[raybuffer]

(found my post, evidently I accidently started a new thread rather than 'replying'...I've deleted the thread but here was the original text...)


I used the term grateful out of habit. Perhaps a bad one. I think I see where you are coming from. I love my adoptive parents as well and when I say "Grateful" I mean, I appreciate the life I've been given and the one they supported. I think it is a quagmire to be expected to "owe" adoptive parents something... for that paints us as a "burden". The truth is, successful adoptions are a win win situation for adoptive parents and children since they each fulfill one another's needs and are "grateful" for one another.

Along those lines, I think that some adoptees are afraid to search for their origins because they feel that may be construed as being "ungrateful" to their adoptive parents. This proves to be true when you see the numbers of adoptees who do not search until one or both adoptive parents have passed.

Unless the adoptive parent does feel their adoptee is a burden, I would think the loving, but perhaps difficult thing to do is to support the adoptee in their search, realizing that the search has nothing to do with their performance as a parent, and is in no way a statement of being "ungrateful".

Ray