You don't need to be sorry about my adoption experience.

Here's what to be sorry about instead.

Hey there,

We may or may not know each other, but you probably know that I’m adopted or you wouldn’t be reading this. You might also know that I’ve got some pretty strong feelings about adoption politics and practice.

Recently I tweeted this.

[Alt text: a tweet from me that reads: “I think that we’d think about adoption politics more critically if we started from the assumption that most women don’t actually want to give their children to strangers.” Dated June 9, 2023.]

Predictably, this tweet started generating some pushback. Someone responded to tell me that they were sorry I had a bad experience but also to tell me that not everyone has a bad experience with adoption. Also predictable.

If you’re new here, you might not have yet seen the adoptee bingo card. (I don’t know who the original author is, so can’t credit it properly, but if you know, please let me know so I can credit them.) It’s a pretty comprehensive tally of things that people say to adopted people in an effort to dismiss any criticism of the institution, system, or practice of modern adoption. (Additional future squares might include, “Well, Moses was adopted” and “What about the men?” Yes. Really.)

[Alt text: A pink and white graphic with unicorns and the title Adoptee Bingo card, complete with a bunch of trite phrases that people say to adopted people.]

And there, right under the ‘ungrateful’ free space, we’ve got “It sounds like you just had a bad experience.” So, I’m already winning this round!

If you’d like to tell to me that you’re sorry that I had a bad adoption experience, please refrain. It sounds like you might be making some big assumptions about me and my life experience as an adopted person. And we know what happens when we assume, right?

If we don’t know each other, I can tell you that I actually had what’s considered a successful adoption. I’m an upstanding citizen, solidly middle class, and well-educated. I’m doing fine, but thanks for your concern.

But here’s what I want you to know: criticism of adoption systems isn’t limited to people with bad adoption experiences.

Anyone can criticize adoption and a system and practice. That criticism may or may not reflect the lived experience of the critic. You don’t actually know. And we should all be more critical of systems that purport to reshape certain families in favor of others because those systems are oppressive.

Here’s some phrases to practice to reorient your misplaced feelings of sympathy for me and my life experiences:

• I’m sorry that there wasn’t more support for your family of origin. I’m sorry that society cared more about maintaining a façade of unsullied female purity and family honor and what the neighbors might think over your well-being and needs.

• I’m sorry that your mother didn’t have more options besides relinquishment. If her family, priest, teachers, or doctor pressured her to relinquish, I’m sorry they did that. If she was sent to a maternity home to hide her shame, I’m sorry that happened to her.

• I’m sorry my assumptions have made me an unsafe person with whom to talk about your actual feelings adoption. I’m sorry I assumed you were fine with it.

• I’m sorry for my complicity in adoption systems that oppress and destroy certain types of families in favor of those that I think are more socially acceptable.

• I’m sorry for my classist/racist/sexist/misogynist/imperialist assumptions about who deserves to have children and who doesn’t. I’m sorry that I assume that poor parents can’t be good parents.

• I’m sorry that I’m not able to fully understand your experience because I’m not adopted. (But I’d like to listen and learn more. I’m sorry I haven’t done more of this.)

• I’m sorry that I didn’t know that many international adoptees may not have actually been orphans and may have been stolen or trafficked into their adoptive families through black and gray markets for babies. I’m sorry I didn’t know that many in the United States still don’t have U.S. citizenship because of archaic laws and are at risk for deportation.

• I’m sorry that I haven’t bothered to really learn about and critically think about adoption systems besides what I’ve seen in Hallmark movies.

• I’m sorry I’ve made some egregious assumptions about your life experiences as an adopted person. You’re the expert on your story and adoption. I’m sorry that I thought knowing an adopted person (particularly if they were “just fine” with adoption) made me an expert.

• I’m sorry my state or nation may still be engaging in practices of secrecy and denying adopted people legal access to their own birth certificates, medical histories, and truthful information about their parentage.

• I’m sorry that meaningfully addressing the root causes poverty, which drives infant relinquishment, doesn’t have political support. I’m going to try to advocate for better policies for mothers and children that includes family support rather than relinquishment.

• I’m sorry about engaging in Bingo-card whataboutism when you’re trying to educate me about the lived realities of adoption. I’m sorry about my knee-jerk #notalladoptees responses.

• I’m sorry I’m asking you for all of this emotional labor. You must be exhausted.

• I’m sorry I haven’t been listening carefully to what you’ve been saying about adoption politics and thinking really hard about why you’ve been saying it.

• I’m sorry about the assumptions I’ve made about birth mothers and the fact that I really thought that they wanted to relinquish their children to strangers. I’m sorry I thought that adoption was helping birth mothers, rather than leaving them with lifelong grief and trauma.

• I’m sorry that I’ve tried to police your language around adoption. I’m sorry I’m so uncomfortable when you say “give children away to strangers” because I prefer the nice euphemism ‘placed’ even though it doesn’t have anything to do with your story because it makes me feel better about myself.

• I’m sorry I assumed that you somehow had to be more grateful than other people just for being born. Your parents aren’t saviors and I’m sorry I made that assumption too.

• I’m sorry that a lot of my assumptions about adoption come from adoptive parents, not from adopted people themselves.

• I’m sorry that I didn’t understand that babies retain implicit (and often unconscious) memories and aren’t the blank slates I always thought. I’m sorry I didn’t understand that babies and children can suffer enormous trauma when removed from their families. I’m sorry that I assumed that love was enough.

• I’m sorry I assumed that parents and children were essentially interchangeable and that DNA didn’t matter.

• I’m sorry that I thought your search for your birth family was pathological and weird. I’m sorry I assumed you were going to hurt them in some way and that it was better to leave the past alone.

• I’m sorry I assumed your birth mother was a crack whore or that your birth family was abusive or criminal.

So, practice saying these when you’re tempted to be sorry about my experience. I do thank you for your concern and caring, but please care more about all of the bullet points above than expressing sympathy for my personally just fine adoption experience.