Adoption in the media is often shown either as entirely good or entirely bad. I think quite often adoption lands somewhere in between. But if there is something that isn’t discussed enough it is endings in adoption.
So many people describe adoption as a new beginning, and it is, it can be. But it is also, for many families, as permanent of a goodbye as death. Biological families may never have the chance to reunite due to financial, family, or even legal barriers. Due to laws dating back to when adoption was more private, it can be difficult for adult adoptees to even find biological family if the birth parents haven’t shared identifying information with the adoptive family.
With the more recent advent of genetic testing, it is becoming easier for families to find biological relations; but knowing there is a second cousin named Mark out there doesn’t alert a person to the knowledge of whether or not Mark wants to acknowledge his second cousin or was ever aware such a person existed.
The point I’m trying to make is that for children who were adopted and their birth families, adoption day can be less a celebration of a new melded family and more a time of mourning a loss. That is not to say the reasons for the adoption aren’t good, acceptable, or necessary. Sometimes circumstances dictate less-than-ideal situations when things like poverty, neglect, abuse, and generational trauma are involved. There is no perfect solution to the problem of vulnerable children needing a home.
I was, for a time, on the wrong side of what seemed like an ending after what I had imagined would be a forever attachment. A child I love hurt another child I love in a way that the law (and our household) found intolerable. The child was required to move to a residential treatment center for a time. I remember having the distinct feeling it felt like a child I loved had died. For all that I had access to him, to comfort him, laugh with him, and see him grow, he was gone.
That time made me consider deeply what it would be like as a birth parent saying goodbye to their child for the last time: knowing they’d be alive, but not knowing where they’d be, or if they’d be treated well. It was a gut-wrenching, heart-rending feeling. Even now, as the child has entered adulthood and we can and sometimes see each other, I’m acutely aware of the loss. He is so much taller, stronger, complicated, and almost completely foreign to me. I missed so much and I will never get it back.
I’m not being maudlin for maudlin’s sake. Truly. Yes, I’m coming upon an anniversary of a sort, for that hard season. I’m very deeply in my emotions about it. But I’m acutely aware that despite my devastation, the loss for my children was worse and more complicated.
They were abused. They were the victims of cruelty and mental unwellness. But their abuser was their beloved, older sibling. The same person who joked and teased is the one who hurt them and damaged their childhood.
There are children around the world experiencing that same sense of loss and confusion. They were adopted out of necessity of them having a home, but they may resent their adoptive parents. I used to feel so angry when I read about adult adoptees who were furious about their adoption. How dare they feel anything but grateful for a safe home to live in and parents that loved them? I understand a little more now. It isn’t as simple as that.
For every moment of joy an adopted child has, they may experience the same amount of sadness because of feelings of betrayal. They don’t wish to forget their birth families exist. My kids will tell me sometimes they wish I was the only mom they ever had. It breaks my heart that they ever needed me or someone like me in their lives. But I’m also finding myself at times wishing I was the only mom they had as well.
Then, of course, I realize how different we would all be if I was their only mom. While I hate the sentiment that trauma makes us stronger, as if those who traumatized us deserve credit much like a lauded gymnastics coach when their gymnast takes a gold medal, I will say that we wouldn’t be who we are without that trauma. This is not to credit the circumstances we might rise out of as the reason for whatever net positive our lives have found. The same trauma may affect totally disparate results depending on the person—even people in the same family.
It is the heartbreak of the first love lost that might cause one person to reject all over loves, which will cause another person to cling desperately to their love with the strength of a barnacle to a ship. Both were affected deeply by beginnings and endings and neither would be the same as a result but we should not give credit to the heartbreak for one’s success and another’s failure. That credit goes to the core of the individual.
My point, dear reader, in all of my rambling is to remind myself, and you, to remember that endings and beginnings have effects on all of us and while we may wish the endings never happened, new beginnings wouldn’t exist without them. I hold these truths tenderly in my chest, folded close to my heart as I find myself grateful but despaired to have my adoptees folded closely into my family. I hope I can help repair their hurt but I know I will never be able to fix it for them. I hold that truth close while I mourn the ruined birthday parties and holidays sabotaged by broken hearts remembering they wouldn’t get to have that special day if things had been different. I hold it closer when I celebrate my children and grieve and realize there is someone else that won’t ever get the privilege of getting to celebrate the same way.
