Hi Wendiness,
cute name, makes me feel like I should curtsy deeply while saying "Welcome to our humble forum, Your Wendiness" <grin>
If I understand correctly, your concern is about your extended adopted family, and whether you making an introduction, or bringing up the subject of adoption at all, would upset anyone.
As far as the other adoptees goes, there's no way for you to know where they are in their journey, and the subject of adoption does definitely have some minefields. But, their issues are their issues. I see no reason for you not to do as you'd like to in order to protect them, especially since you're not naming names.
For those whose lives don't involve adopting, or those who
have adopted, I don't see a problem.
One approach I think I would use is almost a celebratory one - 15% adoptees in one family is a significant number of people, and I think I'd be tempted to kind of make that the central point.
You've probably already thought of these points, but I'd make sure I spoke for myself. It's so easy to fall into generalizations. For example, rather than "It's natural for adoptees to wonder and even seek out their birth families" it would be better to say "I've always wondered about my birth family and where some of my traits came from." (I don't know if that's true for you, just pointing out the focus on me, rather than making assumptions about the other adoptees. Make sense?)
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I recognize that my adopted relatives might feel strange about a genealogy but I've tried to explain that genealogy isn't about who has blue eyes or brown but rather, for our purposes, the traditions, faith, and upbringing that has been handed down.
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It sounds as if for you, it's not about blue eyes, short nose, etc., but for many it is. Maybe instead of saying 'it isn't about..' you might consider saying 'it isn't
just about eyes and hair etc, but it's
also about...' That should cover all your bases. <smile> And, that would be a perfect lead in to something like, "Our family seems to be adding something to our heritage that many of you may not have considered, and that's the concept of adoption. Did you realize that 15% of this family are adopted? ...etc"
I'm just throwing out ideas that might be useful to you which might help get a favorable response. Kind of a 'let's take pride in our family for this, along with the many other reasons that we're proud of who we are.'
Obviously, you know them better than I do and have at least an idea of what will work.
Bottom line, imo, is that if you speak only for you, no one can fault you. They
are your feelings, after all. Personally, I think it's very cool that you have such a large percentage of adoptees. Whether we want to be members or not, we
are our own special group, as are any people who are grouped together due to a difference from the main population. The other thing you might keep in mind is that no matter what you say, there may just be an Aunt Prissy who won't like it. Maybe the whole family knows she never likes anything, or maybe that's not the case. I'm simply saying don't expect the worst, but be semi prepared so
you don't have a disappointing day.
Sounds fun! Let us know how it goes - I'm sure interested!
Warmly, heartbeat