Adopted

[tonywalt]

I noticed that the "Sperm donation" thread brought up the issue of adoption, so I thought I would start a new thread.

Anyone adopted out there? I will volunteer first - I was adopted at age 6, but had stayed with different foster parents until I was 4 years old, and then with one family, and they became my legal parents.

I'd say there might be one or two others on this board, if any at all.

And, in my case, in terms of nature versus nurture, it is decidedly Nature. I knew both my parents given the relatively late age for adoption.

[JuniperWoolf]

I wasn't, but there's adoption in my lineage. Both of my grandmothers were adopted and my aunt and uncle take care of foster kids and have adopted three of the ones they've had.

[OrphanPip]

One of my great grandfathers was adopted, he was English but when he was orphaned at 8 years old they stuck him on a boat and he ended up in a Catholic orphanage in Montreal. He stayed there until he was 12, then he was sent out to a Ukrainian family in the prairies as a farm hand.

[tonywalt]

One of my great grandfathers was adopted, he was English but when he was orphaned at 8 years old they stuck him on a boat and he ended up in a Catholic orphanage in Montreal. He stayed there until he was 12, then he was sent out to a Ukrainian family in the prairies as a farm hand.


...and then what happened? That's quite alot of, uum, challenges and adapting to do so young.

Both my bio parents were bohemian artists, but i was adopted by very blue collar people, salt of the earth and all that yacaty yak.

[Alexander III]

One of my great grandfathers was adopted, he was English but when he was orphaned at 8 years old they stuck him on a boat and he ended up in a Catholic orphanage in Montreal. He stayed there until he was 12, then he was sent out to a Ukrainian family in the prairies as a farm hand.

I love hearing stories like these. To think what some men have done in their lifetimes.


My great-great-great grandfathers youngest brother, ran away from home at 15, and ended up being a pirate on the Venezuelan coast. He died before he reached 20, but I guess he kinda was adopted, well not really, but he joined the pirates and a 15 year old boy joining a ship of men and boys alike is kinda of a family. No it is not, in the least, but that's the closest I got to an adoption in the family.

[Delta40]

My mother fell pregnant at 16 and her mother removed her from Scotland to England for the duration of the pregnancy where she stayed in a 'nursing home'. After she gave birth she had to nurse her son for 6 weeks till a home was found for him. My mother never had any choice and I can't imagine the lifetime of pain it has caused her. We have never managed to track our brother down but I do hope he went to a loving home and prospered.

[OrphanPip]

...and then what happened? That's quite alot of, uum, challenges and adapting to do so young.


Not much, when he was 18 he returned to Montreal, got a job, got married.

[JuniperWoolf]

Yeah, my nannie (that's Maritime for "grandma") was sent to a Catholic school too. Her dad died of MS when she was four and her mom was blind which apparently means she can't take care of four kids, so they were scattered all over Canada and the US. She stayed at the school in Sydney until she was twelve, after which she was too old to stay in the dorms so she still attended the school but she slept at this one crowded foster home. She hated it there and had to live with a psychopath, so she was taken in by my poppa's (that's Maritime for "grandpa") mom when she was fifteen, and then my poppa married her when she was seventeen and he was twenty one or so and they moved to Grande Cache.

My other grandma was just adopted by her godfather. I don't like her very much.

[PoeticPassions]

Anyone adopted out there? I will volunteer first - I was adopted at age 6, but had stayed with different foster parents until I was 4 years old, and then with one family, and they became my legal parents.

I'd say there might be one or two others on this board, if any at all.

And, in my case, in terms of nature versus nurture, it is decidedly Nature. I knew both my parents given the relatively late age for adoption.


So, tony, can I ask-- did you parents give you up or were you orphaned?
It must have been rough being in foster homes... Do you remember your biological parents at all now?


I have a few friends that have been adopted... Two of my really close girlfriends were adopted, and both have gone through a really rough period and have had identity crises, particular because of the two I am referring to right now are African-american but were adopted by either one or two 'white' parents... Generally I think it is difficult to do cross-cultural and cross-racial adoptions, but I still think it must be much better than having the child go through foster homes.

I have always thought that I would adopt... and I plan on doing so, if I can get my finances in order and afford it. I figure that there are already so many of us on this planet that I do not need to bring a new life to it, but if there is already a life out there that I can make better, then that's what I will do.



