Counseling On Adoption Trauma

Today’s question – Do you feel like you were informed or educated on adoption trauma prior to adoption/guardianship ?

A mom who gave her child up for adoption answers – I was never offered counseling nor thought to seek it. When I did google information on adoption back then, nothing about trauma came up. If I had known then what I know now, I never would have done it. I have regretted it every single day of my life and will until the day I die. In response, someone noted – Those sentiments in a conversation with an adult child. Feelings of having been coerced (universally common in agency adoptions). Regret. Loss. Honestly expressing these may go a long way to help her and the child heal as they come out of the fog. An adoptee who also surrendered a child to adoption adds – It was incredibly healing to hear similar from my mom, and having that conversation with my son brought us even closer. What would have been unbelievably hurtful would have been to hear that my mom was happy she gave me away.

The experience is different when adopting through foster care – an adoptive parent answers – Yes and no. The agency we adopted through, the program we did, was mostly older (in the adoption world) placements through foster care. So yes, there was a lot of information about trauma. I felt very well educated and very well informed. We read a lot of books, had a lot of mental health resources already in place, attended trainings, etc. I am also a psychiatric nurse, so I had exposure to it already. That being said, there was still a lot of focus on the trauma being prior to adoption or early in adoption process. Since we were educated on how important birth family was, to honor that loss and grief, keep connections, and knew not to punish behaviors that were from trauma, utilize/provide resources for the children and ourselves etc, then everything would be rainbows and unicorns eventually. (Reality check – it is NOT that false narrative.)

Another adoptive parent shares – No. The Dept of Social Services (DSS) didn’t give any information, but I had studied adoption trauma in grad school. DSS was actually “shocked” when I said that my foster daughter needed therapy. Thankfully, we were referred to an OUTSTANDING doctor who dealt almost exclusively with adoption trauma, including Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD).

One who has guardianship notes – there was nothing. The judge signed the order and I had to figure it out from there. Child Protective Services stopped in one time to make sure we were minimally sufficient and we had one call from the court investigator. There was no support or information given. I actually find it really frustrating because when we finally did get a little support it was like a quarter of the amount foster parents get. And I was trying to keep a family member out of the system. To become a foster parent there were multiple classes. I’m not sure if they were actually as unhelpful as I remember but the whole process was overwhelming (I was 20, my cousin was going into foster care, long term guardianship was denied and we had to get approved, so he didn’t go to strangers). I’ll be honest. I was not trauma informed at all. I didn’t have a great understanding of addiction, mental health and trauma. As we get closer to adopting (a separate kin placement 6 years later) there has been a lot more information but we haven’t been offered counseling specifically. There was a two day adoption class through the state that was actually really informative and had people from all parts of the triad there to speak. We have cared for older children but it was a fight to get services for them and one child that needed medication wasn’t able to get it until reunification.

Childhood Trauma

This will not be news to most adoptees. Still the statistics don’t lie about what childhood trauma does to the child. Being separated from the family that we were conceived within will always have a layer of trauma built in.

The effects of adoption trauma include grief and loss, problems in relationships, struggles with identity and sense of belonging, or behavioral and academic problems. Adoption trauma can also sometimes lead to more serious mental health concerns, including anxiety, ADHD, and suicidal ideation.

Just Google “Adoption Trauma” and you will find abundant sources of corroborating information.

Seven Core Issues

I’ve not actually read this book but learned about it today. It comes highly recommended by many and who have actually read it and is rated right up there with The Primal Wound and Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Also Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self. So, I thought I should share it. I was happy to see that the book also covers Third Party Reproduction (in fact the book includes donor insemination and surrogacy).

Originally published in the 1980s, it was ahead of it’s time. One adoptee says, it is something that I wish my adoptive parents had read. The new edition has been updated and was released in 2019. The seven core issues are loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery/control.

One person familiar with this book said it was “A classic and foundational to the way I think about these issues and the importance of reform in adoption practices.”

At Amazon it is said – “the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience.” It is further noted that – “Attachment and trauma are integrated with the Seven Core Issues model to address and normalize the additional tasks individuals and families will encounter.” The book also claims to access “a range of perspectives including: multi-racial, LGBTQ, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, African-American, International,” as well as those that cover openness, search and reunion.

