Adoption Uncovered

Adoption May Be More Complex Than You Think

The general topic of adoption can bring a variety of things to mind, depending on who you are surrounded by.(1) If you have personal experience with adoption or foster care, you very likely have different views on it from the person whose only experience is in a wayward conversation, a well-intentioned mission trip, or someone attending a political rally. 

While this may not be a topic that most people feel affects them every day, there are more reasons than you might imagine that everyone should have an accurate view of adoption and foster care. The average person who wants to genuinely support unexpectedly pregnant people in their area, poor families, or foster parents would be able to better focus their efforts if they had an accurate understanding of how adoptees feel or what foster families really need. 

Some, like the adoptee Jean Widner, are addressing the lack of accurate information by doing their best to compile it based on their own research and connections with those in the community.

“I am not anti-adoption, but I am pro-truth. We need to tell the truth about adoption’s Origins and its history.” (2)

Jean wrote an entire book about how complex adoption can be called the Adoption Paradox. She talks about adoption history and helps us understand how we got to where we are today.

Understanding More About Adoptees

Adoptees are those who have moved from one home to another permanently. Often, the general public believes that people in this position just go about their daily lives like the rest of us, possibly with a little extra skip in their step when they remember with gratitude the life they were rescued from. (3) That train of thought has been incredibly useful to a number of players in the adoption system. Adoptive parents could put the past behind them and go forward with the family they were able to build without dealing with any complex emotions. (4) If anything, they could feel better about themselves by being part of a solution.(5) It also helped those working within the system. (6) Some of them were making money from taking children from one party and placing them with another. (7) More often, social workers were trying to solve a difficult problem with something that seemed like a good solution at the time.

Over time, adoptees have been finding their voice. There is a generation of adults who were adopted and are now adults speaking their truth. They are writing articles for major news organizations, (8) thoughtfully articulating memoirs(9), and putting together snappy TikToks to let us know that many of them were not ok in their adoptive placements. They felt different, alone, and out of touch with their birth culture. This type of knowledge can help therapists understand how to walk adoptees through grief and trauma. It can allow us to understand the cost of severing primary relationships in favor of a quick fix. Maybe it will push us to find better ways of helping children stay in their first families. (10)

Understanding More About Adoptive Parents

One of the reasons adoptees have had to suffer in silence with some of these issues is that adoptive parents didn’t know the issues were present or how to deal with them. (11) Adoption was often seen as final when the papers were signed. Help for adoptive families dealing with their adopted child’s trauma wasn’t widespread. (12) It wasn’t common to understand that all adoptees experience the world a little differently, even if only from time to time. 

The other piece of education that has not been available enough for adoptive parents is ongoing support. I have even found this in my own community. It is not easy to locate groups of adoptive families who might meet together to share resources and vent. Sometimes groups will start and be short-lived. These groups bring parents together who are interacting with children daily who exhibit behaviors that don’t have easy solutions. Sometimes, the best advice for parenting children with unique behaviors comes from sharing lived experiences.  (13)

Understanding More About First Families

The more we all learn, the more we can truly help families who need resources more than they need children removed. (14) Understanding the causes of poverty might help us address the lack of resources before circumstances devolve to the point where children need to leave the home or parents need to consider placing their babies for adoption. All of us would benefit if vulnerable families had enough resources to survive.(15) Instead of encouraging women to offer their babies for adoption, we can have a better understanding of the costs that will be incurred in the years ahead. Maybe it is the right call to allow the child to be adopted, but maybe this will lead to trauma and other psychological issues for the child or the parent. Transferring a child from one family to another isn’t simple, and it should be looked at carefully.

How We Can Learn More and Genuinely Help

It isn’t necessary to get a college degree to learn more about adoption issues. Increasingly, adoptees and first mothers are writing about their experiences in memoirs that are easily accessible via Amazon and other book sellers.(16) We can all get a glimpse into the reality of adopted life to help us better inform the ways we support women and children in our communities. (17) When we give cash or time to donate, we can direct those resources toward organizations and causes that help families stay together, like Save Our Sisters. We can also support foster and adoptive families who genuinely need help by supporting National CASA or Guardian ad Litem or other organizations.(18) Giving children stability is important. Still, it isn’t always as simple as we would like it to be. 

