“I appreciate your personal experience as an adoptee; that is anecdotal evidence at best.”
Why are adoptee experiences so often noted (written off) as anecdotal evidence by adoptive parents? I know the same anecdotal evidence comments happen to first parents too.
Yet, I could probably count one hand the number of times someone wrote:
“I appreciate your personal experience as an adoptive parent; that is anecdotal evidence at best.”
Why would anyone believe that the one group in adoption (adoptive parents) are the experts, despite not having experienced either the lived experience of being adopted, nor grown up adopted, or became a mother through an unplanned pregnancy and for whatever reason chose adoption and lost their child to adoption.*
It’s long past time change happened.
*Yes, I know AP’s can also be dual role holders
The adopted ones blog 
swiftabc
January 22, 2021 at 3:16 pm
The positive bias towards Adoptive parents voices hurts our children because it prioritizes our experience of the way adoption benefitted us and subordinates the experiences of adoptees and first/birth mothers. This is unfair and damaging to adoptees. It also locks them into a perpetual child status where Mommy and Daddy define the family story.
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TAO
January 22, 2021 at 3:29 pm
You said it way better than I did.
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Lara/Trace
January 22, 2021 at 6:58 pm
I agree with you, Tao. There seems to be confusion in many APs about the effects which are now well-documented. There are even hospitals who specialize in working with international adoptees with both medical and psychological illness. How can this be?
And adoptees are left wondering how the billion dollar adoption industry continues to get away with their propaganda… for several years.
APs hear what they want to hear??
Several years ago a women blogged about her rehoming a Russian girl she adopted. I’m sure the site was taken down but this AP in Texas was telling people to NEVER adopt from Russia. What the…?
That story never hit the news.
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Carly Quinn
January 22, 2021 at 9:15 pm
My AP’s adopted 8 children from 4 countries in the years spanning 1965-1980. To put it mildly, home life was an unmitigated disaster. After my dad retired and began listening to our stories of growing up he took it upon himself to write a book about how it really was. We had this big tapestry that hung in our hallway growing up that said adoption is gods way of creating order in the lives of children or something like that and my dad was determined to prove it right. He went so far as to demanding a short paper about our favorite growing up memory from each of the children and for the kids that didn’t submit memories he wrote them himself.
He did vanity publish the book and carried a big box of them around in the trunk of his car until he died ,handing them out to anybody who wanted to hear his story. It drove a giant wedge between him and his children. We are still coming to terms with his narcissism.
Every time I read your blog I feel like I learn something new about my own adoption and about why my feelings are valid! So many things I’ve never understood and I am not a young girl. Thank you for continuing to speak up about the darker side of adoption that no one wants to validate.
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TAO
January 22, 2021 at 10:22 pm
I’m sorry, that must have been so very hard.
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Carly Quinn
January 22, 2021 at 11:33 pm
It continues to challenge us on a daily basis. I would say, at least we (the kids) are talking about it now as we never have before.
It was hard. It’s nice , just being able to say it out loud and knowing, I don’t have to feel lucky about misery.
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maryleesdream
January 23, 2021 at 1:39 am
Anecdotal evidence? So most families have clinical research studies? And I guess those are the only stories that count. SMH
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beth62
January 23, 2021 at 7:29 pm
That’s what’s said to dismiss, when you can’t prove it wrong.
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TAO
January 23, 2021 at 10:42 pm
Exactly.
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Raven
January 24, 2021 at 1:55 pm
Tao, as a natural mother who signed the relinquishment papers in early 1972, I have experienced this countless times from APs and HAPs. How dare they tell me they know better than me what went on during the BSE. Most of them weren’t even born yet. It’s incredibly dismissive and arrogant. But what else is new?
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TAO
January 24, 2021 at 3:08 pm
You’re right, it’s not new, at all.
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beth62
January 25, 2021 at 6:02 pm
Not new at all. I’m a big ole anecdote to many when it comes to adoption, and a few other things… With other things sometimes the mommies grab heir children and run, kinda like adoption stuff now that I think about it 🙂
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beth62
January 28, 2021 at 2:42 pm
Still mulling LOL and just being bad at this point, tried to trick some people I know in real life to say such a thing. Just for fun 🙂 I got one to fall for it, “that’s certainly a nice anecdote, but…”
I couldn’t give up then, so I poked until another one uttered “everybody gets their own story, and that one isn’t going to be mine if I have anything to do with it!” which I think was a much nicer, less dismissing way to say such a thing.
and a “I know what you are up to, I read that post you big ole anecdote” LOL
That was fun. Nearly as fun as asking everyone that mentions their mother, if they were happy and grateful that they weren’t aborted.
I think I’ll continue being the trickster for a while, just trying to make mulling fun ;).
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TAO
January 29, 2021 at 7:01 pm
You are the best Beth – hope everyone understands how wonderful you truly are.
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beth62
January 31, 2021 at 2:08 pm
I’ll be sure to tell them ;D
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Tiffany
January 29, 2021 at 7:23 pm
I am an AP. I think it’s their way of dismissing facts that do not align with their personal viewpoints. APs say lots of things that are not backed up with anything other than stories they hear that they choose to believe and bring into their way of seeing the world. Very few people are citing scientific studies when talking on the internet.
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Robyn C
March 26, 2021 at 3:11 am
“I appreciate your personal experience as an adoptive parent; that is anecdotal evidence at best.”
For whatever it’s worth, I know I’ve written that more than once.
I think people in general tend to be dismissive of any experience that conflicts with their own. It’s something I wish I knew how to combat, but even I do it.
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