Penny Callan Partridge, Co-founder in 1973 of the Adoption Forum of Philadelphia, wrote – “For decades, I have been responding to these ‘seven core issues’ as an adopted person, as a parent by adoption, as a poet. Now I imagine myself as a therapist trying to help someone in the adoption constellation. I would definitely want this book close at hand.”

Another, Keith Silverstein, a voice actor and adoption advocate, noted – “As an adopted person, I’m very familiar with the seven core issues, both comprehensively and experientially. Yet even with my prior knowledge, there was a deeper understanding to be attained through the pages of this book. Having had the pleasure to work with and consider both Sharon and Allison my friends, I’ve seen first hand the passion they have for adoption and helping children find permanence. Their collective expertise, contained here, is, in my opinion, the gold standard for understanding and working towards permanence in adoption.”

Unexpectedly Complicated

I can’t even imagine . . . a sister dies leaving one’s self a 1 yr old to care for. Further complicating the situation, no one knows who this child’s father is. She notes – “my family doesn’t have a filter and I know they will talk crap about my sister and I don’t want her to hear that.”

She adds, “My Mom keeps telling her I’m her new Mama and I keep correcting her to not say that to her, if she wants to call me Mom one day she can but that should be her natural choice.” blogger’s note – why not just Auntie, since that is what she is. However, she goes on to note – “she already calls my husband Dada but I think that is because she never had one to call Dada.”

She adds a basis for her worries – “I honestly only want her to know all the good about my sister and not the bad things, am I wrong for that? I don’t want her to worry that she will be like her one day, I struggled with that as a young adult, worrying I would be like my Mom, and I just don’t want that for her.”

A social worker who is also an adoptive parent answers – My daughter’s birth mother did not know the identity of the father. It really hit home for her in kindergarten when her class was making Father’s Day gifts and she asked me where her daddy was from, when she was born. I had to be honest with her and tell her I just didn’t know. Since that time I have registered her with 23andMe and Ancestry, but no close relatives have been found yet. You sound like a very caring person and who will work hard to provide a loving and safe environment for your niece.

One woman adopted as infant (but not through kinship) said, “I want to address some points/ language, as it is important.”

1. Babies remember their mothers. Implicit memory does this. Babies also grieve the loss of their mothers. This is lifelong.

2. Normalize allowing her to grieve and explore this out loud. Speak openly and frequently about her mom. Good memories, funny stories, similarities.

3. Come up with another name she can call you, like a derivative of your name that is easy for a baby to say. Note – She already has a Mom, and that is not you.

4. Please also normalize that your husband is not her biological father. Weave it into her life story.

5. If you don’t know who her biological father is, then be honest. Don’t ever lie, even by omission.

6. Challenge your own black and white thinking in terms of good/bad. Was your sister struggling with mental health / substance abuse, etc? These are reasons to be compassionate, and there are age appropriate ways to address this.

You cannot erase her loss, or her truth. You can be the safe place for her to explore and question it, without fear of offending the adults.

A Multi-Generational Journey

A woman wrote on a page I follow that adoption is “a multi-generational journey. It is a stone thrown into the familial pond that ripples outward ad infinitum.”

She went on to share – Today my grandson-lost-to-adoption turns 34. My son-lost-to-adoption, along with his girlfriend, surrendered him when my son was just 18. My grandson found me last December and so far, I am his only connection to his family of origin. He has experienced “abandonment” by both of his birth parents twice: at 6 months of age when they terminated their parental rights and then recently when he learned of his father’s suicide and his mother’s reunion refusal.

Another woman commented – Four generations and counting for me.

blogger’s note – In my family too. Both parents were adoptees. Both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption. One also lost custody to her son’s grandparents (she also gave up my niece with coercion from our adoptee mom – unbelievable but true) and I physically lost custody to my ex-husband and his second wife (though my parental rights were never terminated, he ended up raising her – would not agree to paying child support and so, I found another way to get that financial support but at great cost to me). Thankfully, my grown daughter and I are very close, even though. So far, our children are not losing their own children.

With all of this in mind, I went looking. It is hard to find anything related among the numerous pro-adoption links.

