The Missing Part

The definition of adopt: To take into one's family through legal means and raise as one's own child; to take by choice; to take up and make one's own; to take on or assume.

The stereotyping of adoption by the media is a destructive force that is both subtle and direct. Why is the way a family comes into being, whether it is biological or adoptive, so important? To listen to our government it is of the utmost importance even though they try to sabotage it every chance they get. And the talk shows with their experts on adoption, stereotype adopted people as somehow "missing a part of themselves" if they don't search for their natural parents. My experiences present a different picture.

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On a cool day in April, 1951, I came home for the first time. I was ten weeks old and had just been adopted. I was chosen by George and Mary Roscoe to be their daughter. That was the beginning of my family. I grew up without any feelings of being different or sensing that a part of me missing. In third grade, a so-called friend of mine announced to the class that I was adopted because my real mother didn't want me.

Needless to say I was devastated. I went home in tears that day. My mother finally got me to tell her what was wrong and then she told me that I was, in fact, adopted. But it wasn't like Cynthia had said. It wasn't because my real mother didn't want me; it was because she couldn't keep me. Mom and dad had chosen me from all the kids they had to pick from. From then on I was satisfied with my life, my parents, and myself as a whole.

That was more than forty years ago. About seventeen years ago I became an adoptive parent. I adopted a thirteen-year-old foster daughter who had been bounced around to six foster homes in four years. She definitely needed a family and stability. She knew her parents, and she knew that my ex-husband and I had adopted her, and she, too, was satisfied with her new life and her new family. Other than the problems we had to deal with from her past, she was happy with her present life.

Now I'm doing it again. I am raising my seven-year-old, who is actually my grandson and whom my husband and I are in the process of adopting. His mother is my adopted daughter who got into trouble in the real world and isn't able to take care of him. We welcomed him into our home when he was just seven months old. We are his "mom" and "dad," and that's all there is to it. He has had no contact with his mother for approximately five years.

Things have changed immensely since I was adopted. When my adoption went through, the papers were sealed, secret, and forgotten. When my daughter was adopted, there was a little more information released, but some things were still kept as secrets. Now because of the missing parts, everyone thinks everything should be open to the natural parents and adoptive children. Why can't children and adults be happy with their lives and not feel like they have to look for their birth parents or have their birth parents search for them? When the talk shows air, they make me angry. It hurts to think that they have that much power over something that should be a good experience in a person's life. They make me feel I'm abnormal because I have never had the desire to find my birth parents. I admire the one girl who stood up for her rights as a person on one of those shows and refused to be pulled in to this stereotype. She refused to look for her real family or to let her real family contact her. She didn't want to upset the life she has built with her adoptive family.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I became curious about my medical history, but not enough to want my biological mother as a part of my life. I feel it's possible to take the chance of ruining your biological parents' lives by bringing up something that might be a secret. It could also ruin your adoptive parents' lives by hurting them. Regardless of the reason, they opened their hearts and home to you and gave you a better life than you might have had. It might also hurt you if you are rejected or told you mean absolutely nothing to the person who gave you life. What makes an expert know what each adopted person needs or what may be lacking in their life more than that person herself?

I can speak to this issue from more than just the point of view of being an adoptee. I have also been someone who has lost a child to adoption, and I have experienced, first hand, the feelings of something "missing" in my life. I know the feeling of wanting to find him, to know what he looks like, to know how he's doing, what he thinks and feels. I had a baby boy that was placed with me at six weeks old as a foster child, and he lived with me for five years. Then he became an adoptive placement for three and a half years. That baby was as much a part of me as the three I gave birth to.

But when my ex-husband and I separated, I lost Barry because of my ex-husband. It hurt me very deeply and ripped my heart out in pieces. I know where he is, but I can't have any contact with him until he's eighteen. I use to count the days until he would be eighteen, but now I think I'll have to settle for the good memories of those eight-and-one-half years. Why? Because I know how I feel, and respect the way he and his new family might feel. I would love to pursue a relationship with him, but I'll just have to settle on being available to him if he might ever want to rekindle a relationship with me.

The real "missing part" in this picture painted by the media is a stable, loving home with parents who didn't just have you because they could conceive you, but chose you to be a part of them.

Could it be that sometimes the greatest gift in life could be to adopt? I have always been the kind of person who felt that you never do anything without a reason, be it good or bad. Maybe that's why being adopted and finding my natural mother has never controlled my life. My mom and dad had a good reason for adopting me, just as my mother had a reason for giving me up, be it good or bad.

Possibly that's the part an adopted person is missing in life. And once that part is in place, they can go on with their life as a whole being. Then Sally, Montel, Maury, and Leeza will have to find another deprived group in need of their "help" by telling them what's "missing" in their lives!

Credits: Joann Brouck