Sources

1. McCormack, Olivia. “Being adopted has shaped their views on abortion — in different ways.” Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2022, http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/10/adoptees-abortion-beliefs/.
2. Spiering, Charlyn. “Moving Toward More Educated Adoption Conversations With Jean Widner.” Adoption Uncovered, 26 Aug. 2015, adoptionuncovered.com/2025/08/26/moving-toward-more-educated-adoption-conversations-with-jean-widner/.
3. Long, Lynelle. “Expectations of Gratitude in Adoption.” Intercountry Adoptee Voices, 14 Feb. 2018, intercountryadopteevoices.com/2018/02/14/expectations-of-gratitude-in-adoption/.
4. Inskeep, Steve. “No One’s Children.” The Atlantic, 11 Mar. 2024, http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/secret-adoptions-right-to-know/677677/.
5. Moore, Taylor. “Finally, Transracial Adoptees Can See Ourselves Reflected in Literature.” Electric Lit, 29 Nov. 2018, electricliterature.com/finally-transracial-adoptees-can-see-ourselves-reflected-in-literature/.
6. Cederlund, Maya. “Amid global adoption reckoning, adoptees fight long-standing narrative they should be ‘grateful’.” NBC News, 18 Oct. 2024, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/chinese-korea-global-adoption-adoptees-grateful-rcna175785.
7. Root, Tik. “The Baby Brokers: Inside America’s Murky Private-Adoption Industry.” Time, 3 June 2021, time.com/6051811/private-adoption-america/.
8. Barcella, Laura. “Adoptees Like Me ‘Flip the Script’ on the Pro-Adoption Narrative.” NY Times, 13 Nov. 2014, archive.nytimes.com/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/adoptees-like-me-flip-the-script-on-the-pro-adoption-narrative/.
9. Kim, JaeRan. “Adoptee Memoirs, Essays, and Anthologies.” Harlows Monkey, harlows-monkey.com/for-adoptees/adoptee-memoirs-and-narratives/.
10. “50+ Ways to Help Families.” CO4kids.org, 2015, co4kids.org/child-abuse-prevention/prevention-resources/50-ways-to-help-families/.
11. Brookland, Jennifer. “Adoptive parents often learn the hard way: It takes more than love to overcome trauma.” Detroit Free Press, 5 July 2024, http://www.yahoo.com/news/adoptive-parents-often-learn-hard-100057700.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM1SCuFiBV_wA5s7-MM_vdfJfZeYCb0iX60mgA3MbOW.
12. Jones, Eloise. “For those of us within it, the adoption system is not good enough – we need more support.” My Social Work News, 27 Apr. 2023, http://www.mysocialworknews.com/article/for-those-of-us-within-it-the-adoption-system-is-not-good-enough-we-need-more-support.
13. Anderson, Judith. “The Value of Adoption Groups: Supporting Parents, Supporting Kids, Supporting Families.” Families Rising, wearefamiliesrising.org/resource/value-adoption-groups-supporting-families/#:~:text=Most%20importantly%2C%20parent%20groups%20offer%20encouragement%20and%20hope.&text=There%20is%20no%20clear%2.
14. Cohensedgh, Daniella. “The Pressure for Birth Mothers Facing Poverty To Give Their Child Up for Adoption.” law.georgetown.edu, 11 Oct. 2023, http://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/the-pressure-for-birth-mothers-facing-poverty-to-give-their-child-up-for-adoption/.
15. Holzer, Harry J., et al. “The Economic Costs of Poverty.” americanprogress.org, 24 Jan. 2007, http://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-economic-costs-of-poverty/.
16. https://adopteereading.com/10-adoptee-memoirs-about-complex-reunions-with-birth-family/
17. Spiering, Charlyn. “We Don’t Know Enough About the Adoptee and First Parent Experience. Memoirs Can Help.” Adoption Uncovered, 10 Apr. 2025, adoptionuncovered.com/2025/04/10/we-dont-know-enough-about-the-adoptee-and-first-parent-experience-memoirs-can-help/.
18. Harris, Grayson. “15 Foster Care Charities Changing Lives.” Charity Charge, 12 Aug. 2024, http://www.charitycharge.com/nonprofit-resources/foster-care-charities/.