#adoptees

[krossan]

the possibilities ARE THERE

[thepersonalwords]

Blood can help make family, but family often transcends blood.

DaShanne Stokes

[waxdream]

I think in this world, acknowledged and unacknowledged traumas are a key way of dividing us. Someone with a debilitating fear of spiders for example, is going to be dismissed as childish by at least a portion of society, even if their phobia forces them to stay inside, hyperfixated on erradicating all spiders in their space. And yknow, that person may not be depressed, they may not have anything else other than their phobia, but their phobia is disabling. And they go online and see people validating those with disabling depression, and I just think that when something engulfs your life so largely, it's hard not to take that as 'the world doesn't care about my phobia. They just care about depression'.

I've battled with this feeling a lot thoughout my life. I've thought 'noone cares about adoptees', and I just didn't understand why. I remember my school doing an assembly on Autism, and all I could think of was 'well, there's more adopted people than there are autistic people, why aren't we doing that assembly?!' . I tried to make that assembly happen, and was told no because the school had an adoptee who didn't know they were an adoptee. Fucking disgusting behaviour, imo, limiting the education of an entire school because some adoptive parents didn't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. I could have done some good there, I could have taught people what the school refused to teach. The only mention I ever heard of adoption in that school was in health class, where they said 'some people in the UK choose to put their children up for adoption. This is very uncommon'. I felt gross hearing that. That school spent hour long lessons on how to clean your teeth, yet can't even acknowledge that adoptees grow up and sit in your classroom.

It's a kind of outrage you feel, like you're being snubbed in favour of another cause. It's jealousy - I know I feel jealous of people with traumas that are talked about, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. Jealousy is only ugly when you act on it. Feeling it means you're human. But in the real world, I gotta know that it's not the fault of other communities, it's noone's fault other than a society that likes to sweep adoption under the rug.

Recently I feel like the transracial adoptee movement has hit the mainstream, and I see people talking about it as if interracial adoptees don't exist. So I'm going to say that I think being adopted by someone who is the same race as you is an unacknowledged trauma. I think people dismiss our adoptions and pretend we look like our adoptive families. I think our adoptive families get away with pretending we are birth children, which lets our history fester in it's wake. I think not being told about our adoptions is a disgusting thing, and it happens because adoptive parents think 'oh, we can get away with not telling our kid they're adopted, they won't guess otherwise'. I think that even adoptees who aren't told about their adoption are adoptees, and I know they feel the same level of pain as I do. I think interracial adoptees are commercialised and objectified.

I think 'matching a child to the adoptive parent' is not always in the childs best interest. I was put in fostercare at 2 weeks old, and I stayed in it for 2 years because the UK system didn't want my foster carers to adopt me. They wanted to 'match' me to someone else. My parents were considered too old, this being part of the same ruleset that prevented transracial adoption in the UK in the early 2000s. I was desireable as a newborn. People want to adopt newborns. I think if they succeeded in taking me away from my adoptive parents, I would have been trapped in the fostercare system - two year olds are less desireable after all. I have trauma from feeling objectified because of this knowledge. I think anyone would, if they know money was spent, lots of money in court fees and all that, to take me specifically away from my family. And that's a trauma created by the idea that 'every adoption should be a perfect match'. That's why I think the adoptee community needs to come together as adoptees and be a group of it's own, because otherwise we create an artificial divide of people. I think 'adoption should be a perfect match' as an ideology is unrealistic. Sometimes it's just as important that a baby stay with their first match for example, to prevent further trauma. The UK adoption system almost bankrupted a working class family of fostercarers because they felt that it was more important for my adoptive parents to be a young, rich couple. A family of fostercarers who dared to do exactly what a fostercarers is meant to do - love their child unconditionally, to the point that they wanted to stop fostercaring and adopt me. And even though my folks are older, and don't understand autism or any of the stuff that makes me different from them, I still think this is the perfect place for me.

So yknow, I have different experiences to a transracial adoptee. I think mine are less blatantly obvious, because racism is pervasive in this world and disgusting. It makes sense to me why the plight of transracial adoptees is so loud and important. Hell, even your word is being stolen by the 'trans race' community that's trying to essentially cosplay as other races. I also think the adoptee community should be more united - and we should listen to each other, and work as a team. Because Jealousy is a human emotion, I think we're all projecting and feeling jealous of each other, when in reality, we're all jealous of folks who aren't adopted. And that's okay friend. Jealousy is okay. Taking actions based on jealousy isn't, but the feeling? It's okay. I'm jealous of folks who have something they can point to and say 'that's the root of all my problems', because I don't think I have that. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be a dick about it, and it also doesn't mean my feelings reflect reality. Just like how the idealised idea of interracial adoption doesn't reflect reality. It's two different sides of the same coin, like many things in the adoption world. I think the true path to change is changing the views and mentality of those who aren't adopted. Because they just. Don't. Get. It.

[ex-foster]

Why Is the Anti-Adoption Movement So Vocal, but Foster Kid Advocacy So Quiet?

This is something a lot of people don’t notice—but it says a lot about how society treats adoptees vs. foster kids.

Adoptees are often seen as “rescued”

🍀 They are usually permanently placed in homes and told they’re “chosen�� or “lucky.” That gives them a certain social capital, and people listen to them more—at least superficially.