At the American Adoption Congress, I found an article by Deborah Silverstein and Sharon Kaplan about the LINK>Lifelong Issues in Adoption. From that article –

Before the recent advent of open and cooperative practices, adoption – had been practiced as a win/lose or adversarial process. In such an approach, birth families lose their child in order for the adoptive family to gain a child. The adoptee was transposed from one family to another with time-limited and, at times, short-sighted consideration of the child’s long-term needs. Indeed, the emphasis has been on the needs of the adults–on the needs of the birth family not to parent and on the needs of the adoptive family to parent. The ramifications of this attitude can be seen in the number of difficulties experienced by adoptees and their families over their lifetimes.

blogger’s note – Certainly, both of my parents adoptions in the 1930s were NOT open adoptions.

The authors article above goes on to note – Adoption is created through loss; without loss there would be no adoption. Loss, then, is at the hub of the wheel. All birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees share in having experienced at least one major, life-altering loss before becoming involved in adoption. In adoption, in order to gain anything, one must first lose–a family, a child, a dream. It is these losses and the way they are accepted and, hopefully, resolved which set the tone for the lifelong process of adoption.

The grief process in adoption, so necessary for healthy functioning, is further complicated by the fact that there is no end to the losses, no closure to the loss experience. Loss in adoption is not a single occurrence. There is the initial, identifiable loss and innumerable secondary sub-losses. Loss becomes an evolving process, creating a theme of loss in both the individual’s and family’s development. Those losses affect all subsequent development.

blogger’s concluding notes – I found no resolution to this whole subject but at least people are reflecting and contemplating upon the issues.

For my own self, my feelings about adoption are complicated by the fact that – if there had not been adoption in my parents lives – I simply would not have existed. I am left with no choice but to accept this as best I can. I am not a fan of adoption. Recently I connected with a woman who knows quite a bit about adoption in general – she said, “I’ve never met anyone with so much adoption in their family.”

I did like the image I posted for this blog today. I do feel like I was preserved within my family (not given up for adoption when my teenage mom discovered she was pregnant before marriage) so that I could fulfill my own Life’s Purpose – knitting back together the fragments of my parents’ original birth parents’ families, so that our identity is now more whole.

Usually No Support

Today’s story from a Natural mom, in reunion –

I saw my therapist this morning and he keeps saying I need to forgive myself. I just don’t know how. I placed my son when he was 5 months old and I was 17. I now know that I had extreme post-partum depression and a shitty support system. He (26 now) says that his adoptive parents were great, but he was so angry and rebellious as a kid. I just have so many regrets. His adoptive parents gave him my contact info when he turned 18. We saw each other and talked a lot for several years, but now he is married and his wife thinks I’m a horrible person, so I rarely talk to him now and haven’t seen him in 4 years. I also have 4 daughters that I raised. I’m looking for advice and practical ways to truly learn how to forgive myself. The pain is still so overwhelming sometimes.

blogger’s note – I actually replied on this one – It can be hard. While my situation is not the same, I continue to struggle with feelings that I did not do “right” by my daughter. Though never my intention (I left her with her paternal grandmother for temporary care while I tried to earn some financial support for us by driving an 18-wheel truck cross-country with a partner), her dad ended up with her and he remarried a woman with a daughter and they had a daughter together. I thought this was giving her the kind of home I could not. I only learned recently (she just turn 50 yesterday) that life in that family was not as good as I had thought – mostly because of her dad (like, yeah, I guess I should have known having been married to the man). Anyway, though we do have a good relationship, I continue to struggle with the feelings I have about it all. Yes, I did the best I could at the time and it had unintended consequences. Keep working on your “reasons” and “feelings”. Understanding changes over time but we can never regain all that we lost.

One adoptee writes – I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through. Coming from the opposite perspective, I WISH my natural mother was like you and wanted contact with me and cared enough to try. You can’t change the past, only the present and the future, so you must focus on those. Keep working on your relationship with him, I guarantee it matters to him. As much as I begrudge my natural mother for rejecting me twice, I would never wish her to feel guilt all her life. You are worthy and deserving of peace.

