A Genuine Way to Help Adoptees....Genuinely

I wrote a post on Wednesday about how much I have benefited from being exposed to a broad spectrum of thinking on adoption from everyone from other adult adoptees, to fostered adults, to original mothers, to original fathers, to the siblings of adoptees, to adoptive mothers and fathers.  I have gained and gleaned so much from the experiences, wisdom, and sharing of others who share adoption in common with me, and perhaps a few other things as well, but who walk completely different paths and have completely different experiences.  It has allowed me to see adoption in a bigger picture instead of simply how it impacts me as an adult of private, domestic, infant, same-race, agency adoption.  This post will not be how other perspectives have benefited me, however.  This post is about employing sensitivity when supporting adoptees: knowing what is appropriate when it comes to offering adult adoptees support with the experiences of others and what is not.

One example: imagine being an adoptee who was adopted from foster care whose original parents truly and honestly weren't fit to be parents.  You have a different experience within adoption but do share some things in common with many others in an adoption support group you are attending.  Imagine someone hands a flier to you, written by an original parent who recently surrendered to private domestic infant adoption, who feels she made the right decision but wants to let others know how hard it is for her sometimes.  Furthermore, she writes about how wonderful adoption is because it was there when she wasn't prepared to parent.  Because it involved adoption, someone gave it to you because you are adopted and therefore, it should help you but it isn't really what you want to be reading right now.  You're mourning the loss of a family that can't be repaired: you don't want to hear a positive spin on losing the opportunity to be raised by the only parents you had thus far in your life ever known.

I have some experience with group work but I will tell you right now in the interest of self-disclosure I am by no means, any way shape or form at this point, an expert.  However, I know enough about group work to know that everyone who participates within a support group needs to be getting something out of it; not some members benefiting but not others. Even furthermore to be avoided: some benefiting at the expense of others.  Proprietors of adoption websites who wonder why you have no adult adoptee traffic, by the way, there is your clue.  Consider the content of your site: is it really, at all, helpful to the adoptee population or is it full of "we just adopted" or "how to adopt" stories?  If you have a variety of constellation/triad/web/hellagon/triangle (whatever you may personally call it) members within a group, they each need to benefit from being there.  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard adult adoptee friends report from support groups that they felt like they had to validate the views of another "triad" member but then withhold their own views in order not to hurt someones feelings.  It is true that we (everyone impacted by loss, grief, adoption, loss of identity) have so very, very much to offer each other: it's important to make good use of that common ground.

You have to think: what does that specific flier offer to an adult who was adopted as an older child from foster care?  What does hearing about the placement of an infant and how wonderful it was offer to someone who was removed from their original family from indifferent, neglectful parents and is trying to come to terms with that loss?  (I can tell you, many adults of infant adoption don't want to hear the "it's wonderful" stories either--not when you're in a stage of coping with loss, loss that doesn't feel wonderful to you).

People cannot use the "adoption" label to ignore the different experiences within adoption and how not everything adoption-related is going to benefit everyone.  For those especially who are not impacted by adoption and can't readily identify with us, think about the person in your life impacted by adoption and their circumstance and then reflect on what the piece of support (e.g. the group or article, so on and so forth) entails and make sure it is really relevant and helpful before passing it along or expecting it to be some panacea of sort.  What I think is important to realize is (and believe it or not, many people just do not understand this): just because one person finds something that involves the topic of adoption heartwarming does not mean it is helpful to everyone else who has adoption in common.  Sensitivity is key.

Photo credit: ddpavumba