I knew (and deeply loved) this one boy whose parents gave him up to an orphanage at age 7... we used to be really closed as I volunteered at the orphanage for two years. He ended up being killed when he was 17 (about two years ago) during a robbery (he was robbing a gambling venue).. he was shot by the girl who was working there. I'll never forgive myself for not providing the support he needed, because after two years of being so close, I kind of abandoned him (not all my own fault as I went off to college, but broke my promise that I would say goodbye). He was almost 12 the last time I saw him...

I just think it must have been so difficult for him when he got old enough and realized that his parents had given him up, especially as they had other children that they had kept.

[cacian]

My mother fell pregnant at 16 and her mother removed her from Scotland to England for the duration of the pregnancy where she stayed in a 'nursing home'. After she gave birth she had to nurse her son for 6 weeks till a home was found for him. My mother never had any choice and I can't imagine the lifetime of pain it has caused her. We have never managed to track our brother down but I do hope he went to a loving home and prospered.

wow what a sad story.
Was Scotland less tolerant then England at that time?
My aunt had a similar situation where she had to give up her son for adoption.
I was only 18 at the times and did not quite know what to make of it it was rather shokingly sad I never forget it.

[Delta40]

wow what a sad story.
Was Scotland less tolerant then England at that time?
My aunt had a similar situation where she had to give up her son for adoption.
I was only 18 at the times and did not quite know what to make of it it was rather shokingly sad I never forget it.

No her mother forced her into adopting the child out. It was 1960 and I guess she considered it scandalous to the family's reputation so they travelled down to England to hide the fact that my mum was pregnant. Obviously my mum must have felt powerless to stop it from happening. Afterwards, she returned to Scotland and later moved to England where she met and married my father. Her second child was born in 1965.

[tonywalt]

So, tony, can I ask-- did you parents give you up or were you orphaned?

My parents were in their teens(and not married and not together for long) and usually put me with with babysitters, eventually the babysitting stays became longer and longer, until finally I was legally abandoned with one particular couple who later became my legal parents. sometime around 4 years old.

It must have been rough being in foster homes... Do you remember your biological parents at all now?

I was never in a foster home as such, just a bunch of different babysitters, very odd court case even by today's standards. Yea, I remember my mother, but not father-who moved on quickly. She is still alive and well and we rarely if ever speak, her choice.

It was a long time ago and it was not as tramautic as it reads. The adopted family were were and continue to be financially efficient, religious, and deeply conservative. They were likely looking to adopt, I imagine, and I am sure it worked in their favour.

I have a few friends that have been adopted... Two of my really close girlfriends were adopted, and both have gone through a really rough period and have had identity crises, particular because of the two I am referring to right now are African-american but were adopted by either one or two 'white' parents... Generally I think it is difficult to do cross-cultural and cross-racial adoptions, but I still think it must be much better than having the child go through foster homes.

Yes, thankfully I did not have those issues, which can be stressing for kids, even today. Kids are damn mean in school, luckily I got into sports. As an adoptee I am very wary of this well intentioned trend. It words well in Hollywood and the movies, but real life is so different.

I have always thought that I would adopt... and I plan on doing so, if I can get my finances in order and afford it. I figure that there are already so many of us on this planet that I do not need to bring a new life to it, but if there is already a life out there that I can make better, then that's what I will do.

I think that's briliant. The only challenge, is the likely case that the kid came from, at very least, a complex background. So, you really do not know what you are getting. It's so much nature and so little nurture (as seperated adopted twins studies show) and that really makes it interesting.



I knew (and deeply loved) this one boy whose parents gave him up to an orphanage at age 7... we used to be really closed as I volunteered at the orphanage for two years. He ended up being killed when he was 17 (about two years ago) during a robbery (he was robbing a gambling venue).. he was shot by the girl who was working there. I'll never forgive myself for not providing the support he needed, because after two years of being so close, I kind of abandoned him (not all my own fault as I went off to college, but broke my promise that I would say goodbye). He was almost 12 the last time I saw him...

I just think it must have been so difficult for him when he got old enough and realized that his parents had given him up, especially as they had other children that they had kept.


Sorry, about that.

[Patrick_Bateman]

My mother was adopted and I have on more than one occasion asked her if she ever wanted to find out about her birth parents (especially now that her adoptive parents are dead) she said she never had any interest but then added that it would have broken her (adoptive) mums heart if she had tried to find her real mother.

I sometimes wonder if she really does have no interest in discovering her biological source or if there's an ever present feeling of guilt in her head regarding how her mum would have felt if my mother had wanted to find her biological parents.

I think curiosity and the desire for that guardianship of a parent would get the better of me and I would try and find my parents if I had been adopted, so I just naturally believe that she must feel that way too (or it has at least crossed her mind.)

