Jane Smith, Anonymous Writer
In celebration of Adoption Awareness Month and to help bring awareness to the issue, The Sentinel interviewed other adopted Kennesaw State students who were open to share their stories on adoption. Everyone’s story is different, and everyone’s story is special.
Stephanie, a 20-year-old nursing student, and her biological sister lived
with their biological mother until Stephanie was 12. The biological father left when she wasted young, and she would only see him about once a year. Stephanie was put into the foster care system in March 2008, but lived with a family friend before she and her sister were put into the system. Stephanie’s biological mother knew she could no longer take care of her daughters, which is why they lived with a family friend. She was adopted from foster care when she was 14.
Stephanie describes the day she went into the foster care system as one of the
toughest days of her life.
“From going to everything you know: your family, your friends, everything, to someone at court saying your mother’s parental rights are terminated,” Stephanie said. “It was heartbreaking. I was so scared. I had heard stories about kids who go into foster care, and they weren’t good. Even though my life wasn’t great before foster care, and abuse was present, I was still terrified.”
The first day she went into her new foster home, Stephanie said she “lost it” and
cried on her bed for hours. Her sister was younger and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Stephanie said there was no abuse.
“Living there was not horrible, but I definitely did not want to stay there,”
Stephanie said. She communicated with the family friend she has formerly lived with on Myspace.com, expressing her desire to return to them.
“They were all I knew, aside from my biological mother,” Stephanie said.
One day, the mother in the foster house decided she was done with them, for
Stephanie’s sister had been acting out a lot. She and her sister left and they went to a new family, a young couple in their mid-twenties. They stayed there for nine months and Stephanie said she “loved being there.” Although she liked them, the couple was only 10-15 years older than she was. The small difference in age made it hard for Stephanie to really think of them as “mom and dad.” Things fell through with this couple and she moved in with the family that eventually adopted her.
Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the foster care system to keep them together,
Stephanie’s younger sister did not stay with her. Her younger sister did not get along well with the other younger sister of the household. Stephanie’s sister was very mean to the girl. Because they needed to protect their own first, Stephanie’s sister was moved to another family. She still talks to her younger sister every now and then, but sometimes finds it difficult.
“She cannot let go of the past and I feel like it drags me down. Therefore, I only talk to her every now and then,” Stephanie said. Stephanie also has an older sister, but she moved out when she was 16.
Months passed with this family and everything was fine, so the family decided to
adopt her. She was 14 and finally out of the foster care system.
When asked if she would ever want to see her biological family again, Stephanie
said she has mixed feelings.
“I have moved on with my life after being adopted. I decided I would probably never want to speak to my biological family,” she said. “However, there are many times I want to. But I am afraid as to how it would turn out. Opening a door like that is a huge step,”
Stephanie said being adopted has definitely made her feel different. There’s the
most basic difference, which is how she looks compared to the rest of the family. The family that adopted her has two blue-eyed, blonde-haired girls. Stephanie is half Mexican, with a different skin tone, dark brown hair, and brown eyes.
“Whenever we met people, they would never believe my sisters and I were sisters,” Stephanie said. “But, we kind of make it funny, so it’s not that bad.”
Then there’s the deeper difference, which involved going into a home that one
doesn’t know anything about. Stephanie’s parents have always told her they would not treat her any differently.
“If you have ever been adopted you can see and feel a difference even if they don’t mean to,” Stephanie said. “One reason I may feel that way more so than other is because I was adopted at an older age, while many people are not.”
Stephanie has nothing but positives to say of her adoptive parents. “They are great. They took me in as one of their own, and have treated me very well. They are always so helpful and supportive,” Stephanie said.
Jessica, a journalism major, also has a story to tell. Her mother and biological
father split when she was young. Shortly after the split, her mother met the man who would become her adoptive father. Her mother married her adoptive father when Jessica was seven. After her mother married her now adoptive father, they called her biological father to get custody over her.
“I was always hyper aware that the man I called dad wasn’t my biological father,”
Jessica said. “I always felt like I kind of owed him something. It didn’t help that the dynamic was almost instantly and almost always persistently emotionally and mentally abusive. And his and my mom’s relationship was not great. She divorced him when I was 14.”
Her biological father died when she was in sixth grade. Jessica never got the
chance to know him or his family, which has always felt “weird” for her. “My adoptive dad always instilled in me knowing and remembering my family history. But now I feel like I’ve kind of lost it, because my closest immediate tie to my biological parental history is dead,” Jessica said.
The last adoption story is my own. I was adopted at birth in a traditional closed
adoption. Once I turned 18, I would be able to try and find my birth parents if I wanted to with the help of lawyers. I have an older sister who was also adopted in a closed adoption process. We are not biologically related.
I knew little about my birth parents. My birth mom’s name was Joanna. My birth
father’s name was Bruce. She was going back to school and he was a carpenter. She was tall and he was medium height, had a stocky build and really curly hair. She had left me a Paddington Bear as a gift that sat in my room for a long time. It never interested me until one special day shortly after I turned 21.
My mom sat me down one day, saying she had something to tell me about my
birth parents and that it “wasn’t easy for [her] to say.” My mind jumped to crazy conclusions, like I’m not really adopted, they wanted to meet me, they died, etc.
But what she told me was even more unexpected. “I have pictures of them,” she
said. And of course, I immediately said “where?” and wanted to see them right away. I thought back to all the times I needled my mom with questions about their appearance, trying to put pictures of them together in my head. She told me to think about it for a few weeks and if I still wanted to, she would show me.
I waited a month and I still wanted to see the pictures. So one night, I decided to look – I couldn’t keep my eyes away. I had her dimples. I had his nose. I had her hair. They’re both sitting in the drawer in my room at home, hidden away. I’m not allowed to tell my sister I have any pictures, because my mom doesn’t have any pictures of her biological parents.
It used to be that I had to decide whether or not I wanted to know them. Now it’s deciding when I want to. I always told myself that if I were to ever meet them, I wanted to be in a good place. I wanted to be grown up, well adjusted, employed in a stable career, etc. So now I am keeping that promise to myself; I am graduating college and getting a job before I meet them.
There’s a stigma behind adoption. It’s something that is considered strange or
abnormal by a lot of people. But adoption is not taboo at all and it’s time to end the stigma. Every child deserves a loving home.
