AP’s need to be educated before they adopt.

Yesterday, my old post on “The Chosen Child” showed up in the stats, a post from way back in 2011, one that was a 5 video series from the 1960’s in NY on adoption and adopting that I’d found on YouTube. YouTube isn’t a place I go to except for music, but thought maybe there were videos worth sharing. So I went to look and landed on a page with a video by an Adoptive Mother about 5 Things She Didn’t Know About Adoption before she’d adopted that she wanted to share. She seemed pleasant enough, so I sat through her discussing the 5 things she’d wished she’d known before adopting. Below isn’t what she said, just my scribbled one-liners of each point she talked about. I’m not linking to it as it appears she’s written a book all about it, which seems to be the reason for the video…

1. Love is not always enough.

2. Adoption is born from loss (something, something, about how it’s beautiful too).

3. Fight to protect your children’s stories, how she didn’t know better.

4. Birth moms aren’t scary, seek out their voices, and adoptees (added, as if it was an afterthought).

5. Ethics, there are never too many questions to ask.

She seemed very sincere, seems very nice and kind-hearted, but how could you not know any of the above before you adopt? We aren’t puppies or kittens for goodness sakes. Also, I’ve been told over and over that people adopting now have to learn these very basic things, usually via the homestudy or homestudy provider or agency.

I was shocked she didn’t know those basic facts as she’s adopted far more than one child.

Adoption today needs actual professional oversight happening, education needs to be front and center, real education about all the things no one ever told you that happen in adoption. And yes, you can educate yourself too, just don’t assume that new or newer AP knows anything more than you do, or even some of the old hands, you have to learn from valid sources who don’t have a butterflies and rainbows idea of how amazing adoption is. Adoption is hard, it’s painful, it’s loss that morphs and can take you to your knees in a heartbeat, it can also be good, but the feelings about being adopted seldom remain static over the course of a lifetime.

And listen to Adoptees, not just the ones you want to hear from, hear them all, learn the different ways being adopted can impact the one adopted, how you can be fine one day and in tears the next, and the grief that has no way to be resolved. Also, how not to be that type of Adoptive Parent, and how to become the parent an adopted child needs you to be.

Read the Seven Core Issues Adoptees must deal with throughout their lives.

Read “Being Adopted – The Lifelong Search for Self” by Brodzinsky, Schechter, Marantz Henig.

Then learn the history of adoption, not the history written in a post by an agency. One recent book is AMERICAN BABY: A MOTHER, A CHILD, and THE SECRET HISTORY of ADOPTION by Gabrielle Glassier.

And there are so many other books that will help your understanding of what it’s like to be adopted. You can see more at Adoptee Reading A catalog of books written & recommended by adoptees –Founded in 2015 by Karen Pickell.