Smile for the Camera! The Pressure to Keep Up Appearances for Adoptive Parents
There's an unspoken rule in most adoptee circles I have entered that you need to keep things positive or as non-controversial as you can get. There's a fear of being labeled an ungrateful adoptee by other adoptees and adoptive parents, and that title can easily latch onto you if you dare express one smidgen of a not-happy thought.
Even in adoptee meet-ups, there's always that urge to get that one perfect group photo. Like in a sorority, I guess, you want that fantasy of destined sisters, and you'll do anything to have that photo, even if everyone in the group hates each other. The concept of the group, the intentions, what you hoped it would stand for, overwhelms everything. You can't even view other adoptees objectively because you're too wrapped up in thinking of them as adoptees, instead of people.
My orphanage group crumbled before I even knew it. I think because of all these unspoken laws that you just had to hide everything from the parents. I didn't understand it really because I tell my mom everything, but even when I left and sought out other adoptee groups, even in different states, I still felt that everyone had a mutual understanding of: Get the group photo and get out. Tell the parents you had a connection, that you made life-long friends, people who look like you, that it was meant to be.
Buy matching necklaces, or bracelets, or shirts. Anything to sell the fantasy.
I think it stems from fear. The adoptee doesn't want to be viewed as bad or ungrateful and so they don't want to bring up anything that doesn't conform with the fairytale view. If an adoptee is branded as ungrateful, there's a fear that the adoptive parents will reject them. Sometimes other adoptees will feel superior to them, feeling that they are a well-adjusted adoptee and this other girl is just angry or not as mature. I know so many different adoptees just from growing up on the east coast of the USA, who I didn't even need to seek out. Even these adoptees, who I know as classmates first and adoptees second often have an impulse to hide their true selves from their parents.
I'm just so tired of all these games. It's like joining a cult or looking in a funhouse mirror. Every single adoptee group I've entered has weird foundational rules that underpin the entire operation, and more often than not, smile for the camera and write a post about coming together is a top priority. The fact that adoptees were not getting along or weren't talking with each other or were piling on a single adoptee is ignored in favor of that picturesque scene.
Even in adoptee meet-ups, there's always that urge to get that one perfect group photo. Like in a sorority, I guess, you want that fantasy of destined sisters, and you'll do anything to have that photo, even if everyone in the group hates each other. The concept of the group, the intentions, what you hoped it would stand for, overwhelms everything. You can't even view other adoptees objectively because you're too wrapped up in thinking of them as adoptees, instead of people.
My orphanage group crumbled before I even knew it. I think because of all these unspoken laws that you just had to hide everything from the parents. I didn't understand it really because I tell my mom everything, but even when I left and sought out other adoptee groups, even in different states, I still felt that everyone had a mutual understanding of: Get the group photo and get out. Tell the parents you had a connection, that you made life-long friends, people who look like you, that it was meant to be.
Buy matching necklaces, or bracelets, or shirts. Anything to sell the fantasy.
I think it stems from fear. The adoptee doesn't want to be viewed as bad or ungrateful and so they don't want to bring up anything that doesn't conform with the fairytale view. If an adoptee is branded as ungrateful, there's a fear that the adoptive parents will reject them. Sometimes other adoptees will feel superior to them, feeling that they are a well-adjusted adoptee and this other girl is just angry or not as mature. I know so many different adoptees just from growing up on the east coast of the USA, who I didn't even need to seek out. Even these adoptees, who I know as classmates first and adoptees second often have an impulse to hide their true selves from their parents.
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