Just as there are many reasons for a birth parent to want to undertake a search, there are also a wide of motivating factors for adoptees to search. In my discussions with adoptees, I have never heard one person express the thought that their search indicates any lack of love and affection for their birth parents.

If fact, even adoptees whose upbringing in their adoptive families has been hellacious still do not want to hurt them. They may occasionally search for another family that treats them better, is more like them or understands them better.

However, children generally love their parents no matter how they treat them. Never have I heard an adoptee express a desire to search to hurt their adoptive parents. To the contrary, no matter what kind of homelife an adopted child has had, they may fear hurting their adoptive parents.

The fear of telling adoptive parents is a potent enough fear that it prevents many adoptees from searching. Why do adoptees search, particularly adoptees who love their adoptive parents dearly and do not want to hurt them:

 Curiosity – the need to know why they are the person they have become, where their artistic talent or blue eyes came from, needing to know about their family background. They want to know why their birth parents did not raise them or if they have siblings.
 A need for medical history – Some adoptees worry not about the lack of history as much for themselves but for their children. Adoptees of child-bearing age tend to feel a pressing need sometimes to know medical history before having children of their own.
 To take control of their lives, resolve some of the mysteries surrounding their adoption so they can move on with their lives, heal and flourish.
 There is a void or something seems missing in their life. For some, nothing but finding their birth family can help fill that void.

Not all adoptees need or want to search, but for those who do, the need is compelling and they are driven to find birth family. The need to reconnect with birth family is so primal that often adoptees may be unable to tell you why they need to search. Not until their birth family is found do they often understand how significant it was to find them.

Adoptees often downplay their dramatic need to find their birth family as they want it not to be important. They may not want to admit even to themselves how pressing the need to reconnect with birth family may be. To protect their hearts they may not acknowledge how much it means to them. They tell you later though. The tear flows and you know that reunion is important.