I was going to put this in the Family Support forum, but my issue seemed quite trivial to the threads I'm seeing in there.
I was adopted when I was three weeks old. I've never seen my birth parents, nor do I really have any desire to meet them, though I have no ill feelings against them.
This past week marked the anniversary of me finally becoming part of the family. I wouldn't have remembered if my mom hadn't mentioned it.
But for some strange reason, I found myself looking up adoption on the Internet, just for fun, as I often find myself doing with random topics. It's a bad habit of mine.
I became very discouraged when I came across what I will call "self-hating militant adoptees"people who for whatever reason were adopted but feel that they've somehow been cheated out of "real" parents. I think they have deeper issues than simply being adopted. I've never felt that way, but I was starting to wonder, have I just been suppressing ideas like this for almost a quarter of a century? But I don't think I have; I only starting thinking about this after finding these things.
I have nothing in common with these angry adoptees. I don't call them my "adoptive parents" and I'm not their "adopted child." I don't think that my birth mother "surrendered" me or that my adopted parents (my real parents) took me away.
I've mostly gotten over these struggles, especially after talking to my parents tonight. But one question persists: what makes a parent a parent, and perhaps more specifically, what makes an adoptive parent a real parent? I've always called them "mom" and "dad," but for the past couple days I've been really discouraged. Is the definition of a parent more emotional than physical? What makes an adoptive parent more than just someone who couldn't have a child, yearned for one, and now has one?
I was adopted when I was three weeks old. I've never seen my birth parents, nor do I really have any desire to meet them, though I have no ill feelings against them.
This past week marked the anniversary of me finally becoming part of the family. I wouldn't have remembered if my mom hadn't mentioned it.
But for some strange reason, I found myself looking up adoption on the Internet, just for fun, as I often find myself doing with random topics. It's a bad habit of mine.
I became very discouraged when I came across what I will call "self-hating militant adoptees"people who for whatever reason were adopted but feel that they've somehow been cheated out of "real" parents. I think they have deeper issues than simply being adopted. I've never felt that way, but I was starting to wonder, have I just been suppressing ideas like this for almost a quarter of a century? But I don't think I have; I only starting thinking about this after finding these things.
I have nothing in common with these angry adoptees. I don't call them my "adoptive parents" and I'm not their "adopted child." I don't think that my birth mother "surrendered" me or that my adopted parents (my real parents) took me away.
I've mostly gotten over these struggles, especially after talking to my parents tonight. But one question persists: what makes a parent a parent, and perhaps more specifically, what makes an adoptive parent a real parent? I've always called them "mom" and "dad," but for the past couple days I've been really discouraged. Is the definition of a parent more emotional than physical? What makes an adoptive parent more than just someone who couldn't have a child, yearned for one, and now has one?
