(Scroll down or click here to read Adoption 1 and Adoption 2 first.)
One of the things that pisses me off most about being adopted is the comments I get. (Not blogging comments — people say these things TO MY FACE!)
One comment that is consistently in the top ten:
“You must be so GRATEFUL to your adopted parents for taking you in!”
Translation: You’re a charity case, and a burden, and I’m superior to you because my parents wanted me.
I’m as grateful to my parents as any child should be to their parents for the time and money it takes, and general pain-in-the-ass it is to raise a child.
But this expectation of society (and of some adoptive parents) that adopted children should be MORE APPRECIATIVE than other children is just one big, gigantic crock of steaming horseshit.
For God’s sake, I was a 9 day old baby! And there was a 2-4 year waiting list for babies at that time. So don’t canonize my parents for taking in this “unwanted” baby. They were blessed with a new member of their family; they did not volunteer for a lifelong case of charity work. They do not deserve the admiration and awe of others who say, “How wonderful of you! I know I couldn’t take in someone else’s bastard child and raise it as my own!”
Sorry, but I don’t care if society, or even my own parents, see me as some sort of “second quality” person who should be eternally grateful for everything that everyone else gets as a matter of course. Like I’m some horrid person that was a huge burden that mooched 18 years of handouts from my parents, yet my brothers were gifts from God to my parents and owe them nothing because they were biologically theirs.
I’m grateful I had parents and a home. I’m grateful I’ve never known abject poverty or physical abuse from my parents. I’m grateful for the exact same things that everyone who was raised in a decent home should be grateful for.
But do I owe a bigger debt than those who were raised by their biological parents? No, and fuck anyone who thinks so.
Second most popular quotes (a tie, boys and girls! How exciting!) :
“You went looking for your biological family? How UNGRATEFUL of you!”
“So, your parents loved you and raised you your whole life, and this is how you show your APPRECIATION?! Searching for your *gasp* ‘real’ family?”
AGAIN with the “grateful” and the “appreciation”! Jesus, but people love to point fingers and tell you that you’re not deserving of what you have, and should make amends immediately. Where they are entitled to what they have, and don’t need to be even 1/10th as grateful as they think you should be.
I found (what’s left of) my biological family (maternal side) in 2001. (My biomom was killed by the church of $cientology in 1995. I found two half-brothers, an aunt, a step-aunt, and a second cousin).
When I told my mother that I had found my biofamily, she began with the theatrics and hurt feelings. I stopped her cold.
You see, my mother is way into genealogy. Around that time, she had discovered in HER family heritage an uncle that had fought in the Civil War. She found his gravesite and some stories about his life and everything. It was interesting to me, and she was incredibly excited about it.
So when she started her pouting about my seeking out my relatives, I explained it to her this way:
“You know when you found that Civil War uncle, and all the genealogy stuff you’ve dug up over the years, the stories and the pictures and how interesting that is?”
Mom replied, “Yes?”
I explained, “Well, that man is someone you never met. In fact, most of the relatives you’ve found information on are people you’ve never met. But it’s INTERESTING and important to you, right?”
“Well, of course it is.”
“So, why are adopted people not allowed to have the same curiosity? Why are WE not allowed to have an interest in our blood heritage?”
It shut her up, because she realized she was being hypocritical. She dropped the hurt martyr thing immediately.
Some in this society truly believe that adopted people have less rights and more obligations than other people. I don’t know if it’s because they think only horrible children would be rejected by their own parents, or maybe they think only horrible parents would “reject” their child (and since we are related to these irresponsible people, we as adopted children are guilty by genetic association). Or maybe they’ve read Cinderella’s tale of rescue one too many times. I really can’t say for sure what it is. And the bad attitudes are certainly the exception, not the rule.
Know this:
I’m grateful and appreciative for all my life’s blessings. But, despite being adopted, my debt to the world is no more and no less than any other person on the face of this beautiful earth.
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As a birth mother who has no clue where my almost 20 year old daughter is, it breaks my heart for you and all of the adopted children/adults who were ever made to feel this way. AND it pissed me off beyond belief that small minded people automatically judge adoptees as “unwanted” or their parents as “trash”…..irresponsible at the time maybe but not so irresponsible as to take the life of my child because *I* had made a mistake.
I’m certainly no martyr myself but how can these dimwits possibly believe that *ALL* birth mothers were too stupid to know that they were pregnant and therefore had to go the adoption route rather than the abortion route. Adoption was a choice by many of us.
Sorry for hijacking your post here. I’ll quit and shut up and listen and probably learn something.*lips zipped*
Thanks for sharing.
Rusty’s mom here. I am so sad to hear that you have had rude people say such things to you. Really, the whole thing is none of their business. My husband was adopted, but has never faced any of the things you describe here. In conversations with friends he has discussed how lucky he was to get his mom and dad. He does feel lucky to have been adopted by these two wonderful, loving people. Things could have been different. He loves his mom and dad, and holds no ill will toward his birth mother.
He found out who his birth mother was, but not his birth dad. He was given up in the hospital when he was born. The birth mother, he found out, had had an affair while married. The husband would take her back, but not the baby since he was not the father. The main reason he looked for his birth parents, besides curiosity, was to try to find some medical background. People need to know that kind of thing.
I hope it was ok to tell all this here. I wish you hadn’t had to go through all that with thoughtless people.
Take care,
Sharon
I don’t get it.
I’d love to adopt, but I’d never expect the kid to feel grateful to me for ‘rescuing’ him or her any more than I feel gratitude to my parents for having me. I had no say in the matter whatsoever. I can only assume that the “You must be so grateful ” people assumed that you would have lived a Dickensian existence, moving from orphanage to poorhouse to beggar on the street if you hadn’t been ‘rescued.’
Maybe it’s one of those cultural things that are fading away though.
These days, if an adopted kid is told that he must be grateful to his or her adoptive parents, he can usually say that at least he doesn’t have a Wicked Stepmother.