What It Feels Like to Be Adopted at 17
narrative.ly
narrative.ly
I've seen and heard terrible parents who are unfit to even raise a single child. It is really sad that the parents are not aware that they suck at raising children. In fact, they can't even raise themselves. The worst part is that the child/ren would be unaware how terrible their condition is/are. It gets worse. The social circle of these parents sometimes are unaware of how bad things truly are even if they know what is going on.
However, through the author's experience; it seems that in a strange way Lyric is gifted with having the ability to realize different perspectives, which is something that some people can't seem to do.
It's a skill that can be cultivated and trained. Some people need it in order to survive their life situation, others can afford to neglect it.
I dated a girl in high school who was adopted as a baby from a Russian orphanage by an American family. She explained some difficulties with adjusting with non-biological parents: the adoptee cannot help but feel like an impostor.
Adopted as babies, I suppose in some ways it’s easier to transition into a new family. Babies typically do not remember much about their biological parents at such young ages.
A theme in her life was to meet and reconnect with her biological parents. After playing “private eye,” she was able to track down her biological mother and her now half-sister. She and her biological parents keep in touch, but the true heroes here are the adopting parents (like the Esparzas). Without them, who knows what would have happened.
I'd be interested in reading a blog post describing your experience, or at least some part of it.
This was our second adoption. The first was for an infant. We planned for another infant adoption for #2, but several things conspired to change that.
The first of those was that the political winds in country of child #1 had changed such that the adoption programs in that country were practically at a stand-still. So we looked around. I believe that Ethiopia was the only other place we could adopt from due to our age/income/etc.
For our first adoption, we were given a referral. Basically, this is your child, take it or leave it. For our second adoption, we were given a video of all the children in the orphanage...oldest first. We were told that the orphanage would only house children up to age 12. And we learned that the prospects for children who had "aged out" were not very good.
So we decided to adopt one of these older children. And since we had clearly lost our minds, we called the adoption program director and asked her for advice. She said that she always gives people the same advice: "If you can possibly adopt two children at once, do it". We were obviously completely out of our minds, because we took her advice.
Of course it was very challenging at times, especially at first, for both us and them. But I am so glad we took that advice. The feeling of isolation that children in these situations have to face...it's probably the hardest part for them. And it makes sense to me that in any situation, no matter how hard, it's much easier when there is someone in your same situation you can talk to about it.
We are in contact with many other families who have adopted older children. It seems obvious to us that our girls have dealt with those challenges better than most.
There is a documentary that aired on PBS, "Girl, Adopted" about a girl adopted from the same orphanage as our girls at around the same time. I could definitely identify with a lot of what is depicted in that program, but...I think it was just a bit harder for Weynsht and her family than it was for us. Alas, it isn't free ($10 for streaming/download): http://www.girladopted.com/
Below is most insightful part of your post below ( in case anyone happens upon this post but skims through without reading).
> "If you can possibly adopt two children at once, do it"... Of course it was very challenging at times, especially at first, for both us and them. But I am so glad we took that advice. The feeling of isolation that children in these situations have to face...it's probably the hardest part for them. And it makes sense to me that in any situation, no matter how hard, it's much easier when there is someone in your same situation you can talk to about it.
Can you clarify? Are there different age/income standards to adopt children from different countries?
Right now, some friends who have been fostering a boy since he was 10, are now in the state that he can be adopted legally, but he feels like it would be a betrayal to his roots.
It's interesting how people can have totally different needs and dreams depending on their upbringing / life history. 17-20 is about the age when people I know (myself included) try to separate themselves from their families, to assert themselves as individuals and protagonists of their life stories. The last thing I cared about at that age was "a permanent family to come home to from college".
That said, all of this is also true for biological parents. I think parenthood is a rollercoaster no matter what path you take to becoming one.
In our case, we adopted our daughter at 11 months and the adoption agency had arranged a loving foster home for her while the paperwork was done. I can't imagine our home without her, but I also wish we'd been able to help more kids.
She was lucky to be young enough to foster and adopt, have an unusual amount of self awareness and someone in her life that would step in to act as the foundation and example for her life as an adult. Missing even one of those and who knows how it would have turned out for her.