Bad Adoptions

What draws people to obscure blogs like mine is a fascinating question.

Some find me by Googling, "elderly narcissistic parent," and the first thing that pops into my head is, "That poor person." Because I know they are stricken with guilt or overburdened with making all the tough decisions because their parent made no advance plans or "Mom" or "Dad" is generally being a giant pain in the ass after being a thorn in the side of the adult children ever since they were kids.

Others find me by Googling, "Bad Adoptions."

And I'm wondering, what does that mean? I guess it all depends on who's searching.

If it's a prospective adoptive parent, it probably means they chose an agency that disappointed or the birth mother changed her mind or they flew all the way to Guatamala or China or some other third world exporter of babies and was forced to return home empty handed, for whatever reason.

If it's an adoptive parent, it probably means major disappointment of the staggering kind. Just the idea of this makes me cringe. Do bio parents Google, "Bad Biological Kids?" Probably not. They complain to their friends, read a lot of self-help parenting books, eventually become estranged or cut them out of their will. But they don't have the excuse of a, "bad adoption" to fall back on nor do they "disrupt an adoption," also known as giving back the kid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, some adoptive parents were lied to or half-lied to and the child they brought home is a walking disaster or attachment disordered and this wasn't what they signed up for. They expected what everybody else expected when they read, "What To Expect When You're Expecting." A cozy bundle of joy, not a nightmare. Or if the child was older, maybe they wanted compliance and gratitude. But preceding any adoption is expectation. But because most people decide on adoption as a last resort, they're already emotionally strung out and the stakes have gone way, way up. It's like losing all but ten bucks in Vegas and you hit the giant spinney wheel thingy and throw your money down, muttering a prayer.

So what am I saying?

Adoption is not for the weak and fragile. (Which is kinda funny, if you think about it, because most of the infertile couples have been through a lot of trauma, so are understandably wrung out).

It's far more serious and difficult than many desperate, prospective adoptive parents would like to believe or can afford to believe. It takes a giant leap of faith to raise somebody else's kid and to deal with the disappointment they must feel deep inside when their adoptee turns out differently from whatever they had in mind. I oughta know. I could feel my adoptive mother's profound sadness and disappointment that I did not turn out to be the loving, dutiful Mexican daughter who stayed by her side. (And occasionally, I heard about it, too).

Every prospective adoptive parent has expectations. My advice? Best to be honest about it. If you can admit what you're expecting, then you can expect not to be so disappointed when you get served up a child you didn't quite expect. Kids are like that. Even biological ones. But I know raising an adopted child is harder than raising a biological one. Because being an adopted child is harder than being a biological one. There's just more layers of stuff.