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Originally Posted by gr8fuladoptee
Aparents changed the adoptees destiny. Have you heard this saying before? I guess it's true. I mean our lives are changed when we are adopted. But that statement makes me cringe a little. What do you think?
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I think you're right to equate "destiny" with "life" in this context. Destiny isn't supposed to be changeable--it's like fate. Fate is... well, it's fate! It's not about change, it's about predetermined events that will happen no matter what is done to try to make them
not happen. (I'm speaking purely theoretically here because I don't believe in such things.) And fate has no place in conversations about adoption. It reinforces an adoptee's idea about him- or herself that s/he was
born wrong or out of place or some such nonsense; it also may serve to reinforce a birthparent's self-destructive thoughts and tendencies, as well as an adoptive parent's feeling that they were meant to be infertile and are somehow "less" than people who can produce children. It grants some sort of "God works in mysterious ways" aura to it all, which is just another way of saying "Sh*t happens" and trying to make it sound like someone is in control of it all.
Perhaps your cringe reaction comes out of not believing in things like destiny, fate, or even God. Perhaps, too, there is an underlying feeling that surely none of
this (meaning your life and all the weirdness adoptees can feel) could have been
destined to happen, as if you somehow did something to deserve being taken away from your biological mother and placed with strangers. I know your adoptive parents are not strangers to you now, but they were at first, and sayings like the one you mention seem to be intended to erase the pain involved in the whole process--but they don't. Your feelings and experiences are trivialized when someone says that to you, which would make me cringe too.