We define ourselves in the adoption world by what side we are in the triad. The title of this blog is a label. We see the world through the lens of what we are labeled. I am not sure it is a good thing but cannot see an alternative.
I am labeled as an adoptee but I am first a human being. I am an adoptee because I was legally adopted after being legally given up by my family of birth. I was labelled at birth. It has played a role in who I am, to deny that it hasn’t would be a lie and I do not believe in lies. Lies are wrong, always wrong, even the so-called white lies. I will not tell someone they look good if they don’t. Friends know if I do not say I like something – then I don’t like it. I am getting off topic.
Each label in adoption has sub-labels that are attached, it is endless.
If you are a mother or father then you are either a natural, first, bio, adoptive. The adoption world always wants to identify which side of the fence you live on, perhaps so they can form preconceived ideas of who you are. If you fall into the natural, first, birth or bio then may also fall into the bad girl, tramp, addict, selfless (but only as an expectant mother until you relinquish and all revocation time has passed). If you fall into the adoptive category then you are a good person, selfless for all time, a saver of children, a saint but you may also be deemed to be an selfish, destroyer of families. It is all preconceived based on the label of the lens you view it through.
The adoptee sub-labels are much easier to define and are viewed by both sides their lens. You are either a good adoptee or bad, well-adjusted or mal-adjusted, loving or bitter, happy or angry. How you are viewed by the adoptive parent side is dependent on whether or not you ‘walk the walk, talk the talk’ all good adoptee’s are expected to adhere to. The opposite applies to the natural, first, birth parent side.
Adoptee’s will never win, we are stuck in the middle like we have been since we were originally labelled adoptee.
Why can we not just be classified as a human being deserving of respect for who we are – not what we are labelled?
