Gratefulness, the Adoptee Burden

Five years ago I came across a post on The Lost Daughters(1) entitled, "Dear Adoptive Parents: The Burden of Adoptee Loyalty" (archived link). In this open letter to adoptive parents, the author - signed as "An Adult Adoptee" - painstakingly describes how adopted individuals often feel an overwhelming sense of obligation to their adoptive parents. In this post I will dig into the notion of adoptee gratefulness, digging into the original post and situating it within a sociocultural context.

Opening the dialogue, An Adult Adoptee writes,

You have no understanding of the burden of Adoptee Loyalty that your adopted child bears.... You do not realize that he will sacrifice his own feelings and desires for your sake–and that he does this subconsciously, because you also have no idea how easily, how quickly the unspoken thoughts and emotions inside of you, the silent and passive cues you communicate are internalized by your adopted child.

To speak plainly, the burden that An Adult Adoptee is discussing is the expectation that adopted individuals feel grateful and express a sense of loyalty to their adoptive parents. An Adult Adoptee goes on,

She will smile and hug you and tell you she is so grateful, because she knows that’s what you want. She will make you feel good at the expense of her own well-being.... She can sense your inward expectation that you will allow her to “wrestle” with her adoption to a certain point but that ultimately you expect her to conclude that her adoption is a godsend and that you are a savior. [emphasis added]

Originally posted in 2015, this post highlights three of the stereotypes of adoption that Baden (2016) describes as grateful adoptees, altruistic rescuers, and adoption is a win-win. Combined, these stereotypes communicate that adopted individuals should be thankful for being saved.

An Adult Adoptee continues,

When she hears you talking about how you ultimately think she will be fine and won’t have many issues because adoptive parents today know so much more about adoption and birth families than did adoptive parents of yesterday, she will internalize your words and teach herself to be fine and to ignore her emotions and questions, because the burden of Adoptee Loyalty is not easily set aside. [emphasis added]

Ecological Systems Theory. Credit: Wikipedia

While the original letter emphasizes the role of the adoptive parent in instilling these expectations, I think it is important to highlight that adoption does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, your adoptive family exists within a culture that consistently tells adoptees to be grateful - even if you, as the adoptive parent, do not. Developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (2000) pioneered the ecological systems theory to describe how we develop within a series of spheres of influence of radiate outwards. For an adopted individual, the adoptive family as well as the immediate community (neighbors, peers, people at school) all exist within the adopted individual's microsystem (the most direct sphere of influence).

The microsystem - and everyone within it - exists within a macrosystem or culture that develops master narratives. Master narratives are culturally shared stories that shape how members of that culture understand and engage with their world (McLean & Syed, 2016). Master narratives state was is good and proper, and thus, what is bad and wrong. In so doing, master narratives exert pressure on members of the culture to follow the good and proper path(2). Within the United States of America, the aforementioned stereotypes of adoption as rescue and concomitant expectation of gratefulness form a master narrative of adoption - a societally-correct way to understand adoption.

An Adult Adoptee's post highlights the pernicious effects of this narrative,

Because she realizes deep down, at a subconscious, instinctive level that what matters to you most is that this adoption work out the way you want to work out–that you are desperate to see this adoption be what you always dreamed it would be: That happy ending of a doting, grateful, happy child eager to sing your praises, eager to thank Almighty Adoption and Almighty Adoptive Parents for giving her such a wonderful life. And so, she knows that if she shows anything other than that, if she departs even a little from that narrative, if she comes to a different conclusion, she may cause you pain and hence, face rejection again.

Everyone within the culture - adopted individuals and adoptive parents included - are subject to the influence of the master narrative of rescue and thankfulness simply by existing within the culture. We learn of the narrative from popular media such as in the Harry Potter franchise when Harry is expected to be thankful for being taken in by his aunt and uncle, in the Friends TV series when Phoebe feels guilt for connecting with her birth mother, and in Kung Fu Panda 3 when Po's adoptive father (Mr. Ping) feels distraught over Po meeting his birth family.

These narratives are further emphasized in daily life. For instance, when we hear adoptive parents being spoken of as rescuing children who were otherwise languishing in orphanages (a notion that is frequently inaccurate), or when we are directly told that without adoption we would have grown up languishing in an orphanage or "out on the street" - implying a sense of rescue and thus, expected gratitude toward the rescuer.

To finish her letter, An Adult Adoptee suggests a route forward,

As their parents, it is your responsibility to recognize this burden they bear. And to help them unpack and unload it. It is your responsibility to empower them to let go of the heavy load of Adoptee Loyalty. If you allow your adopted children to continue to carry such a burden, you are demonstrating that your comfort and ego are more important to you than the well-being and self-actualization that you promised to give to the children you are supposed to love above yourselves.

Buried within each of us - adopted individual or adoptive parent alike - is the influence of the master narrative. And now that we know, it is how we respond that matters most. Do we accept the master narrative of rescue and gratitude, or do we recognize the damage that this burden does to us as individuals and to our relationships and actively work to tear it down?

P.S. I highly recommend reading the original post on The Lost Daughters as this post only shows decontextualized excerpts. It is a short read that is worth the time regardless of your positionality with adoption.

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(1) The Lost Daughters is a website "edited and authored exclusively by adult women who were adopted as children." Their work centered the lived experiences of adopted individuals and is worth a read (though the website is currently inactive).

(2) One of the most prominent master narratives in American culture describes the proper life course, which in the 21st century includes attending and graduating from college, then starting a career, then getting married, and then having children. While this might seem ordinary to you, the expectation of attending and graduating from college was not a social expectation for most Americans throughout much of the 1900s, and while Americans view marriage as a necessary precursor to having children this is not a global universal.