Adoptee Voices/Adoptee Identity
Check out some of Pact’s most timely and popular publications. For permission to reprint or repost, please contact Beth Hall at beth@pactadopt.org.
by April Dinwoodie 2018 Growing up as a transracially adopted person in the seventies and eighties, I never imagined it would be harder today than it was then to move through the world as a person of color. While there was a stark lack of diversity in rural Rhode...
by Amanda Baden 2018 Ten things I need from those who love me to feel supported as an adoptee of color: Empathy and humility. As an adoptee of color, a psychologist, an educator, and a parent, I have learned that the most valuable gift you can...
by Bryan Post 2020 Along the stress-full journey we shall go In his seminal work, “The Emotional Brain,” neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explores how traumatic experiences in early childhood, whether remembered or not, can impact adult behavior. “In times of stress,” he...
by Sara Mascardo 2018 In my entire life, I have never been asked what I, an adoptee of color, needed to feel supported. Then I discovered Pact, an amazing community of other adopted people, and a community that supports my journey in a way I have not experienced...
by Rebekah Hutson 2018 Listen, don’t dismiss The worst possible thing you can do is ignore me, to ignore my voice and my concerns. As someone who loves me, you should be there to support me through my transracial adoption journey, which is lifelong. Too many times,...
by Susan Harris O’Connor, MSW, LICSW, ASQ/CQIA 2018 When Pact asked me to to share what it is I need from people who love me, I thought immediately about the Childhood Relationship Blueprint given to me by my parents and a core group of childhood friends. Born in...
by Rebecca Carroll 2016 Give your black children some black to grow on -- black friends, black culture; work hard and tirelessly to make sure they are never the only one in the room, anywhere. Find a black person to teach you how to manage your children’s hair and...
by Dwight Smith 2016 A version of this essay was previously published on medium.com. What happens when a Black boy is adopted at birth into a white world where race and racism are ghosts of the past and racial identity is a silly thing to waste time thinking about?...
by Stephanie Flores-Koulish originally published 2018, excerpted 2023 Recently, we heard the news of a Border Patrol agent asking two women at a Montana gas station for identification after the agent heard them speaking Spanish to each other. Social media also helped...
by Katie Wynen 2015 Adoption literature is dominated by the voices of adoptive parents, with a sprinkling of adoptee voices and even fewer birth parent voices. The book Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge was published in...
by Marisa Rosa Margarita Carrillo Bytof Renner 2016 The moment I stepped into that McDonald's, my adoptive mom and my cousin at my side, I felt like there were just two focused spotlights, one directly on me and one on my birth mom. I walked towards her, my hands...
by Mary Grossnickle 2015 Many of us have experienced loss in our lives: Loss of a loved one, a marriage, the possibility of not having biological children. All are losses that can be life-altering and/or lifelong. Do you rage against the unfairness of it? Do you...
by Dr. Kripa Cooper-Lewter 2016 Transracial and transnational adoption not only connects children with adoptive parents, but in many instances also forms new sibling relationships across more than one race. Parents who have adopted children of different races face the...
by Rebecca Carroll 2016 It's said that a person’s story belongs to them; I don't know if that's true for people born into the same families in which they grow up, but mine has never felt like my own. Maybe that's because it's always been a little different, depending...
by Susan Ito 2018 Realize that my inner identity might not always match my outer identity. Identity is complicated for adoptees of color, and how we identify inside might be different than how we present externally. Please ask me how I identify. The answer, especially...
by Mary Martin Mason 1993 For several years my son's birth mother, my husband and I grappled with the best time to tell Josh that he has a half-brother. Josh's birth father has chosen not to participate in our arrangement of open adoption, and Josh's half-brother is...
by Robert L. Ballard, PhD 2010 Alasdair MacIntyre, a well-known ethicist, wrote: “We all live out narratives in our lives.”[1] If this is true, then each life is a story, with a beginning, an end, and a wide range of characters, plot changes, and climaxes that enrich...
by Jae Ran Kim Fall 2008 As an educator, social worker and adult adoptee, I search for ways to help adoptees, adoptive families, and those who interact with us better understand the nuances and complexities of our experiences. Ambiguous loss is a concept that provides...