If at any age your child asks you about their adoption and they want to know why –
they deserve the absolute truth. It should be age appropriate.
At a very young age, “Mommy couldn’t take care of you.”, may be enough.
Kids know when their parents don’t want them. They don’t need to be told; they’ve felt it from the beginning. Babies can feel rejection in the womb and it affects their attachments.
The majority of adoptees feel unwanted – whether it is a one time thing, or episodic, or lifelong – the question is how accurate is that perception ?
A parent should not evade an adoptee’s question but they should be sensitive and gentle in their response.
Not answering with the real reason when they ask, can lead them to feel like they aren’t good enough to be told the truth. Or that what they want doesn’t matter. Or that they aren’t smart enough to understand it. Or that they ought to just be happy with whatever answer they are given. And that they should stop bringing it up because the parent doesn’t want to talk about it.
A competent, caring, informed Adoptive Parent can manage to put the child’s feelings first and provide an answer that meets that child where they are developmentally, emotionally and intellectually.
But never lie. There are many subliminal messages that get sent to adoptees. Children often see themselves as the problem. The Adoptive Parent may not really know the whole truth. It may be very complex.
My dad’s original mother had a love affair with a married man. My dad was with his mother for some months after birth. Even so, she may have come to feel that adoption was her only solution to what may have been primarily a financial problem in the 1930s.
My mom’s story was complex. Her mother didn’t intend to lose her. She was exploited by a woman who was stealing and selling babies. My grandparents were married when my mom was conceived. It is not possible to know the whole story now about why they were separated. They are both dead and the descendants don’t seem to know the details accurately enough to convey them.
Parents should know that their children are incredibly resilient. Whatever the adoptees story is, they deserve to have their history told to them honestly.
Missing Mom 