20 Things Only Adoptive Parents Understand

Adoptive parents are the real parents. The people who conceived and gave birth to the adoptees are the birth parents.

The struggles adoptive families may face are often ones all families have. A temper tantrum is a temper tantrum, no matter how a family was formed.

Adoptive families don't go to bed every night worried the birth parents will ask for the child back. Yes, sometimes birth mothers change their minds during the period of revocation, a time before an adoption is finalized for birth parents to change their minds. But it's rare. After the adoption is finalized, the family is permanent.

Open adoption is not only better for the child and the families, but it makes sense. It helps adoptees feel secure in their identities. And they may find answers to questions they have throughout their lives.

Asking questions is healthy! Just because an adoptee asks their families for details or more information doesn't mean the attachment to their parents is weak. It simply means they're developing their identities—and that's a good thing.

Though finding one's birth parents or meeting them for the first time doesn't always have a happy or satisfying ending for adoptees, the search for answers about them doesn't mean they're unhappy, insecure or dislike their parents.

Adoption isn't settling. It's not the second-best way to form a family. Adoption is family. Period. And the best for families who do it. Saying otherwise is hurtful to adoptive families and their children.

Adoption goes beyond the day a child is brought to their parents, beyond the day things were legally finalized. Adoption is part of a child's identity and, therefore, a lifelong process. As they grow, new questions and feelings arise. Openness and the willingness to seeks answers is a special part of the adoptee's (and the adoptive family's) story and history.

Some questions will never get answered. While that can be frustrating and lead to more questions, it's a part of life for adopted children.

Raising children is difficult. When a child is adopted, their struggles aren't always connected to the fact that they were adopted. Adoptive parents know this, though others might attribute any struggle to adoption.

Adopted children aren't broken. Despite popular belief, not all adopted children suffered trauma at the hands of their birth parents, from the death of their birth parents or from early separations or lack of attachment. As with any child, an adoptee's mental health is as important as their physical health—but that doesn't mean whatever issues they may or may not have can be attributed to adoption.

Even people who mean well can be incredibly inconsiderate. Those who haven't experienced adoption often feel entitled to adoptive families' stories, their personal information, the health history of the children and the details of the day the child came home. Sharing this information isn't wrong, but demanding it—particularly from someone you've just met—is rude.

Adoption isn't a cure for infertility, and infertility alone isn't a great reason to pursue adoption. There is no link between adoption and the ability to suddenly get pregnant. That sequence of events has happened, sure, but adoption wasn't the reason.

Adoption is about creating family. So, if a couple you know has struggled with infertility and decided to pursue adoption, don't tell them you're sorry. They're not settling.

Adoptive parents know what it's like to anxiously await news about a placement. Being constantly asked about it by loved ones and strangers is probably one of the least unpleasant parts about the whole process.

People have so many things to say about your interest in international adoptions. Adoptive parents hear all the time that they should be looking for children in the U.S. foster system. Yet, how one creates their family—including through adoption—is the family's business only.

Adopted children, especially those who look very differently from their parents, often are asked where they're from. They're from wherever their adopted parents are from whether it's Dubuque, Iowa, or NYC. Where they were born is a different question—and also not anybody's business.

Adoptive parents know what it's like to introduce their children and then have someone ask whether their children are siblings. The answer was and always has been: yes.

What adoptive parents hasn't heard about how lucky their child is to have been brought into their home? What they know, though, is that they're the lucky ones to have been put together with this one-in-a-million child to raise, love and parent.

Adoption is about change, especially at first. Change for the child who was born to one parent and handed over to another. Change for the family because any addition is change! It's all a part of how adoption works. It's normal and, with the right support and information, something to embrace. It's part of who adoptive families and adoptees are.