Some thoughts on adoption

An older picture but it shows a happy family

The families adoption can create

I read a moving piece today about a young woman, an adoptee, who devoted years to finding her biological parents. She was raised, as an only child, by loving adoptive parents but she always felt incomplete. And after her diligence, she had a joyful reunion with both biological parents, who could barely remember that they knew each other. I’m afraid the story moved me not in the direction she or the writer intended. I need to speak out about adoption from the viewpoint of an adoptive parent.

My four children were all adopted as infants. My husband and I created a loving perfect family for them for twelve years, and then he left us. I was terrified. My first thought was, “How can I raise four children by myself?” They then ranged in age from twelve to six. But you know what, I did raise them and, if I do say so, pretty successfully. Today there are wonderful people with solid marriages, happy families, and good careers—a CPA, a lawyer, an entrepreneur who outshines us all, and a luxury travel consultant. I could not be prouder of them.

Sure, we had our ups and downs. My oldest had something to discover about his dad and went to live with him a couple of times. The girls were sometimes horrendously difficult as teenagers, but aren’t most girls? I think the boys were equally difficult in a different way, but I was blissfully unaware of what they were doing.

But in all those difficult years, I never heard one of them say they wanted to find their biological parents. Sure, one once said in anger, “You shouldn’t have bought me,” but for the most part I think they were afraid of what they would find. One knew that her biological mother had done drugs, and she never expressed any desire to find her.

Adoption became, for us, something we joked about. Once Colin saw me talking on my cell phone, making a large gesture of moving it from ear to mouth, and he said, “Mom, you don’t have to do that. If I see you doing that in public, I’m going to say, ‘I don’t’ know her,’ and if someone knows you’re my mom, I’m going to say, ‘I’m adopted.’” When Jordan’s son was born, her obstetrician kept saying the newborn favored me, and I finally had to say, “You do know that Jordan is adopted, don’t you?” Then again, they say that people who live together begin to look alike, and these days, as Jordan matures, I think I see my mother in her. She was Mom’s baby, and they spent a lot of time together.

I am the envy of many women my age because my children are close, affectionate, loving, and oh so independent. I’m often told I did a good job of raising them, which amuses me because all I can think of is the many mistakes I made, things I shouldn’t have said, things I overlooked. Jordan says I was a strict disciplinarian, but I think many parents would have been appalled at my laxness. Once when she was a latch-key kid, another mother refused to let her daughter come home with Jordan after school because of the lack of supervision.

I don’t know why they turned out like they did. A combination of love, trust, and damn good luck. But I want to speak for the other side of the adoption triangle. Finding biological parents is often a major disappointment, a disruption of life rather than the solution to all problems as some seem to believe. Not all adoptees pine for their biological parents, and some biological parents don’t really want to be found. It’s not as simple as taking a DNA test.

My second son travels often on business to the city where his birth mother was raised. I asked if he wanted to meet her family, and he said, “I’d like to see them from a distance.”

So next time you read one of those DNA miracle stories, stop for a minute and think of the many other sides of that story. And remember my wonderful family.