What has been others' experience on this issue?

[tonywalt]

I never talked about contacting biological parents after I was adopted. Whatever I did or did not do, was done in secret, as adoptive parents would be unhappy.

[Buh4Bee]

My best-friend at the time in high school was able to contact her biological mother and father. Her parents went through an open adoption, so it was very easy for her to make the contact. She did make contact and continues to maintain contact with her parents. However, she has never been able to function independently. She is enormously obese and addicted to pain killers. She is a stay at home mom. It's such a bad situation, I can't even bare to be around it. She has no skills or will-power to change her circumstances.

[Delta40]

My best-friend at the time in high school was able to contact her biological mother and father. Her parents went through an open adoption, so it was very easy for her to make the contact. She did make contact and continues to maintain contact with her parents. However, she has never been able to function independently. She is enormously obese and addicted to pain killers. She is a stay at home mom. It's such a bad situation, I can't even bare to be around it. She has no skills or will-power to change her circumstances.

It is a shame for your friend Buhbee. What has happened to us in childhood eventually becomes our responsiblity as adults. It's up to us to break the paralysis or remain that way.

[qimissung]

An interesting thread, TonyWalt.

There is no adoption in my family, although my grandmother, whom I never knew, was raised in an orphanage. Her mother had died, and her father, a dirt poor Cherokee farmer, was unable to care for her and her sister, although he later remarried and had other children.

As to the inter-racial or cross-racial adoption, I don't think I could be either for it or against it. I realize that to willfully divorce a child from his cultural roots is a dangerous thing, but it's my understanding that-in the United States, anyway-not a lot of black families adopt children. I do think it's better for them to have a home and a family. Isn't it kind of a reverse racism not to allow them to be adopted by a white family?

[tonywalt]

My best-friend at the time in high school was able to contact her biological mother and father. Her parents went through an open adoption, so it was very easy for her to make the contact. She did make contact and continues to maintain contact with her parents. However, she has never been able to function independently. She is enormously obese and addicted to pain killers. She is a stay at home mom. It's such a bad situation, I can't even bare to be around it. She has no skills or will-power to change her circumstances.

I am sorry she is not able to function independently and addicted to pain killers(I hope not Oxy), I've never known any adoptees who suffered because of the adoption to any significant degree. All the adoptees I know were adopted as infants, and would never have known in a large number of the cases. Most adoptees are very well adjusted and arguably have are higher achievers, given the extra attention that is given to us-many being only children.

Acts of Acclaim Adoptee's Name

Steve Jobs - Apple

German Baroque composer of 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' Johann Sebastian Bach

Canadian singer and founder of Lilith Fair Sarah McLachlan

Russian author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

Founder of Wendy's restaurants who famously appeared in TV ads was a tirelessly advocate for adoption Dave Thomas

Venezuelan revolutionary and South American namesake Simón Bolívar

English poet of 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' who died of tuberculosis at age 26 John Keats

American co-founder of Apple Computers and one-time CEO of Pixar Steve Jobs
Olympic diving gold medalist of Samoan-Swedish descent Greg Louganis

American naval officer famous for his paraphrased exclamation, 'Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!' David Farragut

Greek philosopher and student of Plato Aristotle

French philosopher and author of 'The Social Contract' Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Swedish actress and star of 'Casablanca' and 'Bells of St. Marys' Ingrid Bergman

American jazz singer who won 13 Grammy awards and is nicknamed 'The First Lady of Song' Ella Fitzgerald

Ukranian figure skater who won gold at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer Oksana Baiul

Born Leslie King and later adopted by his stepfather, he was the only American President to ascend by resignation Gerald Ford

American actor whose credits include Goodfellas and Field of Dreams Ray Liotta

Canadian who founded basketball in 1891 James Naismith

[Buh4Bee]

No doubt, now my husband has a dear friend from college who was adopted. It has never been an issue for him and he is extremely well adjusted.

If you are loved, who cares about the biology. It maybe naive of me to think this, but I do think love has so much to do with raising a decent little person.

[tonywalt]

I do try hard to be decent-difficult:wink5:

[Delta40]

I do try hard to be decent-difficult:wink5:

You gotta maintain a balance!

[Delta40]

When talking about adoptees, it is nice to hear how well they turned out. I do however, ache for my mother's loss - the other side of the story, which should not be put to one side.

Today women have more freedom of choice on whether they will adopt along with other options of course, which begs the question would you adopt a child out knowing that social stigma is no longer attached?

I know I made my thoughts clear on the other thread which were not well received but I could give the gift of life to someone if I found myself pregnant.