Sunday, December 18, 2005

What's It Like To Be Adopted?

I really don't think about it on a day to day basis. I don't have a recollection of not knowing that I was adopted, so there wasn't a moment that I found out or anything like that. My father told me that when I was like 2 years old and I was mad I would say, "I'm going back to Boston." I don't ever remember doing that, so I must have been pretty young.

I never thought of my parents as not my parents. I think that stems from them being up front about it from the beginning. I hear about a lot of adopted kids feeling unwanted or like they're not really a part of their families, but I can't say that I ever did. The only time I even felt unwanted was as a teenager and it was by the kids in high school and not by my family.

Having the doctor ask me about my family's medical history and not being able to give an answer is hardly embarrassing, but I hope I don't ever develop something that would be much easier to diagnose if the history were available.

I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to.

I've never really had an interest in finding my biological family. I guess it would be an interesting story, but I'm not really too concerned about it. I suppose my biological mother decided that it would be best for me to be adopted and it certainly seems to have turned out pretty well, so that's good. From time to time I've thought that I probably could have just as easily ended up being aborted rather than adopted and so I don't think I believe in abortion.

I am actually biracial and so I assume a special effort was made to place me with a biracial family. That was nice of them. I guess I'm not a "real Jew" in the technical sense, but I can live with that.

When I was like 17 I found a file while I was looking for a tax return or something that was labelled "Adoption" and had all of this information about the details surrounding me being born and adopted. I read the entire file for about an hour standing in front of the filing cabinet in my cold basement. It was obviously interesting from my standpoint.

I can't say that I'm more or less than what I would have been if I were born into my family rather than adopted into it. That seems to be the best measurement. Wondering what it would have been like to be kept by my biological mother or adopted into a different family is a fruitless endeavor, in my opinion. It's really a moot point, anyway.

Comments:
I've never had an overwhelming urge to know. Nothing beyond thinking, "I bet that's an interesting story."
 
"I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to."

Is there news you want to whare with us? Or is that just a general statement?
 
I'm interested to know if your parents had had a somewhat open adoption, where you could find out who your bio-parents were when you were 18....would you have?

We're struggling with some issues surrounding how our kid might feel if we use completely anon. donor vs: known at 18. Thanks for your imput.
 
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