Later Thoughts on Adoption

So now I'm an adult with my own children. I would never have considered adopting a child out because of my experience. I couldn't stand the idea of perpetuating that legacy to another generation. I know without reservation that my natural mother did what she had to do by putting me up for adoption. I don't blame her or harbor any bad feelings about that. I know that my parents loved me.

But I don't believe adoption to be the alturistic act that most people believe it to be. It's an arrangement that fills the need of the adoptive parents & the adopted child. It usually is the best thing for the child that is adopted because the natural mother/parents, for whatever reason, can't take care of the child. So it is the best option in these cases. Nothing's perfect, right. So I don't have ill feelings about adoption in general, I'm not "anti adoption". I just can't abide by the gushing about how wonderful it is of a couple to take on another woman's child as their own.

The adoptive parents are usually not adopting the child because there's a child that needs parents... it's not a charitable act people. It's filling a need for them just as it's filling a need for the child. They can't have children but want to fulfill the dream. They go to great lengths to adopt a baby, not an older child; try to match looks as closely as possible with their own so the child may look similar to them. This is adoption, not charity personified.
But the difference is the child has no choice, only the adults involved have choices. So the child is at their mercy & just has to make the best of life as it is. Without knowing their roots. That's really a large missing piece for an individual. Not only geneologically speaking but other considerations like medical history, the day to day "why am I like this?" thoughts. The frustration & alienation of being so completely, inately different from their parents, never being understood. Not "misunderstood" in the sense that every teenager feels, deeper than that. Not easily explainable really. But deeply felt.

I really understood just how deep these feelings of alienation were shortly before my mother died a dozen years ago. When she told me how she really felt. My father had died a year earlier. She was depressed & didn't hold back. She told me, ironically enough, that she never felt she had anything that was her own. Her husband had a former wife with whom he had a child. (Short lived WWII marriage, the child always lived in Germany & Daddy had no contact with her until shortly before his death. Another odd experience for another post.) So he wasn't completely hers, he was shared & who she "shared" him with one-upped her by having his child.
She told me how disappointing I was to her. I didn't think like her, look like her, cook like her, etc., I wasn't really hers & I was "shared" with my natural mother. Ditto for my brother, though he didn't get the pleasure of hearing it directly from her like I did. She said he couldn't "handle" it.

So there I had it. I was "taken in" to fill a void, a void I didn't fully fill; at least not to her satisfaction. I told her it hurt me to hear that. I also told her that she wasn't alone in having a void in their life. Even though I found my natural mother, had dinner with both my mothers, there is a void in my life that will never be filled. I don't look to fill it anymore. It is what it is & I made my own life, my own history good & bad, and learned how to fill the lack of family ties with other "chosen" family - great friends.

My mother died, unexpectedly, a week later. She really died of depression because she couldn't see her way clear to accept what was & make the best of it. Her counselor agreed with me on that count. She wanted someone to fill it for her. No one can do that for you. I know many other people feel similar feelings whether adopted or not. You have to fill your own heart by opening it. I'm glad I was able to find my way clear to do that. I don't dwell, I do review & analyze, but I find that to be healthy. You have to know where your base is to be stable, emotionally anyway. You may wish your base was different, but in the long run you have to accept it to go forward.