Adoption: The Primal Wound

I remember threads on /co/ a while back where people were mocking Troper Tales. It's not just us, a lot of people don't exactly go for that type of thing.

Anyway, adoption is plenty healthy. And a lot of the children whom are bitter about being adopted are likely just using that as a target about what they're dissatisfied with about their adoptive parents.

I had a good friend who was adopted as a toddler from China by two white English parents. Her only concern as an adult was her heritage, she knew nothing of the culture she was born into, what happened to her biological parents, and more troublesomely, why they ever gave her away. These all became serious issues for her once she had her own daughter. She loved her adoptive parents dearly but there was deep unrest concerning her origins, something which she now strives to provide for her own.

It makes me wonder if adoptive parents should ensure that they teach their child about where they're from and the native language in addition to the new. A lack of identity can be a powerful debilitation as an adult.

I am completely pro adoption, I just have concerns about what is known of the child's origins. Though I am sure this is no easy feat for the adoptive parents.

Is there anyone who's really anti-adoption? It's one of the few things I haven't heard opposition for? Probably being anti adoption would be silly.

They are a minority, but they are very vocal.

edited 7th Mar '11 2:07:04 AM by joeyjojo

It's not as if Chinese culture is her culture. She was born there, but apparently didn't live there for very long. Her culture is that of the English culture her parents raised her with. Chinese culture isn't her culture, she's not really Chinese. Presumably, in this situation, she's English. She's barely any more Chinese than I am. In that maybe she spent a couple short years as a very small child in China, while I've spent none.

There's no need to be connected with or place so much importance on your Biological parents and Ancestry. I mean, I can understand if you're into ancestor worship. But anything more than a minor curiosity is silly. She's... pretty clearly not Chinese. I assume, in this case, that she is English. Your parents are the people who raise you, not the people whom happened to have a working seed and egg that produced you. She sounds about as connected to her "Chinese heritage" as I am to my Swedish heritage from long long ago. That is, I do not feel that I am remotely Swedish. Yeah, sure, I have some Swedish ancestors, but I don't speak a word of it.

edited 7th Mar '11 2:35:03 AM by Ukonkivi

What I was trying to say was that it mattered to her. She actually thought as much, that she was of English culture etc. But every time she looked in the mirror she saw she was different. It raised a lot of questions for her, ones she never asked her adoptive parents because she didn't want to hurt them by delving into that part of their past.

When she had her own daughter she started asking those questions because it was something she wanted to teach her daughter about. She doesn't have to adopt the culture or religion she was born into to learn about it.

It's not as if Chinese culture is her culture. She was born there, but apparently didn't live there for very long. Her culture is that of the English culture her parents raised her with. Chinese culture isn't her culture, she's not really Chinese. Presumably, in this situation, she's English. She's barely any more Chinese than I am. In that maybe she spent a couple short years as a very small child in China, while I've spent none.

She's chinese no matter what. Even if she had surgery to change the tone of her skin and dyed her hair yellow or brown, she'd still be chinese on a genetic level.

Culture wise, it might be debatable. But for the majority of people, the most important identity is their genetics. For someone adopted, their identity will always be that of their REAL parents and not their adopted ones even if they love their new parents a lot.

That, and the whole looking in the mirror thing. You can't expect someone to look in the mirror to see a chinese person, and then proclaim "I'm white!".

tl;dr - Genes are "real". Cultures are not.  ^*

edited 8th Mar '11 10:54:39 AM by Signed

Cultures are very real. They simply aren't physical.

hmmmm that might have been a better term than "real"...

Well I still have my point. Her genes are physical. They exist. Culture on the other hand is nothing more than a concept. They matter to many people, but it's safe to assume that for her, and many others, a non-physical concept that we made up is not as important as something that physically exists.

I thoroughly disagree with the implications of your post. A person raised in a culture is mentally, emotionally a member of that culture. Racial phenotypes are superficial in that context.

Really? Because I was born and raised in England, and my skin colour always made it obvious that I was different.

And it was a problem for my friend, she knew she was Chinese, it was obvious. But she knew nothing about it. And it is very important on quite a few levels to have information about your origins, such as health implications based on family history and that of a specific culture.

Having worked in health care and had friends who were adopted of ethnic origin, I've heard a few times that this is important and can influence an adoptive child's ability to integrate into a family and possibly new culture. It is even encouraged by adoption/foster agencies for children to be adopted into families of similar race/colour in order for the transition to be better received. Encouraged, not forced.

I was hoping for a few of the posters on this thread who have adopted to shine some personal experience on the matter.

edited 8th Mar '11 11:29:19 AM by KingFriday

I know plenty of happy, well-adjusted adopted folks.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:01:34 PM by SavageHeathen

I have an adoptive son; I know I mentioned it earlier in the thread. He's Hispanic (Guatemalan); I'm Caucasian. He's five years old, too young to really perceive racial differences as more than superficial, but we have explained his adoption in as much detail as he's capable of understanding and to this point there has never been any question as to his racial or cultural identity. He was born in Guatemala. He has a birth mother who was too poor to care for him. He's with us because we love him and want him to be ours. I have seen no signs that this causes him any distress and hope that there won't be in the future.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:02:00 PM by Fighteer

I have a friend who was adopted from Sri Lanka, and her adoptive parents are white. I don't think they've had any issues with it, and my friend is very obviously an Aussie girl.

