I came across this reflection on the stigma surrounding adoption. It’s pretty heart-breaking. The writer, an adoptee herself and an adoptive mother, talks to kids about adoption a lot.
Here’s what 10-year-old “Sam” said when she asked him what he thought it meant to be adopted:
“Well, being adopted is when the kids that nobody wants are put into an orphanage and then if the kid is really good, someone rich will pick them and buy them to have in their family.”
Ouch.
She writes about five themes that continually come up about adopted children:
- Adopted children are unwanted.
- Adopted children can become more desirable when they exhibit good behavior, i.e. being the perfect child.
- Adopted children are thought of as a commodity; they are a good that is exchanged in a transaction typically received by someone considered rich or well-to-do.
- Adopted children are disposable; their permanence in their adoptive family is always conditional.
- Adopted children deserve pity, because they are the kids who no one wants.
That’s even more heart-breaking. Help me in overcoming, shattering and in any way possible breaking these myths about adopted children. Kids (and all of us) need to hear the truth.