[Dickons]

If you were in a group of acquintances/friends who had not seen each other for sometime, and the converstation turns to catching up on each others kids...and one family has both bios and adopted (and all know this) and no one asks how the adopted kids are doing or even acknowledges they exist?

What would you do?

Kind regards,
Dickons

[momraine]

Well, with me it's usually the opposite, people always ask about my youngest (adopted) because he is cute and charming and in a wheelchair, people also want to give him things because they feel sorry for him. So I will bring up my other kids and what they have been doing that I am proud of. I just pretend they asked about all of them. If I am in a group and someone else did this to a third person in the group, then I would speak up and ask about them.

[Withay]

I agree with momraine. I would definitely ask how 'all' the children are doing. To me, it is incredibly insensitive (and rude) to not ask about the adopted children also.

[Dickons]

Thanks guys, it just brought home to me the fact adoptees will always be second best choice/not quite acceptable when compared to bios. While I do not think people deliberately do it, there is a bias.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[hpfreak080]

I have to say, I have never come across this (I guess I'm naive...or just luck).

How would someone only ask about the bios? I guess I need an example of what someone would ask/say in order to wrap my brain around this (maybe I'm just slow today lol)

[momraine]

Honestly the only time I have experienced it was with people who knew us before we adopted our two younger ones. They forget that we added to the family since we moved away. I think though that they would forget about any more bios we had too. I think that they just picture our family the way it was when they knew us. As I said, I do often experience the opposite (sort of) People ask about my youngest son far more than about my other three kids (two bio and one adopted) I think that it's the combination of him being cute and charming, being in a wheelchair and people remembering him coming home. (DD was adopted before we moved back here and was very young).
When I have all four kids with me, people will talk to him and ignore the others, and people have even given him gifts and ignored the other kids. I think it's a combination of pity and wanting to prove to themselves that they are not prejudiced agains the kid in the wheelchair.

[Dickons]

Ask about the bios by name and then not ask about the adoptees period...oh and another comment about the younger bio being the youngest...

Kind regards,
Dickons

[BethVA62]

It would trigger me for sure.
And with that bias - I would ask every question I could think of about them.

[shadow riderer]

I keep wondering, if you noticed and it triggered you, what were the parents of the adopted kids thinking and feeling?


Lorraine, basing the picture in my mind on my own experience, as a blind person, with well meaning people, oh, my, that's got to get under your skin at times. Not only for the effect on your other kids, but for the message it gives your son. .

[Dickons]

Shadow,

They are such kind people but am sure it bothered them tremendously. Why do people have to be so insensitive?

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Drywall]

Dickons...imo, I would not keep my adopted children and my bio kids separate. They would all be my children and I would refuse to allow my friends to separate them.

If asked about specific children, I would preface my answer with, "my son Joe is doing well" and not separate him or any of the others from my bios.

Adoptees need to feel that they too are not outsiders, but also members of the " forever family."

Singling them out as adoptees, is a constant reminder of their "outsider status," and it places a wall between them and their adopted family.

Ultimately they will come to understand that regardless of their achievements or numbers of good deeds, that their "outsider status" is permanent and cant be changed.

I wish you the best.

[borntampa1987]

As an adoptee I have seen it face to face. I am often left out of family events, not notified and if I find out they will simply tell me I am not invited. (like this year's thanksgiving event, my grandfather's last year) I am offended by it and it hurts, but at this point.. I find it harder and harder to want to know what is going on in my family. Im starting to accept that I simply was not meant to have that last name.