Why Foster and Adopted Children Search For Biological Families

Reasons Foster and Adopted Children Search for Their Biological Family

Supporting a child to find their roots is hard but can be worth it

I have often heard this question: Why are adopted people so headstrong and intent on finding out who their birth parents are?" Some call this quest disloyalty to the parents that brought them into their homes and lovingly raised them.

Indeed, the desire to know their parents is not a type of betrayal. It could be a simple matter of curiosity. People with any history hidden from them by the state or a family secret will always seek answers. Curiosity is the foundation of being human.

Curiosity is a great driver for many adopted children and adults

Who am I? 

Who did I get my dimples from? 

What is my ethnicity? 

If I don't know the true story of who I came from, I may make it up and get it wrong. There are also medical reasons for knowing your history. 

Medical history is so vital for adopted children to know.

How many of us have gone to the doctor's office and answered the question, "Is there a history of cancer in your family? Heart issues, diabetes...." The list is long. Those who know our family history are better armed to answer these questions. It's also excellent information when the adoptee has a child of their own, not only for their use in the doctor's office but for the generations to come.

Am I going to pass on cancer cells? Breast cancer was the treatment of cancer successful for my parents. Did they react well to the treatment as a cancer patient?

Who knows! What is my family health history around heart disease? What are other medical conditions in my family tree on my birth mother's or my birth father's side?

Well, many adopted child wants to know. Still, many states require the adoption to be closed, and an adoptee will be unable to find out even the basics are my birth parents even alive, how did they die, and am I going to pass a genetic disease on to my kids? Should I even have kids?

According to Stephen J. Betchen, an adoptee and a marriage and family therapist, ​"Some of us who were adopted in "closed states" (or states that don't allow for the free exchange of even the most vital information such as a health history) have a lingering fear that we might drop dead at any moment. I love filling out the medical history questionnaire at a new doctor's office, asking what diseases my parents suffered from.

How about the question: What age was your father when he died? How should I know? The great state of So and so won't tell me.

Not knowing one's medical history is incredibly annoying to those of us adoptees who have biological children. What am I passing on? Will I be around for the wedding?" 

Who am I? What are my roots?

Many Adopted children and adults have lingering feelings of being unconnected to their roots. I've heard this feeling described as a void or emptiness that is felt deep in the core of a sense of not belonging.

Searching for birth family members may assist in filling the hole and allowing connections to be made. It might not be a successful journey, but one may hit the jackpot and find out that a parent has also been looking for them for a long time, they have changed their life around and now are ready to be in the life of the child they lost due to their circumstances of life.

When a person is looking for these roots, always be very careful that what you seek may not be the fairytale and could bring up many memories that have been suppressed for a long time.  

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