During my series on Deciding to Adopt a Child, a reader left the following comment regarding adoptees searching for their birthfamily:

How can you protect a child from being too idealistic about their biological parents when just about everyone has an image in their head of perfect ideal parents? I just hope I can give my children enough of a foundation to help them... It's something that is on my mind often. – Chromesthesia from Deciding to Adopt a Child: Birthparent Searches

I believe that most idealistic views come from a lack of information. Nobody likes a vacuum, so we tend to fill it with our imaginations. If an adoptee is told nothing whatsoever about his birth family, then he might fill that vacuum with daydreams about being related to a celebrity or wealthy person. Others might fill the void by imagining a horrible family who would have treated him poorly. Neither extreme is likely to be correct.

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I believe that children are entitled to know basic facts about their birth families. I do not believe that they need to know everything at one time, nor do I believe that they can handle knowing all at a young age. Instead, adoptive parents should let the child set the pace about what he wants to know at what age.

For example, I know a lot of information about my son's birthparents, including their professions, their hobbies, and even their favorite sports team. At six, my son does not care about those things. What matters to him right now is knowing that they did not reject him when they placed him for adoption. He wanted to know their names, and he wanted to know why they are not raising him. For a child this age, the answer I provided was that they wanted him to live the life that he has now, and they did not have the ability to provide that life for him.

I talk with my son about his birth family periodically and ask if he has questions about his adoption. As he grows older and asks more questions, I will tell him more details, such as what they do for a living and what hobbies they enjoy. By knowing these types of facts about his birth parents, he will not have to fill a vacuum by dreaming that they are rock stars or living in a cardboard box.

In some cases (particularly in foster adoption), your child's birth family might be quite dysfunctional, and I believe that children need to know this, too, in an age-appropriate way. I have had to deal with this myself when explaining why we do not visit with some of my dysfunctional relatives. In this way, I keep my son from filling in the gaps of what he does not know about these family members. He does not know the details, but he does know that we do not see one of our family members because she is mentally ill and unsafe around children. He does not need to know the details yet, but this will prevent him from dreaming that she is a celebrity who will send him a million dollars in the future.

Related Topics:

• Deciding to Adopt a Child: Talking About Adoption


• “From God to My Birthmother to You”

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