Given certain factors, adoption may cause some problems with some children.

Probably most of them are just fine, or have a few problems to deal with, like we all have problems to deal with through life. Certainly nothing that would warrant a cry of "I wish I were never born!"

Seeing that sort of comment makes me think of the "Dungeons and Dragons causes suicide!" media frenzy way back in the day. Someone who kills themselves over X, where X is something that normal people think is no big deal, was probably not very stable to begin with and almost certainly would have found some other reason to kill themselves were they deprived of the primary factor they blamed. Same with "video games cause school shootings!"

And, yeah, some kids who get adopted end up in hell holes. But some kids are just born into hell holes, too. I don't think the first is a cry against adoption any more than the second is a cry against letting people have kids to begin with. Yeah, we do what we can to look out for and stop this sort of stuff, but, again, imperfect world. Stuff's gonna go wrong.

I've heard the argument before that a person cannot, flat-out cannot, love an adopted child as much as she would love a biological child. I call bull-crap.

First, if it were impossible to love someone on the deepest level without sharing genetics, what are we to make of marriage? Isn't our most sacred and timeless union that of two unrelated people deciding that they love each other and getting together, not only for the duration of their lives, but even after that leaving behind a flock of offspring to declare to the world for generations that yes, we chose to be with each other?

Secondly, I shall bring up an odd source with Plato. He spoke of "being pregnant of the mind." That some people reproduce physically (have children), while others reproduce mentally, emotionally, spiritually, by passing along their ideas, their opinions, hopes, dreams, skills. This sort of mentorship is natural to our species, and we've paired up all through history. Adoption could be seen as an extension of that.

Thirdly, and on a more personal level, I have two brothers, and each of them has has one son, the two born two days apart, both now 7. I spend time with my one nephew, D——-, on a weekly basis, and love him very much; I'm passing on as much as I can to help him learn and grow. The other nephew lives a little ways upstate and I spend comparatively little time with him; while I enjoy seeing him, the bond between us isn't nearly as strong as that between me and D.

Now, D has two brothers and a sister, from a different dad, from before my brother hooked up with their mom. Hence, I don't share a blood bond with them, except indirectly because I share genetics with D and he shares genetics with them. However, I share a very strong bond of love.

We have just emerged from a five-year battle with CPS over where these kids get placed. We fought tooth and nail to ensure that the family stayed together, as much as was open to us given all the factors. Eventually the two older boys got placed with relatives, while D and his sister got to stay with their mom (after a stint in foster care).

I don't know how much these kids will understand or appreciate about how hard we fought, and how much time, effort, and money we put into winning this battle. But after everything we've been through, I love these kids more than ever. And I share with them a bond that is closer than that between me and my other nephew who I don't see so often.

So it's more a matter of time spent together, and the actions of love taken, than of mere biological connection. Yes, losing your biological mother is hard, and the kids have reinforced that idea with me repeatedly. But moving to another home, a loving home, is not the seal of doom for your psychological health. Kids are adaptive. They adjust. And they respond to the ones who love them, blood bonds or no.

I'm an adoptive parent of a son born in South Korea; I'm half-Japanese, half-Caucasian and my wife is Caucasian. In general, I've found the "primal wound" to be exaggerated; my son has some issues, but they're not related to being adopted. In general, he's very happy and well-adjusted. I think most adoptive parents would agree with me that the primal wound issue is exaggerated, although of course being adopted will be something that will always be taken into account.

That said, a few other adoptive parents have found the adoption more problematic. It seems like the adoption is more difficult when the child is A) adopted at an older age or B) their circumstances of their birth and early childhood were poor (improper nutrition, abuse, drug addiction, orphanages) or C) the child is of a race that stands out in the area where the adoptive parents live. A black child raised by white parents, in particular, can be a very emotionally charged and difficult issue in some parts of the world. There's certainly more of a "primal wound" issue in those cases. It also depends on the child.

My family's been heavily involved in childcare work and orphanages for decades, so I've had ample opportunity to observe an adoption-ready environment while growing up. For the most part, a well-run orphanage is actually less traumatic than being forced to grow up with a biological family that's afflicted with serious psychological and/or financial issues - by and large, the post-genetic family, pre-adopted state is one that has plenty of oversight and is very well dedicated to making the kids come out of things as healthy as possible. The kids who were the most messed up, I found, were ones that came from a family that had messed up histories in turn and didn't let the kids go until later in life.

That's not to say that orphanages are a perfect system; I've also witnessed a lot of corruption, but it was mostly targeted at the employees, not the actual children who have fairly strong legal protection. That's also not to say that I haven't seen a fair share of 'bad' kids in the system either, but I don't think I saw them in any greater proportion compared to that of a population staying with their genetic parents. They were pretty much normal kids, and actually ate healthier and had healthier lifestyles than most kids outside of the system that I knew, because there were laws in place to enforce that.

edited 7th Apr '11 11:46:48 AM by Karkadinn