Another commenter wrote – When looking back at our decisions, we come to judge ourselves very harshly based on what we know after the fact. But this isn’t fair. All you had at the time was your depressed brain and other influences telling you that you couldn’t care for him. You had deep love and care for him all along with no way to properly give it. I am so sorry for that. But you should forgive yourself in order to move forward. It might feel like it’s too late but it’s not. His wife doesn’t want him to feel pain, but if you keep up a healthy and consistent relationship, I think she will come around. Wishing you the best.

From another natural mother – I completely get this. When I feel especially shitty about what happened, I try to remind myself I was a young teenager and I didn’t know what I know now. But it honestly doesn’t help much. I try to forgive myself. I know intellectually that I had no outside support and didn’t feel I had a choice. I still feel shitty. I read what adoptees say here, and I’m so sorry that my son has to live this life that he had no choice in. I feel extremely guilty and regretful.

From a father who is also an adoptee – Write a forgiveness letter to your younger self. Get it out on paper that you did the best you could under the circumstances. Take the letter and burn it as a symbol of letting go. Carrying the guilt, grief and possibly shame isn’t helping you or anyone. I am also a reunited absentee father from my son. We have a connection but it takes work.

I loved this perspective – I’m also working on loving myself and forgiving myself with my therapist. It sounds weird, but the biggest mindshift that’s actually worked for me is viewing my past actions as if they were of a close friend instead of my own. And in a way, you’ve grown and changed so much, you truly are a different person from past you. So anyway, if you’re anything like me (or most people, from what my therapist says), then you say things to yourself that you would NEVER say to a friend. It takes work to think that way, and I have to stop myself mid-thought sometimes, but I really think it’s starting to help. Sometimes I’ll even imagine what I would say to my best friend if she were coming to me with the same concerns I have about my own past.

Another shares her own mantra – “We are all doing the best we can with what we have.” This does not excuse us from committing to the hard work of doing better in the present and future, but it allows us to accept our past selves (and others!) as we were.

One person notes this truth – Adoption was promoted as a fantasy for the child. There was no public criticism if it. At 17, you were totally at the mercy of the adults around you. Don’t hold yourself responsible, when the industry was designed to prey on you. One adoptee notes – adoption is a societal failure, not the parents’ failure.

Threats To Send Back

I don’t know why foster and adoptive parents make these cruel threats to a child who has already lost so much but sadly, it is NOT unusual. The miracle I realized when I learned about my adoptee parents (both were) was that when my teenage unwed mother became pregnant with me at 16, my dad was 18, that I was not given up for adoption. Thus, today’s story.

I was taken from my natural mother at 18 months. She was a teenage mom in the 80s. My natural mother was 16 when I was born. My natural father was 17. I was taken due to allegations of neglect. I don’t remember my natural mother. I can’t even picture her face. The only memory I have of her is sitting on the floor of the agency, and coloring with her in a coloring book. I remember putting a orange crayon up to my mouth and thinking about what color I wanted to use next and I remember her saying “No, No hunny. We don’t eat the crayons, we color with them”.

Anyways, I was in the foster care system for years, as they tried reunification, but my foster parents (later on adoptive parents) always fought it. I was always with the same foster parents, but other kids were always in and out of the house. Some for weeks and some for months. I would go to bed at night and the next morning, my foster sibling would be gone, usually reunited with their parents (I found this out later). I always cried, cause I would never see them again.

Eventually, I was adopted at the age of 6 by my foster, then adoptive parents. I never knew what it meant. I remember every February, they would throw a party, they would say it was the day they knew they’d get to keep me (I later found out February is when my natural father died in a horrible car crash at the age of 19). I eventually got 2 more adopted siblings (sisters) and thought my life was normal. But it wasn’t.

Everyday after the case workers stopped coming around (about 6 months after the adoption) my adoptive parents would threaten to send me back, if I didn’t act the way they wanted me to. If I got a bad grade in school, they would threaten me with the same. They would say I was no better than my natural mother and natural father. That I would never amount to anything in life. At 17, I ran away from them and never returned. I cut contact and have never spoken to them again. They were physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive.

At 18, I petitioned the courts for my adoption records, and my request was granted. And I found out so much. My adoptive mother was infertile, and adoption was the only way for her to have kids. They were also Christian and considered any unwed mom unfit and therefore, fought with my natural mother to keep me, because in their eyes, she couldn’t possibly raise me. They made allegations of abuse against her, said her family tried to sell me for $10,000, and that my natural mother’s younger brother tried to drown me in a pool. None of it was confirmed, but was put into the report by the social worker and used against my natural mother in court.

