The Effects of Adoption on Adoptees

Adoption can provide joy to an adoptive parent. However, the struggles of adoptees can bring great pain. By knowing the effects of adoption on adoptees, parents can better understand the internal struggles their child experiences. Adoptions Crossroads states that all adoptees are affected by their adoption experience to varying degrees.

  1. Feelings and Fear of Loss, Rejection and Abandonment

    • While it is common for every person to feel rejection at some point in his life, Adoption.com states adoptees deal with loss the minute they are given up for adoption. Adoptees know that loss is a major part of the adoption process: a birth mother loses her child when she places it up for adoption, while adoptive parents may have lost a child or the ability to conceive, leading them to adopt.

      The Child Welfare Information Gateway states that adoptees have strong feelings of abandonment and may view their adoption as total abandonment. The adoptee, feeling rejected from her biological family, may reject her adoptive family if she senses they are annoyed by her curiosity surrounding her adoption. In addition, when adoptees have strong feelings of abandonment, they often end up sabotaging intimate relationships. The Child Welfare Information Gateway explains adoptees may develop an "I'm going to leave you before you leave me" mentality.

    Identity Issues

    • According to Adoption.com, adoptees may feel they lost their true identity when they were given up for adoption and have borrowed an identity from their adoptive family. When an adoptee does not know information regarding her birth parent, she will often question who she is, where she fits in and if her existence is the result of a mistake. Adoptees are often curious about their birth parents' religious, historical, ethnic, social, medical and genetic information, particularly in their teenage years, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway. They also state that issues surrounding identity are most prevalent in adoptees who do not look like their adoptive parents.

    Guilt and Shame

    • Adoptees may feel they have done something wrong to deserve their biological parents' rejection. According to Adoption.com, there may be a lot of shame involved in an adoption situation: unplanned pregnancy, infertility (when applicable), rejection and the stigma that may come with an adoption. The secrecy that may surround an adoption often validates an adoptee's feeling of guilt if he feels the reason he cannot live with his biological family is because he did something wrong.

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