[Shoshana]

That's just it, Amom, the pressure to recognize the "gift" of adoption often does come from the parents, even strangers -- it's part of the whole "adoption is a lovely thing" myth. Yes, parts of adoption are lovely. Parts are also painful and involve loss.

I don't think ANY child should experience pressure to feel grateful - bio or adopted. In my rosy view of the world, children should have the right to be born into healthy and secure homes. When they are not, when they are placed for adoption, placed into an orphanage, rescued from a life of poverty or abuse, MANY people think the child is lucky and hence, the corresponding emotion that would be appropriate for the child to experience would be gratitude.

I do not think that children, regardless of their backgrounds can truly understand gratitude. (Re the Russian adoptee example above -- happy, lucky, yes, and at least equally petrified). By the time of adolescence, the feelings of luckiness or happiness or pride at one's adoptive status are sometimes replaced by a sense of unfairness. Why me? -- Not "it's unfair that I was rescued from a life of XY&Z" but "why wasn't I born into the happy, healthy, secure, and loving family like (apparently) all of the other kids" (and yes, why did I have to be adopted -- note that this does not mean the child's adoptive home is unloving or unhappy!)

Sorry, I'm rambling and I doubt I'm even being clear. I guess I think it's important for adoptive parents to assure their children that they do not expect gratitude because I can guarantee you, the child will get that message loud and clear from plenty of other people.

Aside: Thanks Red, you do understand. Nothing irritates me more than when my perceptions or experiences as an adoptee are dismissed because someone quickly (and wrongly) labels me an "angry" or "wounded" adoptee. But then again, it does speak volumes -- what better way to maintain all of the harmful mythology that surrounds adoption than to dismiss or deny the very people it impacts the most?