✨ They often have more time and support (not always, but more than most foster youth) to reflect, write, and connect with others.

Foster youth are seen as “damaged”

👿 There’s a deep stigma around foster kids. People often assume they’re “troubled” or “bad kids,” not victims of trauma.

🐺 They’re constantly displaced, isolated, or dealing with survival. That makes organizing and speaking out much harder.

⌛ Many age out without a stable family, housing, or internet access—so their voices are lost before they can even be heard.

Adoption narratives are emotionally powerful (and marketable)

🧨Anti-adoption adoptees are fighting back against a system that sells a “happily ever after.”

💀 But the foster care system doesn’t even pretend to have a happy ending—it’s more openly bleak, so people just ignore it.

☁️ Society has already given up on foster youth in a way it hasn't yet with adoptees.

Many foster kids are too burnt out to fight back

💤 When you’ve been through group homes, abuse, reunification trauma, aging out with no support—the energy it takes to organize is massive.

🫥 Plus, some foster youth experience so much betrayal (from caseworkers, therapists, adults) that they don’t trust any system, including activism.

[myspacialawareness]

Adoptee Discusses Attachment Style.

All in the name. C’est moi.

[eggwhiteswithspinach]

affirmations for adoptees

[goawaywithjae]

I want to address a topic that goes beyond the are they or aren’t they K-pop artists if they sing in English dialogue — which was a big portion of that NYT podcast that I wrote about earlier this week. But first, a brief recap of that hot mess:

In that 47-minute long discussion, the host and his guest explored the use of English in K-pop songs. Their general consensus was that if a Korean artist is singing in English, it’s not unique anymore, because they’re doing the same thing that Western artists do:

[Jung-kook’s “Golden” is] an American album with a Korean face on it basically. So I think if I was a listener that was like, “Oh, this is what a K-pop guy can do? It sounds just like Justin Timberlake.” Why do you need a Korean guy doing Justin Timberlake when we have Justin Timberlake?

This could have been an interesting topic if they had addressed their own implicit bias as well as the obvious question: Why is it that when white European performers choose to sing in English — even though their native language isn’t English — no one accuses them of tapping into an already-saturated market of songs performed in English? We know why. Because to a certain sector of our population, white people singing in English is the norm, whereas Asians — even Asian Americans — appear foreign to them. So for these folks, it’s weird hearing ethnically-Asian musicians singing in English.

[oliveptee]

While adoption and step arnt the typical "nuclear" family you think of, they still are a legally binding family, (infact most families that are adoption/ step you wouldnt know if they didnt tell you) theStandard definition of a family. Found Family can be anything BUT standard,must be unrelated (there for adoption/step doesnt count) orphanages dont count either because it is a process of adoption they view themselves as a standard family (ex: they ARE siblings just minus the parents)

Found Family cant have any standard roles, no sibling/parental roles, while they may feel similar they arnt. Lets look at dungeon meshi, are chilchuck and laois "brothers" no they arnt are maricle and senshi father and daughter? ...obviously not! But they /feel/ and interact like a family without the typical family roles [to some viewers]

Now for why adoptees hate it: Our experiences are often dumbed down for biospawns (people who are not adopted) and refuse to see any trauma involved in it. They romanticize adoption to no end. They treat it like something fictional.

Found Family is a trope, adoption is not a trope. Also the key point in found family is that their not blood related.. exactly something that is majorly insenstive to adoptees and their families.

Its an another extent of romantization. My experiences / other adoptees / even their families are not fictional tropes, and do not exist for the eyes of a viewer/reader. Its dehumanizing. Even to maybe say "using fandom lingo on a very serious issue"

going to ruffle a few feathers with this one

[ex-foster]

I've learned so much by listening to adult adoptees. As a former foster kid who was not adopted, I had some preconceived ideas on adoption. I remember being confused when financial aid was being offered to former foster kids, including those who were adopted. I was truly puzzled because I thought adoptees wouldn't need any financial aid because they were adopted and theoretically had someone to take care of them whereas someone who aged out of care virtually has nobody.

But I'm learning that a lot of adoptees have super similar experiences to foster kids who aged out of care. A lot of adoptees are given similar expectations as FFY where they are expected to live independently the literal day they turn 18. Whereas biological children are given a LOT more support than adoptees or FFY.

And even in cases where adoptive parents do want to support their adoptive children to obtain a higher education, they may have not been able to save up for their education the same way that a child living with their biological parents would. For example if the adoption took place when the adoptive child was 8 years old, and then a high interest savings account was made to prepare for their education, they would 8 years behind a kept child who had their high interest savings account established when they were an infant.

[kali-tmblr]

This sort of treatment is the norm among African boys adopted by Conservative Christians.

Remember The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock? The movie showed how a kid who had an extremely rough upbringing got help from the family of a school friend, found success in football and ultimately ended up being adopted by the family. Turns out he was never adopted.

Michael Oher says that he was tricked by the Tuohy family into signing documents that made them his conservators. Since he was already 18 at the time the family told him, “that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took [his] age into account.”

Oher also says that papers were signed so that his story and likeness were given away for free to use in The Blind Side. He also never got a single royalty check for the hugely successful, Oscar nominated film in the 14 years since its release.

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA La Presse di Oggi giovedì, 15 maggio 2025