Older Child Adoption

Anyone who knows you are in the adoption process or meets your new child will have plenty of personal questions or comments. These questions will be asked regardless of your child’s presence, age, and comprehension level, and without consideration of his or her feelings.

Disclose only the information you wish to and answer only those questions you are comfortable with. If you feel that questions are inappropriate, do not answer. Inappropriate questions may include what happened to his real parents, what do you know about his real parents, how much did it (the adoption) or he (your child) cost, why was he in an orphanage?

You will soon learn to tell the difference between people who are generally interested in adoption and those who are curiosity seekers or looking for a juicy story. One option to fielding adoption questions is to respond, “If you are interested in adoption, call me and I would be happy to talk to you about it or send you some information.” If you are being pushed for answers, asking, “Why do you want to know?” may help, and for those who are truly obnoxious, there is always the “that’s none of your business” or “this is a private family matter” answer.

You have probably already been told countless negative adoption stories about medical problems, disrupted adoptions, or stories about people who get pregnant after they adopt. Unfortunately, these stories do not stop once you have completed your adoption.

Generally attitudes regarding adoptive children include the belief that there must be something wrong with the child, that she was abandoned, abused, or neglected, or that you are a great and courageous person who went halfway around the world to give this child a home and she must be eternally grateful because you “saved her.”

Often well-meaning people will not understand an adoptive family’s sensitivity to negative adoption language, and it is our added responsibly to help teach positive adoption language. I recently spoke to an adult adoptee who referred to his birth mom as his “real” mom. On another occasion, I was annoyed enough to ask the pediatrician’s office if my child was considered unnatural since the question was stated, “Is this your natural child?” as opposed to using the term birth child.

Preparing for questions in advance will help alleviate some of the awkwardness that you may feel when faced with confrontation. Just when you think you may have heard it all, you will be surprised by an unexpected question. Having answers ready will help show your child how to handle these situations as she takes over the responsibility and decides when and what to tell people about her adoption. When she chooses to open this door, she will inevitably find that she will be in the position of fielding such questions.