As for my natural father, he was gonna get custody of me until he tragically died, and my adoptive parents had fought against him every step of the way. There is much more as well, but that’s the summary.

I have never felt like I was good enough growing up and even now I still don’t. I have 2 kids now and everything I do is for them. I just want any hopeful adoptive parents and potential adoptive parents out there to know, don’t do this to any child. Even though you may get a child at a young age, they will still have memories of their natural family. And your words and actions will hurt them.

Not Giving Her Up

Isabel and Lucy

In The Light Between Oceans, eventually truth and one’s conscience force a fierce mother to give up the child which isn’t actually hers. This sometimes happens in adoptions when the biological genetic parent decides they are not going to surrender their child to others to raise.

The story is a study in consequences. Every action begets a reaction. Every decision has its consequences, some unintended, but which have the capacity to cause the loss of happiness for the people involved. A lighthouse keeper and his wife discover a baby in a small boat alongside the child’s dead father. Isabel, his wife, has suffered through two miscarriages. The baby is like a gift from the sea and what the woman needs to heal the grief of her infertility. So, of course when the baby girl washes ashore in a small boat, Isabel adopts the infant as her own. Though truth be told, even though he loves his wife dearly, the husband has misgivings from the beginning, which will eventually force him to do the right thing by the woman who’s child the little girl actually is.

The movie is all about love, and the various forms of love; that between a husband and his wife, and that of a mother for her child (whether or not biological). The lighthouse keeper knows that he is required by law to report the discovery of the dead man and baby. However, his wife fears that the baby will be sent to an orphanage. She persuades her husband to pass the baby off as their own daughter, and though reluctant, he agrees out of the love he has for her and concern for the pain she suffers. He buries the baby’s father on the island and the couple names the infant girl Lucy.

When the man sees a woman kneeling in front of a grave bearing the names of her husband and infant daughter who were lost at sea, the date on the memorial stone matches the date that they found the baby girl. This causes him to realize that Lucy is likely the woman’s biological daughter. He writes anonymously to that woman to tell her that her husband is dead but that her infant daughter is safe, loved and well cared for.

This woman’s husband was German and she had married him shortly after the end of World War I. That marriage had therefore been controversial in their local community. When her husband is accosted in the street by a drunken crowd, he then jumped into a rowboat and fled with his baby daughter. In the boat with the baby was a unique silver rattle. Tormented by his conscience, he sends the child’s mother the rattle anonymously as proof that the baby actually is her lost child. Ultimately, this action leads to the lighthouse keeper’s arrest. His wife, Isabel, is angry that he is willing to give Lucy away after she has lived with them for several years.

After the little girl is returned to her biological family, she runs away in an effort to return to the lighthouse and her “real parents.” She is found and taken back to her biological mother. The child’s original name was Grace and after she has begun to finally bond with her biological mother and maternal grandfather, they agree to call her “Lucy Grace” as a compromise with the little girl’s demands. At the end, though Isabel has passed away, the now 27-year-old woman finds the lighthouse keeper who had maintained the “no contact” ruling handed down for 18 years. Before her death, Isabel had written a letter to Lucy, in case she ever sought contact with the couple on her own. After reading it, the emotional young woman thanks the only father she knew for the first four years of her life, for rescuing and raising her on the lighthouse island.

The story reminded me of my cousin. She spent several years being raised by her (our) grandmother. It was traumatic for her to be wrest away by her biological mother’s return. She resented her aunt who was able to remain with the grandmother, when she was forced to leave someone she dearly loved.

Most of the time, when biological parents demand the return of a baby they had previously given up for adoption, the child has not had several years to bond with someone else. When that does happen, it can be very difficult for a child to give up the “fantasy” of the only parents that child has ever known. This happens rarely but on occasion, especially in the case of a father who did not originally consent to the adoption but is later given custody by a court of law.

The movie trailer –

Swear Vent and Color

I could be therapeutic. I have enjoyed coloring at various times in my life – don’t really have time now. I’m not an “angry” adoptee (just the child of two adoptees that found each other). However, this looks like a really fun way to release some emotions.

