Was originally going to title this something along the lines of “Why do some adopted people originally think they’re not adopted?” but then I came to this (honestly quite horrifying) realization.
Please tell me I’m wrong and that people DON’T gaslight their children into thinking they’re not adopted.
Eugh… It’s like the whole shit with “”““international adoption””“” (hint: It’s stealing toddlers from the periphery and trafficking them into the imperial core. Complete with cishet white “parents”!)
Where was MY condescending adoptive Chinese parents for getting me out of the shit hole United States and into the civilized PRC? /s
One hopes the answer is no, despite significant media depiction. But it does seem to happen at least on occasion if internet tales are to be believed.
As somebody phenomenally bad at talking openly, this seems like such a needless own goal. If you bring up a kid ensuring they know the truth from day one, they’ll see it like the most normal shit in the world. If you wait a long time and then bring it down on them like a hammer, it’s like needlessly creating and inflicting trauma.
That being said, I think adoption can be fraught and emotional for many parents. And many parents are perhaps fighting with fears that the child may not be “theirs” in every possible sense they want, or that being adoptive parents makes them lesser in some regard, and so feel defensive about anything that feels like a threat to that. So perhaps from a parent’s perspective, it’s understandable why someone might want to avoid acknowledging it.
If you bring up a kid ensuring they know the truth from day one, they’ll see it like the most normal shit in the world.
Yeah, this is what my parents did for me and it was like not a big deal. Sometimes I forget that my situation isn’t the default.
Same.
Where was MY condescending adoptive Chinese parents for getting me out of the shit hole United States and into the civilized PRC?
that sounds like something evangelical dad in beijing would do
Yeah, the Oedipus narrative indicates this is not a novel fashion…hard to find the right time n all that jazz.
I can only think of around 5 people I’ve known personally who were adopted and two of them didn’t find out until like 10 and 18, and I don’t think it was their parents that told them. So anecdotally it does seem to happen a decent amount.
I was adopted at birth and I’ve known for as long as I can remember. But I remember when I was like 6 I mentioned to my cousin (who is one year older than me) that we weren’t blood related and he was like, “wait, you know?”
I’m not sure if his parents told him not to mention it and he interpreted it as me not knowing, or if he was told that I might not know lol.
Also, oddly enough, I look almost identical to my (adoptive) mom, to the point that people sometimes don’t believe that I’m adopted if they have seen my mom.
I’ve worked with many (well, not a ton but maybe 7 or so) parents/caregivers where the disclosure of biological parentage could pose a safety risk to the parent (the mother especially) and/or the child. Not saying that hiding this information from the child was always what was always the right move. But there are situations where that information is probably best withheld from a child (particularly a young child) until they are older.
The fuck kind of “safety risk”?
I’m thinking of one case where I assisted a family find housing, a child was not told about their biological father because of his history of abuse and his proximity to the family. I believe the mother had listed the child’s father as unknown on the birth certicifate specifically because of the concern that the father might abduct or become more involved with her and her children again. The child was developmentally unable to understand that this man was not a safe person to be around. Telling the child they had another parent could have potentially resulted in a situation where they would trust him, potentially leading to abuse or abduction or something similar.
But anyway, there’s tons of cases similar to that. It’s never easy.
This was/is standard practice. If you’re adopting out of foster care then the kids will know, generally speaking. If not, it’s entirely up to parents and the professional consensus has been to simply lie to your adopted children about their real parents. This extends as far as forging birth certificates (forget her name but an enterprising social worker/human trafficker working out of Memphis got this started and now it’s standard practice to falsify adoptees’ birth certificates to show the adoptive parents as their birth parents.
I don’t know that kids know that they’re adopted, necessarily, if they’re young enough and being gaslighted, but there tends to be a sense of not being quite like your siblings, or your parents even before you figure out what adoption means.
Fun fact, the USAmerican domestic supply of children is also built entirely on theft and coercion. The private international adoption market operates on suitcases full of cash, but the domestic one involves a series of financial incentives to steal kids and put them in adoptive homes. There is no corresponding set of financial incentives to do anything about the structural conditions that put parents in the position of having their kids stolen from them. In more or less every case the solution to the conditions that led to the kids being taken is the direct application of fistfuls of cash to the parents themselves. Substandard housing? Go after the landlord, instead.
ACAB includes family cops and the adoption industry.
it was standard practice and i dont think its that evil. a lot of things go into a child being separated from birth parents so maybe it would be too heavy for a child to know.
YES. Guatemala is a hotspot for international adoptees and I’ve met a lot with some fucked up stories. Those are the ones who even bothered coming back and they’re usually more well-adjusted
I knew a guy who got pinched from China.
I’m assuming he’s male. I didn’t see him transition IRL as we naturally parted ways after high school, but last I checked he has male pronouns in his Discord account.
Anyway I’m so glad the Chinese ended up banning this international “adoption” crap.
An interesting question is when do you bring it up?
As a birthday surprise?
Happy birthday little bastard.
Repeatedly, from young age until they old enough to understand what it means?
Right after the birds and bees talk?
When the child asks?
Took you long enough to find out.
During arguments?
Child: you suck
Parent: well, you are adopted
No, although I am adopted and my mom is an asshole. (Not gaslighting me into thinking I’m not adopted is one of the very few good things she did.)
I just ponder things. Mostly my Rats of NIMH fanfiction, but I’ll be doing my Autism Power Walks™ or standing in the shower thinking about pretty much anything.
That being said wondering/worrying about my biological family does sometimes keep me up at night.
It doesn’t need to be “a talk”, families are ALWAYS mentioning when you were born - “When I was working at X, just a year before you were born actually”, you wouldn’t blink an eye. Now just say “just a year before we adopted you”. Mention it as normal, job done.
When your kid is learning about biology, and the birds and bees talk, when genetics comes up, or birth, or pregnancies, or parentage in general. When it’s medically relevant. When you go to hospitals. When you’re telling your kids stories that are at all contemporaneous to adoption. When something reminds you of it. When your kid has noticeable differences from their parents. When you’re just blurting old stories.
Basically all of those topics should come up repeatedly in the first five years of a child’s life I’d hope.
open adoptions have been in fashion for a while but i can’t speak to international child trafficking
My Grandmother was adopted at birth and her family just never told her. I think she accidentally found some documents proving it when she was like 30. But then again, her adopted mother also lied about her (the mother’s) age for about 25 years, so that family had a lot of weird neuroses that I was thankfully spared.
