by Saint Fang

Created on: December 22, 2009

One thing I've never doubted in my life is my mother's love for me. This, according to some people, is highly unusual. Why should it be unusual? Well, I'm adopted. Big deal, right? Some people seem to think so. According to these ignorant humans, being adopted means I automatically have 'issues' connecting with my adoptive family and a fear of abandonment.  Not to mention that I should be 'grieving' for the 'family that I lost' when I was adopted. Or so the books and websites made by these people keep telling me. I cannot believe the number of writings I've found on adoption and how many of them are pieces of stereotypical junk. Take, for instance, something I read just recently. According to this book I found, birthdays are hard for adopted children because they remind them of the day they 'lost' their birth family. Where did that idea come from? I never came to this conclusion. To be honest, I very rarely thought of my birth family as people I 'lost'. Actually, I didn't think too much about them at all. Wondered? Yes. Fanaticized? Yes. Obsessed over them? No. To me, my adoptive family was my family. I didn't need to worry about a group of strangers I never met.

Not to say that there aren't some adopted people who go through many of these thoughts and feelings.  I'm sure there are those who do.  The ideas had to come from somewhere, anyway.  But sometimes, the way we adopted children seem to be tarred and feathered with the same brush just drives me up a wall.  I'm sick of, when I tell someone I'm adopted, them saying something like, "Oh, I'm sorry!" in reply.  Where did the world get the idea that being adopted was something that adopted children were sad about or uncomfortable with? 

I believe the reason I'm so open and comfortable with the idea of being adopted is because of my mother. Mom never hid from me that I was adopted. To hide it would make it seem like something to be ashamed of. My mom made me feel proud to be adopted. I was someone special. Different. Yet still a member of my family. That's the other thing she did. By making my being adopted an open thing, she made it out to be not such a big deal. Therefore, I never felt like I didn't belong in my family because I was adopted. Each of my family members was different, and this was my difference. When other people write about adoption, I believe they take all the horror stories and worst case scenarios and try to make them seem like the most common outcome. They don't take into account parents like my mom who did the one thing any child really wants their parent to do. She treated me not as her adopted daughter, but as her daughter and trust me, there is a difference.

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