OPINION: Adoption brings hurdles and joy

Adoptive parents don’t take family for granted. We worked hard to create ours. Each adoptive parent has a unique reason for adopting. In our case, I became ill after giving birth to our son. As he grew, we saw we’d all benefit from another child, so we adopted a daughter from China, influenced by our son’s Chinese best friends and made possible because of China’s one-child policy. My husband and I remain grateful to the biological family we never met. For us to gain a child, others had to lose one, likely enduring great pain in the process. On our daughter’s birthday, her other family is with us in spirit.

Having one adopted and one biological child, we saw nature and nurture at play. Shared morals or antics were likely influenced by us; differences reflected their core personalities. At 4 months old, fresh from China, my daughter — dressed in her brother’s hand-me-downs — went wild in the “pink” aisle of Toys R Us, despite never having seen pink before. My son, 5 when she arrived, begged to learn Mandarin until we got him a tutor, while she showed no interest in a foreign language. Was that due to a minor hearing loss or negative feelings about the country that gave her up? Both children are borderline introverts who love food and listening to music. But they differ on politics and what they want out of life.

Research shows adopted children face higher rates of behavioral and learning issues than biological peers, even in supportive homes. A 2015 study by Nicholas Zill noted adopted kindergarteners displayed more problem behaviors (e.g., anger, fighting) and lower academic performance, despite having wealthier, better-educated parents. By eighth grade, half had diagnosed disabilities, a higher rate than biological children. These challenges may stem from genetics, prenatal issues or early stress, not parenting. A 2023 study by Neiderhiser et al. found children’s genetic makeup affects their response to adoptive parenting, sometimes causing friction if temperaments clash. Adoptive parents, we noticed, tracked development more keenly than our peers with only biological kids. Unsure what to expect, maybe we anticipate the unexpected.

Some issues can be healed, not cured. While addressing our daughter’s hearing loss, I learned listening begins in the womb, and even a newborn handed from birth mother to adoptive mother senses the loss. The “primal wound” theory suggests this separation creates a lifelong impact — like abandonment or grief — distinct from biological parenting. Now grown and considering a family, our daughter wonders about her birth parents — their health histories and more. She did a genetic test to fill in her knowledge; it revealed she’s 99% Chinese, 1% Southeast Asian, and has fourth cousins in the U.S. (cousins she’s uninterested in meeting.) It didn’t tell her what life would’ve been like if she grew up around blood relations or whether she’d get along with them or not.

Adoptive families face unique hurdles: legal processes, agency rules and societal biases. Closed adoptions limit birth family info, complicating identity. Open adoptions help but require managing relationships. Transracial adoptions add complexity. We celebrated Chinese New Year until she asked us to stop. We carried her papers while traveling, in case officials questioned our bond. We accepted assumptions: as a baby, adults knew she was adopted; kids insisted she couldn’t be ours because of her looks. Now, strangers see us as co-workers or me as her boss; with her brother, they assume she’s his date. This isn’t racism — just humans making assumptions to get along in the world; a more joyful world brought to us by this blessed child.