A couple of days ago, Dear Abby’s column had a question from an aunt to a 50-something, asking if she should tell her niece she was adopted, since her sister, the woman’s adoptive mother had kept it a secret was now dead. Dear Abby’s answer was an unequivocal “yes”…I suppose I would have added, you know the dynamics of the family, and what it might mean. Ultimately it is your decision (and perhaps she already knows.)
I tend not to give advice for other people. How are you going to open a conversation that should have been opened 50 years earlier by someone else? I would not want to be in that position.
That said, it’s hard to believe at one time it was counseled not to tell children that they were adopted. (And I do know at least one family today who has not told.)
I remember a few times being asked in a Chinese restaurant by one of the servers if I was going to tell my daughter. Then she realized how silly she sounded and just kind of waved her hands at us (because it would be obvious to any observer)…but another server in another restaurant couldn’t believe she was adopted because she felt we looked alike, and we kinda, sorta do sometimes in the right light, at least at that time…
It’s hard not to tell when it is so obvious, but it really is the adopted person’s right to know their history and their genetics.
I think we will see big changes in counsel regarding telling (v. not telling) about donated eggs and sperm and embryos…and…
It’s a brave new world out there with a whole lotta choices there didn’t use to be. Not all of them are going to turn out hunky-dory. And we are on the cutting edge. That, of course, makes it harder for the children too, as they are walking a path hitherto unknown.
It’s easier, in some ways, to be adopted if you look like your family, because it isn’t the first thing people discern about you. Though for some adoptees there is a constant disconnect, whether one’sappearance fits or not. Some transracial adoptees say that sometimes they don’t want to be taken to college by their parents, for instance, because at college no one knows them and they have the opportunity, for once in their lives, to be seen separate from the adoption issue, unless they wish to tell it.
Karin
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Adoption, Just thinking, What the hell were they thinking
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