“What a doll!”
“Adorable”
“Look at her!”
Paraded around like living dolls in families purely for charity points. The distinction between adopting that abandoned dog with huge eyes and actual adoption is not as apparent.
Web sites promote this idealized image and vision of an adoptive family, withholding the long lasting mental strains on the adoptee, in the case of international adoption: racial disparity. Divides that no longer can or should be ignored. Denying racial identity is basically stating that you do not exist as who you are, but as everyone or someone else. Race should not be a distinction, but definitely not ignored.
Adopting parents have a responsibility to uphold, a reality to face, and a need to realize the ramification of their actions affecting this child they so desperately desire. Often times these parents are not psychologically prepared or willing to be. Specifically: Narcissism and ignorance, the invalidation of the adoptee’s feelings, that because we chose you, you owe it to us not speak out; you’re the lucky one.
The most demeaning characteristic of adoption itself is this immediate assimilation: adapting. The adoptee is always adapting, already an outsider they feel this integral need to fit in as compensation. As many adoptees have to deal with contradictions and inconsistencies. You’re part of the family…but you’re not. You’re like us… but you’re not. Compensating by excelling or failing in school, attention seeking, and pursuing roles in their family. This assimilation complex lasts most notably in teenage years, during which resentment, alienation and indescribable anger set in, as they are most likely the minority, thus susceptible to bullying and relentless teasing. Harboring this ingrown hatred for your own race and dismissal of your own culture, either willingly or not, usually stems from these insecurities and compensations.
There will always be an internal separation, no matter how much effort is put into integration by either the parents or the adoptee themselves. You’ll always be adopted you’ll never not be, but its the way in which you’ve accepted this as an aspect of your personality instead of a flaw. Adoption is NOT irrelevant
Adoption in its purest form exists to provide loving homes and most importantly families to children, but it needs to be reconsidered in the mindset of the adoptee, not the adopter. Dissociate from its idealized version, to understand that it is an adoption of the person, rather than the ideal. Another entity with internalized and agonized feelings
I am not criticizing the philosophy, but rather the believer who owes it to both themselves and adoptees to be well informed and empathetic. As each person is their own, these experiences can’t be assumed or applied to every adoptee.
“Adoption isn’t all unicorns and rainbows.” The reality is not a lack of appreciation, but a lack of humility.
