The media is oversaturated with adoption pieces that perpetuate negative stereotypes, sensationalize stories, and focus heavily on adoption reunions. A majority of the stories tend to focus on one singular adoption theme: loss.
Oftentimes, the adoptee is portrayed as desperate to find any information about their biological parents in hopes of a reunion. While some adoptees may feel this way, this specific narrative leaves out the adoptees who don’t yearn to find their biological parents and neglect reunion complexities.
Naija Boys, 24, was six months old when she was adopted from India by American couple, Greg and Priya Boys.
The Boys later had a biological daughter, Nishta, and raised their two daughters in San Antonio, Texas.
Growing up, Boys said she encountered those who believe that blood ties make a family. She said she faced comments and questions that separated her from her family because she was adopted.
“Nishta would ironically get more offended when people said I wasn’t her real sister than I would,” she said. “I think she is strangely kind of proud of the fact that I’m adopted and also very protective.”
Despite the stereotypes and misconceptions emphasized by the media, Boys never questioned her place within her family. This was, in part, due to her family dynamic and her relationship with her culture.
“In the Hindu culture, there are so many stories about adoption that I grew up seeing it as a positive,” she said. “Many of our deities had multiple parents because they were adopted, and so I was fortunate enough to have positive representation.”
While Boys does want to visit her birth city, Pune, India, she has no desire to find or meet her birth parents. Boys said she admires her birth mother’s bravery in her decision to place her for adoption, but doesn’t give it much thought beyond that.
“I have enough wherewithal to know that it probably was a very difficult situation for her,” Boys said. “I don’t know how much she’s told her family now, and I don’t know what her life is, and I don’t want to disrupt that.”
Movies, TV shows, books and articles showcase happy reunions between adoptees and biological parents but miss out on the idea that the biological parent might not want to be found. Reunions involve multiple people and contain numerous complexities, but that truth is generally omitted from the media in lieu of a simple happy ending.
Another adoption story trope focuses on how biological parents feel they have had their child stolen from them. Others simply focus on young adoptees or adoptive parents, leaving out the relationship dynamics that have been cultivated between the adoptee and their adoptive family, or the voices of adult adoptees.
Lauri Greenberg, a 56-year-old Chicago adoptee, was born in 1971 — a time near the end of the Baby Scoop Era, when adoption became increasingly popular in America.
Greenberg found that as she grew older, she began to view things from a new perspective and to question aspects of her identity. She began to think about her own adoption trauma and how it impacted her everyday life. After attending therapy with an adoption competent therapist, she began to see how being adopted continuously affected her life.
Her therapist, also an adoptee, specialized in counseling prospective adoptive parents and adoptees.
“I really started looking at some of my stuff, and I really understood that it’s common,” she said. “I [saw] all my patterns, my challenges and attachment and relationships and so many things.”
In 2022, at the age of 51, she returned to school to pursue her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, with a specialization in trauma.
As part of her journey, Greenberg chose to find her biological parents, despite her parents opposing that idea.
“[My dad] was like, ‘Why do you need to do that? We’re your parents. What’s it going to change?’” she said.
Though she learned that her birth mother had passed, Greenberg was able to locate her biological half sister who helped connect her to her biological father.
Greenberg said the two had a lengthy conversation over the phone, exchanging pictures and discovering commonalities.
“It’s been like three years [...] and I’ve never heard from him again,” she said. “It feels horrible.”
Now, Greenberg hopes to bring new perspectives as an adult adoptee to the table. She uses her personal experience to work to help children struggling with the same identity-related issues she faced; she also helps parents understand the magnitude of what it means to adopt and the lifelong implications of raising a child in a world where adoption is often looked at negatively.
Adoption narratives paint adoptive parents in a range of different lights: the “savior” or “hero,” the infertility journey, the parent with the “bad” adoptee, etc.
These stories seem to forget that adoptive parents are simply parents.
In reality, adoption is less about fitting a narrative and more about real people building their families.
Julie Keshmiry and Brett Francis had always wanted to birth and adopt their children., About three years after having their first child, Aria, they began the adoption process, opting to choose an international adoption.
“We liked the thought of celebrating a culture and bringing a culture into our family,” Keshmiry said. “We always wanted to go with a country that we just felt like we had heart for.”
The entire process took three years and involved a significant amount of paperwork, including submitting financial documents, arranging for social workers to conduct a home study, and waiting for a match.
Along with the paperwork, Keshmiry received doubts about her decision to adopt, even from her OB-GYN, who was concerned about her coming home with a “troubled” child.
“I remember thinking … if I had told someone I’m pregnant, no one would say to me, ‘Oh, are you sure?’” Keshmiry said. “It’s OK to tell your horror stories [and] what you’ve heard from so and so, but no one would ever do that for you if you were giving birth.”
After being matched with their child, Keshmiry and Francis traveled to Morocco three times over five months to meet Zane, wait for the paperwork to be processed, and bring him home.
Now 14, Zane grew up in the Bay Area and is like any other teenage boy — he enjoys sports, plays football, and likes to cook and bake.
Zane said he has a good relationship with his parents, and that he and Aria have a classic sibling dynamic — sometimes getting along and sometimes annoying each other.
Still, the Francis family receives comments from others that focus on Zane’s adoption, especially in relation to luck.
“A lot of times, people are like, ‘Man, Zane is so lucky to find you guys and be in your family,’ and I was like, ‘We’re lucky too,’” Keshmiry said. “We never expected an ‘I’m glad’ or ‘thank you.’”
Keshmiry said society has a perception that the adoptee should be grateful that they were adopted.
Buzzwords like ‘luck’ and ‘gratefulness’ simplify the family’s strong bond, which Keshmiry said comes from the way they’ve built their family.
“It’s that we love our family,” Keshmiry said.
Adoption is not one singular story, and adoptees don’t belong to a single group. Their lives are shaped by individual experiences and interactions with their family, culture, and identity. By highlighting adoptee voices and embracing the diverse perspectives on what it means to be a family, the media can begin to reshape the conversation around adoption.