, Marley!!!!
My letter to the editor got published. I could use back up: http://www.times-standard.com/letters/ci_14754681
Thanks. 🙂
Idk, the census was really no big deal to me. Left me completely unscathed.
I feel like there are so many big problems with adoption , I don’t have time to be bothered by the census.
Joy…
If you don’t stand up when “little problems” occur, the “big problems” will be even more difficult to overcome.
Society’s warm and fuzzy impression of adoption must be taken apart piece by piece, not in chunks.
Mara–I just posted a response to your very good letter.
After the crazy person told me he didn’t want the census to get him, he complained when I told him I left him off. I haven’t mailed it yet Ye wants to write Alex Jones’ Prison Planet URL on the envelope. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.
Sorry anon, it wasn’t a problem of any varietal for me. The form I got didn’t ask me any questions about my childhood.
As far as I understand that isn’t the point of the census, it is to get a current snapshot of the population. As far as government monies being distrubted for public transport and the like being an adult adoptee has no relevance that I can divine.
I do understand its relevance if I had adopted children living in my home. I don’t.
If it is significant to you, I support your right to make that known. If the census was taking historical data on adults I would think it was significant, but even forms that do ask for certain historical data from me as an adult don’t.
Maybe some people with the long form were asked more questions, mine was short and sweet. Sorry, I just don’t feel slighted.
When I saw the differentiation on the Census, I freaking stood on my dining room chair and clapped.
No more being told I’m “special.” I was adopted because my parents couldn’t get pregnant. I wasn’t “chosen,” I was a deseperate second-choice to biological birth. There’s nothing “special” about that.
No more being told I’m “just like everyone else.” “Everyone else” doesn’t live the life of a person who has no biological ties or access to Family Medical History when a tumor starts growing—as a matter of government sanctioned secrecy at my expense. “Everyone else” doesn’t have a blank family tree as an act of the state. “Everyone else” wasn’t an “equal opportunity commodity” for someone to parent. I was. I did NOT arrive in my family, as loving as it was and is, the same way other descendants do. I am NOT like everyone else.
I don’t really see it as a problem, either. The fairness/inclusiveness issue… sure… but then that’s not an adoption issue. I mean I am guessing (I didn’t fill our our census, but guessing) that for “gender” the form did not include two-spirited as an option, did it? So in terms of the ethics of fairness and inclusiveness… did the people who object to the adoption question on teh grounds of there NOT being a checkbox for donor gametes, did those people also refuse to fill out any check-boxes on gender because two-spirited wasn’t included?
The purpose of the form was to collect data. Saying someone is adopted is not saying they are inferior. It is not saying they should be loved less than a bio child. It is not saying parents and adopted children are “less than.” It is just saying they are adopted.
And frankly I think the more info we can get on adoption, the better. I’m sort of glad they asked the question, because if there’s one thing there isn’t enough of in adoption, it’s good stats. Heck we don’t even know how many infant adoptions occur in the U.S. each year!
I am an adoptee and have always felt different. My biological parents were young and didn’t plan for me or even stay together as a couple. My biological mother is full native and my biofather was dutch. My biomother drank while she was pregnant and suffered from mental health issues. Mental health issues were also present on my biofathers side of the family. I didn’t know of any of these things other then being adopted growing up.
It seems I had some predispositions that turned out to be mentally and emotionally debilitating even though I had near 140 IQ. From 13 years old I spent all of my teen and young adult years incarcerated for different crimes that arose from having an impulsive nature that went untreated.
At 29 I found God and enough of myself to change this life that I was living alone. I was going through this alone because my adopted mother who was then divorced made me a ward of the court and my adopted father was also not part of my life anymore. This was after committing a string of house break-ins at 12 and skipping school for several months. My adopted mother never caught on because she was hardly ever home once divorced.
Now here I am at 47 lucky to be alive because of many years of being suicidal. Have relationship issues that have kept me single for over a decade even though I am a handsome man. I have had 3 relationships in my life and they all lasted only a few months.
Now I prefer being alone and single because I don’t really understand how to be a normal person although I can pretend and imitate what that is. I can fool people into seeing me as normal for short periods of time but can’t let anyone see the real twisted wreck that I am. This sucks but I guess some have it much worse. My adopted mother hates me because I never became a doctor or scientist but the thing is I have been on my own in the world since I was 13 years old.
I wish people would be screened and held legally responsible for the little lives they adopt. I was returned to the courts as a goverment ward broken at 13 rather then having committed parents.