I admire parents who want to adopt and give a child or teen a warm, loving home. In caring for many adopted children, as a pediatrician, I am surprised about some of the things that are overlooked.
One day a professional man asked me when was the best time to tell a child he or she was adopted. The parents had two boys and I did not know that one of the youths, a teenager, was adopted. The couple had one child of their own and then adopted the other when he was a baby. I replied that I think the sooner you let a child know of the adoption the better it is. How awful as a teenager to find out you were adopted, but your brother was not. Children need and want to feel they belong and every adopted child should learn right away they were specially chosen. One woman told me she knew right away she was adopted by an older loving couple. It was not until she was an adult and did research into her birth mother, after the parents who raised her were dead, that she had a shock Her birth mother was no longer living, but she discovered she had a sister and a niece. The mother had had one child, then when the woman was born, she put her up for adoption, but later had another child. The woman said she has fought a feeling of abandonment all her adult life. She married a special man and they had many good years together, but she never had children. She did have considerable counseling, but the pain, she said is still there. Why was she put up for adoption? She will never know.
I will do another post tomorrow about the many other things that need to be considered about overseas adoptions and medical care.
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