Do adopted babies and children suffer from the same intense feelings about adoption and the feelings of loss? This seems to be discussed quite a bit on the internet. I guess it would depend on who you talked to and his or her experiences.

When children are adopted, they come with memories, deep bonds of their birth family, and their sense of being has been developing over time. Their feelings and connection to all of these things are extremely powerful. The struggle that some adopted children struggle with is the betrayal that they feel towards either their adoptive or birth families. Some of these children are haunted by their memories of the past and then by the new memories they are making with their adoptive families. So, many intense emotions for children to even try to work through.

When infants are adopted, they will suffer the loss of their birth mother. As they grow into teens or young adults some will deal with the effects of this loss. They will also have to deal with the thoughts of abandonment and being adopted. The hardest thing that some adoptees who were adopted as infants face is that they don’t know either about their past, or birth families.

These are two very different pictures both with severe losses to different degrees. Either adoptee may face grief, sadness, feelings of abandonment, and possibly other feelings or emotions.

I believe adopted children (meaning not an infant) have so much more to overcome and to deal with due to their memories and bond to their birth families. The pain is too much for some of these children and it will have an ongoing impact in their lives. Yes, some infants that are adopted will struggle with the pain of adoption, most likely not to the intensity of children that are adopted.


Related article from adoption.com:

Once Removed