I have shared this picture before, not recently but I feel since it is “National Adoption Awareness Month” it needs to be shared again. Both as an adoptee and adoptive parent, this quote resonates with me on every level. Like everything and everyone, there are vast varieties of feelings adoptees have with regard to adoption. There are “angry” adoptees, adoptees that have no intention of finding their roots, others choose to address any and all issues that have come from their adoption.

Every year I would proudly support National Adoption Awareness Month, a month that I would celebrate my adoption and the pride I have from it. Which I still do, however, there are a lot more issues that usually aren’t addressed. When I was younger, I always wanted to foster/adopt, mostly because I wanted to give a child the same opportunity that I was given. I still have that desire, however, I feel as if I have come full circle and have been able to see adoption as a whole in a completely new light.

When I was younger, I wanted to adopt a child of a different race, I never really knew the reason why but looking back from where I am today, it was because I didn’t want to be the only non-white face in a crowd. I thought that my entire life I would constantly be in the minority and I used to have a sense of loneliness that came with it. Growing up there were other adoptees, several in fact but all of us never really would hang out or even talk about what it felt like to be adopted. Maybe it was because we never knew how much adoption can impact someone.

Once I started fostering my now daughter my viewpoint started to change. During the adoption process I found myself wanting to ensure she would be connected to her roots, even if that just meant appropriate pictures I could find on Facebook or anything really. These were some things that I never had and I wanted to make sure some of her eventual questions would be answered. It was then that I ran across this quote.

I never really looked at it from another perspective. I had just always assumed that I was given up for adoption because that was the “best choice” at the time. However after speaking with some adoptees, ones who have reunited with their biological families, mostly Korean adoptees, I know that some were relinquished through coercion or some were taken away and given up by extended family members. These ideas had never crossed my mind. I guess I had always had a rosy picture of adoption, at least until I met my daughter and walked through part of her journey.

There is a weight that comes with adoption, for the children and the parents. I know that I will be questioned as her mother because we are different races and that there will be some questions that I may not be able to answer. There is a weight that comes with knowing all of that and knowing that she will have her own unique set of struggles. I know that I cannot protect her from everything and that eventually, she will have to walk on her own journey through adoption as I have.

Some adoptees have used National Adoption Awareness Month to advocate to keep biological families together. I am neither pro or anti-adoption, my situation is not the same as all other adoptees, we can relate on similar feelings and have a “me too” moment but our journeys and struggles are not all the same.

Instead of using this month as a way to advocate one way or another, I want to use it to bring other adoptees’ voices to light. It’s time to listen about the impact that it has on us, that some of us were not adopted into loving homes, some are estranged from their adoptive families, others have suffered neglect and abuse, some international adoptees have even been deported because their adoptive parents never completed the naturalization paperwork. These are the voices that you need to hear. It is their stories that matter. Not all adoptions have happy endings some are short stories and some tragedies and those stories need to be told.