return to sender

But I also want to push back against this newer assumption that adoption is somehow always evil and violent and tragic and that we should get rid of it entirely.

My younger brother is adopted. His bio mom is my cousin, and she wasn’t ready at the time to raise a child. The adoption was completely voluntary and totally open. We are close to both bio parents and they like to check in every now and then to make sure my brother is doing all right. There was no shady child trafficking, no lies, no predatory practices. The only cultural difference is that he has Polish American ancestry on his bio dad’s side, and we have gotten geneological information in case he ever wants it (which he doesn’t yet).

Literally the only “trauma” (for lack of a better word) my brother has ever experienced from his adoption are the rude remarks of random kids who feel the need to opine on how weird adoption is and how the two of us aren’t “really family”. None of this can be blamed on the adoption itself; it’s prejudice, first and foremost. And by automatically assuming that every adoption scenario is violent or traumatic or abusive (not that we should automatically assume it’s the other way around either!), we actually tacitly accept this level of harassment and play into the amatonormative, heteronormative, etc. idea that “blood = family” which also demonizes stepfamilies and families of choice.

Also, I’m wary of any argument that adopting a kid is morally wrong because I’m pretty sure the only thing everyone refusing to adopt would accomplish is more kids aging out of the foster care system and ending up on the streets.

It's a particular kind of grief for something you never had.

And how do you even begin to talk about this heavy, empty hole in your chest. This longing for something that nearly everyone around you already has.

And the worst part, is that you feel guilty for feeling this way because you know your parents love you. They've been good to you the best way they knew how.

But the second you try to talk about this lack of connection. This emptiness. They refuse to listen. Because its too hard to see your adoption as anything other than perfect and meant to be. Because deep down it hurts too much to think about why they had to adopt. Because they couldn't have their own child. So they dismiss you.

Has anyone noticed the increasing number of adoption and foster care commercials on TV (adoption commercials in particular)? As someone who is old enough to remember them as a rarity at, like, 2 am on a news channel if you kept the TV on for background noise, it's harder to ignore when the appearance of one occurs at the start of every local news commercial break.

I'll be honest, as a child seeing them, I always kind of found them unsettling. I wasn't sure why, but I'd watch them and laugh at how much of a caricature it was of my life. What white people think adoption is, The kids, ugh, the kids on these commercials too that feel obligated to lie to please the people who were so gracious enough to open their home to you like the Little Orphan Annie. *insert eye-roll here*

I saw one last night, not too long after the Nuggets game, and when I was uploading an article to Medium, I added "#adoption," and there were 137 people who followed that tag. I also added "#adoptee." wanna know how many people follow that tag? Seven. That tells me 130 people are looking to adopt a child or are already adoptive parents. Seven adoptees, the people who are the ones being given to another family, are being vastly underrepresented. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of State, there were approximately 4,059 international adoptions by U.S. citizens in 2019. It's not clear how many adoptees are currently living in the United States overall. Still, according to Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, an estimated 1.5 million adopted children live in the United States; how is it that on a platform that boasts 60 million monthly active readers, only 7 follow the hashtag "adoption?"

It clicked for me why I found the commercials so unsettling. The overly optimistic commercials fail to convey the difficulty of adopting a child, especially one that is in the foster care system and is older or is of a different race than the adoptive parents. What's funny is even as I write this, AI has suggested my following sentence be:Adoption agencies often provide resources to help families overcome these barriers," when in fact, they kind of don't. They only ever end up benefiting the parents. Adoption records are beginning to open up to those who even have such records. However, "non-identifying" information is still the "go-to" for most states, including the state I was born in (Missouri) and the state I live in (Ohio).

The problem is that these agencies can offer all the help they want; it won't matter. It won't matter until we change the stigma around adoption. Adoptees need a safe place to speak about the pain of their adoption loss and grief without feeling guilty or shameful for feeling the way they do. We won't open up about our experiences because we don't want to make our adoptive parents feel bad when we ask questions. We don't want them to feel like they're being replaced. Frequently, even wanting to know where we come from makes us feel guilty because we shouldn't want to know. After all, they aren't the ones who raised us. The entire existence of an adoptee is a contradiction. Contradictions between feelings, belonging, and identity are everyday struggles.

These commercials are unsettling because they do not accurately portray the pain that all parties feel during the adoption process. Ann Fessler addresses this directly in her book, "The Girls Who Went Away," when she says, quote: "Adoption is, by its very nature, a painful process, one that brings into sharp relief the loss felt by all parties involved: the adoptive parents who long for a child; the birth mother who may never forget the child she gave away; and the adoptee who, even in the most secure and loving home, feels the sting of being separated from their biological roots." Fessler makes a compelling point here, prompting us to think about the adoptive parent's loss in all of this, seeing as they will never look into their child's face and see themselves reflected in them. Some adoptive mothers will never know what it feels like to carry a baby in their stomachs, to feel the baby kick and move and squirm, or experience food cravings or hormones, they'll never know the pain of birth, nor will they have any advice to offer when their adopted children consider becoming parents and having children of their own.

This kind of loss is devastating for all parties. The overly optimistic and cheerful tone represented in pro-adoption commercials frustrates me because it just doesn't accurately reflect the reality of being an adoptee. If it did, outsiders wouldn't feel comfortable saying "be grateful" when a disagreement occurs between parent and child. People wouldn't say to you as an adoptee, "Oh, I'm so sorry," when you tell them you're adopted, and "Oh, how wonderful of you" when your adoptive mom tells them.

Look, I'm not claiming that this is some easy thing to navigate, but an honest conversation needs to be had here because judging by the quantity of these commercials, the fact that they're government funded, and aired on prime-time television, I'd wager all of the GOP's abortion bans are backfiring, because if this doesn't scream "propaganda," I'm not sure what does.

going to ruffle a few feathers with this one

Found family is vary broad and self-explanatory it's basically family that's not blood related

DID YOU NOT CHECK THE DEFINITION?

The whole point of found family is that the characters are a family without the typical roles of it. "What if two characters consider themselves siblings." Yes, they adopted eachother as siblings, without the legality of adoption (which is also something I also am) I do not feel it right to dumb down or relationship that has been built over a decade to ao3's fluffy angst shit fan fiction term written by people who arnt adopted to "feel better" about their life.

When someone of a minority groups tells you to stop referring to them as a romanticized fictional trope that dumbs down their experience to fluffy angst fan fiction maybe you should listen? Chosen family is a different term than found family. "But google says!" as if that adds anything to your argument.

Also may I remind you some adoptees are human trafficked. Also most adoptees are babies and did not consent to their adoption. Not to mention there is arguments if a child of a young age can consent to adoption etc.

Adoptees are not little kittens you found in a cardboard box, I am not a found object. I did not chose my adoptive family. I had 0 consent in it.

Most "found family" tagged as adoption, ARE NOT WRITTEN BY ADOPTEES. I'd argue under 0% is! "But adoptive family" they dont count. They are not the ones who are most affected by the situation, they are not adopted.

You do not get to come here and be like "i dont wanna be offensive" and say some of thee most offensive shit, dumbing down our experiences to your happiness fluff angst feel good fictional bullshit. Listen to adoptees and our experiences. "But one said that its okay!!" And? Do you feel that why when other minorities say stuff on an issue? If something is offensive simply don't use it. I am not the only adoptee who feels this way at all.

Our experiences and our trauma does not exist for your fluff fan fiction to get off to like its some miracle happy drug.

Use the actual definition of found family or continue being ignorant and offensive to a minority group that is constantly told to shut up and our experiences dont matter.

<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FamilyOfChoice>