Adoption is about families, all sorts of families.

Family includes extended family.
They may not be involved in the day to day parenting of your adopted child. But, parents/grandparents, brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles, and cousins are also part of a family. Like it or not, their responses and reactions to your adoption and your adopted child have an impact on your family.

Was/is your family supportive? If so, that’s great for everyone. And yet, you may find that even having a supportive family member doesn’t mean you won’t have sometimes awkward adjustments. A welcome adoption situation is still a change in family dynamic.

What if you don’t have supportive family? How do you handle family who doesn’t seem to care at all either way? When you are expressing your joy and excitement about a new addition to the family, are you met with reactions of family member who doesn’t seem to find it a ‘big deal’ or ‘worth talking about’, any more than the discussion of the recent oil change they had done on their car?

Maybe the hardest situations to handle are when your extended family does not approve of your adoption. Perhaps they are concerned about your ability to handle another child. Perhaps they are worried about how another child will affect your other children. Perhaps they even have misguided concerns about your attempt to raise “other people’s children” or, worse yet, “other people’s problems”. They may have concerns about the race of your adopted child. Some may be legitimate adjustment concerns. Sadly, in some families, those can also be racist concerns. What do you do? What are some options for how to handle family concerns about your adoption?

No matter the reaction of your extended family to your adoption, you can be assured you are not alone! Others have been through and are going through similar experiences. There are not right or wrong ways to handle these situations. Every one must forge their own way, in the manner that feels right to them. Still, it’s good to know of support and to know that you are not alone in your struggles.

Other articles that discuss the issue of extended family reactions:
Thinking about adoption when you have a birth child
It Took a Small Town (poem)
Attitudes About Adoption
What Adoptive Parents Need, Rita Laws


Other blogs will give some ideas that others have used, suggestions or ideas to use as you approach your own extended family.
An Adoptee's Extended Family
How to Stand up to Unsupportive People
Lack of support after adoption
Choosing to adopt when family members disapprove