From LINK>Amazon where this book is available – The creators hope that being able to vent your feelings and thoughts in this Coloring & Journal book helps you along your healing journey.

Why an angry sweary coloring & journal book? Because punching people in the face is frowned upon, and anger isn’t great for your overall mental and physical health, if you hold on to it – so just let it all out !

As an adult adoptee that struggles with the 7 core issues of being adopted (loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery/control), I have created this therapeutic coloring book with angry quotes, original sweary coloring illustrations & patterns, journaling prompts and blank doodling pages (extra journal & doodle pages are included at the back).

A beneficial companion to therapy – the coloring pages will help reduce stress and anxiety, promoting mindfulness and reflection as you release your inner most angriest feelings about being adopted, adoption trauma, adoption laws, discrimination, and the adoption industry as a whole.

You don’t have to follow the journaling prompts, you can just write all your thoughts and feelings anywhere you please – this is YOUR healing journey and there are no rules.!

Helpful Tip – Don’t use felt tip markers – it might seep through to the next page. You can use colored pencils or even crayons, if you have them.

PS – I don’t know if the creators or Amazon put those “censored” stickers on the book cover but this was the only illustration I found.

Not Actually Lucky

Iris Anderson

Today’s blog is courtesy of a Huffpost Personal story by the woman who’s picture is above. LINK>People Ask If I Feel ‘Lucky’.

When I was old enough to comprehend the gravity of my truth, my parents sat me down and told me that I had been adopted from China. It was fairly easy, even as a child, to recognize that I did not look like those around me, especially my parents. In fact, I found it quite awesome to be different ― to have come from a country so rich with history and culture.

However, the reality of living in a town with a predominantly white population is that many of its residents ostracize anyone who is different. I tried desperately to fit in with the other kids, but it became clear early on that despite my parents’ whiteness, my Chineseness would always make me an outsider.

Growing up, she didn’t realize the seemingly small acts of aggression she experienced were actually racist or that they would grow into hatred in the future. She writes – The first time I returned to China with my parents, I was 9 years old and longing for a place filled with people who looked like me. I was completely in awe of the country that created me, and this is when I first realized that I needed to embrace being Chinese. This proved nearly impossible. It was obvious that I did not belong to those who lived in China. From the way I dressed to the language that I spoke ― or couldn’t speak ― to them, I was American through and through. I felt like a foreigner in a country that I desperately believed should have felt like home.

She continues – As I grew older, it became more common for adults to ask me how lucky I felt to be adopted from China, and I became resentful at how their questions commodified me. I was adopted from China after being left at a train station and should be grateful for my parents’ generosity ― for the roof they put over my head and the food they put on my plate. My epiphany occurred when I realized that I am allowed to simultaneously love my parents and grieve what I lost. While transracial adoptees may be placed into amazing, loving families, it does not change the fact that their culture was stolen from them.

The second time I returned to China, I was 15 and felt more in touch with my emotions. I wanted to build connections with other adoptees and hear their stories. This trip, which catered to adoptees from the same agency, allowed me to spend time with others who had been taken into white families. Together, we found and created a safe environment for each other where we could talk about our experiences and vent our emotions without fear of judgment.

I held no anger toward my birth mom for giving me up, especially when I understood the state of China and the one-child policy. But the curiosity of knowing about where and who I came from was there, and probably always will be. By the end of the trip, I cannot say that this goal was completely achieved. But while it might sound cliche, we adoptees did find each other, and in some way that was worth more to us than our original goals.

All transracial adoptees deserve to have a place where they can release their emotions and feel a sense of community. While I know not all transracial adoptees will want or be able to return to their country of birth and connect with others who have shared experiences, I hope they can find another way to build a community, perhaps through local groups or online. Being able to share my thoughts, emotions and challenges ― which I worried only I was thinking, feeling and facing ― with people like me has changed my life for the better.

The author, Iris Anderson, is studying biology and psychology at Columbia University and is part of the class of 2026.

Blogger’s Note – being in an all things adoption online community has made all the difference for me as the child of two adoptee parents. I have learned so much and very often, what I learn is translated into these blogs I write almost every day. My only hope is that I help others who have much less experience with adoption understand better what adoptees feel and experience in the lives they lead.