Not ‘Grateful’ To Be Adopted
September 27th, 2007 Posted in Adoption, FamilyLast week when I blogged about our pre-adoption classes I mentioned a quote from an adoptee that summed up some of the tensions inherent in being adopted. I thought it’d be more helpful to read the actual quote, so here it is:
“Before I was adopted, I was separated from two families–my birth mother’s and my birth father’s. I was also separated from my culture and my race. These losses have been huge. People interpret honest talk about them to mean that I wish I weren’t a part of my family. OR that I’m not connected. OR maybe even that my mom and dad did something wrong by adopting me. OR that I am not grateful. But you know what, I am not ‘grateful’ that I had to be adopted. I don’t feel ‘wonderfully lucky’ that I was raised in a culture different from the one I was born into. What I do feel is that I love my mom and dad very much. I do feel totally connected to them. I wouldn’t trade my family for any family in the world–and still I know what I have lost.”
-Liza Steinberg Triggs in the book Inside Transracial Adoption by Gail Steinberg and Beth Hall
