{When There Are Stigmas About Adoption In Your Circles}

When you are part of a cultural or ethnic community with deep-rooted stigmas or biases against adoption, adopted people, or infertility, it can be challenging to talk about adoption with your adopted child. These prejudices are especially prevalent when a child has been adopted from an orphanage or has obvious physical or medical disabilities.

Choosing Adoption and Fearing Rejection

You’ve navigated this path as an adult, for better or worse, and you’ve chosen to face the stigmas while continuing the path of building your family by adoption. However, your desire to protect your child from those prejudices is strong and rightfully so. You may be hesitant to talk with your child about their adoption story. You fear that your child may face rejection or mistreatment if they talk about it with others. You may also feel anxious about revisiting others’ perceptions of your – or your child’s – value and worth.

Many adoptive families in these types of situations are hesitant to tell their children they are adopted. Or, they want to wait until the child is much older before they share this information. Some families go way out of their way to construct a story to tell everyone like the child was born to a surrogate or disguising the adoptive mother to appear as if she was pregnant. However, we suggest you consider an alternate approach to talking with your child about their adoption story.

A 7-Step Approach to Talking About Adoption

Here are seven steps to consider when you are handling the topic of adoption and you have family members or social circles that carry cultural or ethnic biases against building your family by adoption.

1. Don’t outright lie.

Please don’t say that you were pregnant with them or that they were born of a surrogate. Please don’t say that they look like their (adoptive) grandfather.

2. Thoughtfully consider what you are afraid of.

  • Are you afraid that telling this child means others will learn the truth and reject your child?
  • Are you afraid of the stigma of the child’s social or economic status before being adopted?
  • Do you fear the judgment or prejudice you’ll face because you didn’t carry this child biologically?
  • Does your culture or ethnic group stigmatize infertile people as defective? Do they consider bloodlines contaminated through non-biological children?
  • Does your family view adopted people as not worthy of inheritance, etc.?
  • Are you afraid of the child telling others in your community who may not receive it well or accept your family well?

More help for Talking to Kids About Adoption

3. Accept that this truth is going to get out.

The odds are incredibly high that your child will find out about their adoption somewhere, if not from you. Whether it’s social media, over-the-counter DNA testing, someone in your extended family, or an 8th-grade biology assignment. Do you want them to learn the truth from anyone other than you?

4. Accept that the failure to tell is the same as lying.

Adult adoptees not told by their parents that they were adopted will almost universally say it was the lie that hurt the most. Omitting this crucial part of their story from their history did the most damage to their relationship with their parents. Are you willing to take that risk with your child?

5. Start laying the groundwork at an early age.

Talk frequently and openly about all the many kinds of families around you. Fill your family library with books and movies showing many families formed differently. Normalize for your child that all types of families are good! As the child grows in that understanding, build on it by explaining that you had difficulty having kids and that “we were so happy when you arrived!”

Build significant relationships with other adoptive parents, too. If that is not common where you live, look for and point out the adoptive families you see at school, when shopping, or at community events. Watch TV shows and movies where adoption is a featured element.

An Adoptee’s Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging

6. Review your reasons for not wanting to tell. Decide on an age that you will tell.

When you’ve educated yourself on what kids should know about their adoption story and when, do your reasons still hold up? You must work out when to tell.

Keep in mind that most adoption and mental health professionals recommend that it be no later than about seven or eight years old. This is about when children can understand what should or should not be shared outside their family. Younger is better when it comes to giving your child their story.

7. Explain their adoption story.

Remind your child of the groundwork you’ve been laying when you begin to talk about adoption. Talk about families like yours who are formed differently; all these ways are good. Remind them that you wanted to be parents, and adoption was the way that worked for you.

Be specific in telling them what you know, in age-appropriate ways, about their life before you. It’s okay if you don’t have answers to all their questions but be prepared to sit with them about their feelings about not knowing. Reassure them that it’s okay to be curious and that you will answer their questions as best you can or help them learn what they want.

Take time also to explain that not everyone from your family’s country or culture feels the same way about adoption. Be specific, again in age and stage-appropriate ways, that some people think that adopted kids aren’t as much a part of the family as kids born into the family. But you don’t agree with this at all. You may have to be specific about the names of family members if the child is in regular contact with these people. Let your child know that you will always keep them safe and that you love them and value their presence in your family.

Wrap it All in Love

You may stumble along the way – especially if you grew up in a culture where these stigmas were prevalent and you didn’t learn healthier ways to talk about infertility, how families are built, or other related issues. You can begin the work of healing with your child by cloaking all of these steps in deep, unconditional love and acceptance. Your vulnerable honesty with your child about overcoming these stigmas in your circles will communicate to your child that you are with them and will keep learning to grow, too.

Image Credits: Title Image 1-Olsen; Title Image 2-Kindel Media; William Fortunato; Kaboompics.com