LONG-TERM ISSUES FOR THE ADOPTED CHILD
A Summary from Blake & Associates Law Firm
By Kathryn Patricelli, MA
A multitude of issues may arise when children become aware that they have been adopted. Children may feel grief over the loss of relationship with their birthparents and the loss of the cultural and family connections that would have existed with those parents. This feeling of loss may be especially intense in closed adoptions where little or no information or contact is available with the birthparents. Such grief feelings may be triggered at many different times throughout the child's life including when they first learn of their adoption, during the turbulent teen years, upon the death of other family members, and even when becoming a spouse or parent themselves.
There can also be significant concerns about feeling abandoned and "abandonable," "not good enough," coupled with specific hurt feelings of rejection over the birthmother's choice to "give me away" or "not wanting me enough." Such hurtful and vulnerable feelings may be compounded should the child learn that the birthmother later had other children that she chose to raise herself.