Adoptive Parenting, Child Parenting - Adopted Child: "You Don't Understand How It Feels to Be Abandoned"

01/15/08

Adopted Child: "You Don't Understand How It Feels to Be Abandoned"

Posted by : Faith Allen in Adoptive Parenting Blog at 05:37 am , 425 words, 614 views
Categories: Unwanted Children

I heard a sad story about a teenage adoptee who is having a hard time coming to grips with having been abandoned as a child. Unfortunately, that is the history of many adopted children, particularly in poor or overpopulated countries where leaving the baby abandoned is the cultural way of relinquishing parental rights. We even have this happening in the United States through the safe haven laws, which allow birthmothers to "abandon" their babies in specific places and immediately relinquish their parental rights. I can see how coming to grips with being physically abandoned could be hard.

Of course, an adoptee who was abandoned at infancy has no way of knowing if she was truly just left on the side of the road with nobody looking out for her. I know one birthmother who left her baby in a place where she knew the baby would be found and then adopted. The birthmother stayed hidden and watched over the baby until he was discovered by a safe person. While the child was likely told that he was abandoned, he was not discarded like a bag of garbage. This woman made sure he stayed safe and would have intervened if anyone unsafe had come anywhere near him.

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Regardless of the details, it must be hard to come to grips with knowing that you were found by a stranger. I can see where a child who has this history could struggle with deep feelings of rejection and abandonment.

We as adoptive parents need to be able to reassure our children that they are loved and that the act of abandoning a baby is no reflection of the child's worth. If we are unable to get this message across, then professional help might be required. A qualified therapist with experience in counseling adoptees can help reassure a child that she deserves to be loved and that the abandonment does not define who she is.

In the story that I heard about this particular adoptee, the child was not getting this message. Her answer to everything in her life went back to nobody understanding how it feels to be abandoned. While being abandoned is something that must be grieved, we adoptive parents need to be careful to help our children avoid developing a victim mentality. It can become easy for a hurting child to stop taking responsibility for her own choices because she was abandoned. We walk a fine line between encouraging the grieving process without supporting a victim mentality.

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: fenyimom [Member]

At several orphanages in China, parents area ble to leave their babies right outside he orphanage gates. At my daughter's orphanage, they have someone who sleeps in the gatehouse every night, and they have a supply of note paper and firecrackers outside the gate. If someone leaves a baby, they write a note with any information they want to leave, and then light a firecracker to wake the gatekeepr. At least that way no baby at that orphanage is ever left alone outdoors.

Permalink 01/15/08 @ 08:16

Comment from: Chromesthesia [Member]

Really? So the Chinese government has made it legal to do that?
That's one concern I have when I adopt a child internationally especially or a if I were to adopt a safe-haven baby.
How can I explain to them that it's a complicated situation, they were just tiny babies and it's not their fault so please do not have a life long complex effecting the self esteem forever.

Permalink 01/15/08 @ 19:09

Comment from: paulabaker [Member]

We have both adopted and birth children, two of our three adopted children's parental rights were terminated by the state and the third was abandoned at the hospital by his birth-mother. Her parental rights were eventually terminated as well. I often use God in the childrens adoption stories. In our case we had problems with infertility and were only able to get pregnant twice. I tell all five of our kids that we prayed to God to see if we could have a bigger family and he sent us our three adopted children, granted our children are still quite young, but it does wonders with their self esteem to hear how special they were and how we became a family! All of our kids pray that we can have a bigger family, I however pray that God has decided it's big enough!

Permalink 06/03/08 @ 09:23

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