A natural mother recently made a comment saying “I've always had the impression that to adoptee's we weren't really real. Intellectually we were but not emotionally and I think the opposite is true for us moms.”

Now, this is a huge blanket statement and although I get what the person was saying I do think that she wasn’t trying to imply all adoptees feel this way but was simply talking generally. However, it is so important for triad members to keep in mind that we all have feelings and thoughts of our own. For example, by lumping adoptees all together is like saying that we adoptees are all the same and I don’t think that is what many of us mean when we do it. I to am guilty of this in my writing and sometimes don’t catch it until someone points it out. An analogy I thought of is saying that all Italians are in the mob.

So, do most adoptees think or feel that their natural parents are real? Do you think this is one of the problems in adoption today? Do adults presume that children don’t’ have many of their own ideas, thoughts, and feelings?

Personally, I wanted to meet my natural mother from the earlier years of my learning I was adopted. It was suggested to my parents via the intermediary who handled the adoption several years prior for me to complete high school, go to college, get a good job, and if I still wanted to know there were way to find out. I was told that the records were sealed and I totally go it or understand that my records were sealed and that meant that the government got to decided whether or not I was able to see the information about myself.

During my teen years, I was angry, unsettled, scared, and even say. I had a hard time grasping why someone else had the right to know about me what I didn’t. I often thought about how my natural other could love me yet not want to meet me. It was society who taught me that what I might find might hurt too much because this is what they believed. To a child, doesn’t this give the message that everyones feelings count except theirs.

If a child feels that their feelings don’t count, do you think that child will feel as if they are bad someone? After all, wasn’t the natural mother in many cases described to the adoptee as self sacrificing, loving and good. If she is all of that then wouldn’t a child think eh or she must be very bad. After all, other kids were kept and they weren’t. The message then becomes that these other children are good and they were better because other wise they wouldn’t have been given away.