About Abi Expertise I can answer questions on the emotional side of being an adoptee and on searching for adopted persons & birth parents.
Experience I was adopted from birth myself, and have found my own birth parents (both in UK and Spain) having had very little information to go on. I have also had a lot of experience researching information for others.
Expert: Abi Date: 4/29/2005 Subject: adoption issues
Question Hi Abi,
My husband and I are pursuing an international adoption. We also hope to have a biological child at some point. We are waiting to adopt a little girl almost 1 year old. Both my husband and I are working on our Spanish skills. We plan to raise her with a knowledge of the culture and we hope to return to Central America at least once when she is older, so that she can see the country where she was born.
Here are my concerns: How will our little girl feel about being taken from her "home country", and not being able to know anything about her biological family? I know that sometimes adopted children feel like "the different one" and I'm concerned that this feeling might be made stronger by the fact that she is Latina and we are not, especially if we have a biological son or daughter later. I've tried talking to other adoptive parents about this, but without much luck.
Right now I'm looking for a way to talk with grown persons who were adopted, to get their views. Can you give me some feedback or advice , based on your experience or the experience of other adoptees you've known? Any resources you could suggest would also be great. Thanks.
Answer Hi - it certainly sounds like you are taking a lot of trouble to ensure she will be in touch with her 'roots' and this is very good of you. I dont think that her being a different race will make much difference to any feelings she will get of feeling 'different' when she's older. These feelings can often stem from character differences which you cant really do much about. In my adoptive family, both my adopted parents had dark hair and dark eyes like me and to an outsider I looked like their natural daughter. My adopted parents also went on to have a natural son who turned out having blond hair and blue eyes. This did not detract from me feeling that I was the 'different' one despite their natural son looking completely different in appearance to them. I felt different to them more from personality than anything else. I would hope that when your adopted daughter is older she will take the view that her natural parents were not able to care for her and so she would have been brought up in either an institution or a family who might not care for her as much as you. In this respect she will not be resentful of anything you or your husband do. As to culture - at the age of one, she will easily integrate into any culture she is placed and will not feel odd at being raised in culture different to the one where she was born. She should treat your country as her 'home' country. My roots are half spanish and I was raised in the UK - but I dont have any desire to live in Spain or follow their customs. I dont think a correlation should be drawn to being taken away from her country of origin and how much information she would have on her natural parents. Just get as much information as you possibly can - perhaps even take photos of places, get details of the hospital where she was born, speak to as many people as possible at the adoption agency in her country of origin. Just make sure that the adoption is legitimate and above board! A lot of adoptions in third world countries are not true adoptions and the managers can make a fast buck on preying on the goodwill of people from the west who are genuine such as yourself.
