How long to wait before telling your child they're adopted?

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
False identity? I've never understood why anyone thinks this is a big deal. I figure if you raise the kid to have enough self-confidence and -esteem this crap shouldn't really matter to him/her all that much anyway.

[/ QUOTE ] Respectfully, that is incorrect. It matters a ton to children as a whole and the only reason people dont realize this is because of all the lies of the adoption industry.

[dsw1977]

My parents told me when I was very young - I don't remember NOT knowing. Obviously as you get older you better understand what this means, develop questions, curiosities, etc. These are easier to deal with than if the parents wait until the child is much older, at which point it is likely to cause resentment.

[Gunny Highway]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
False identity? I've never understood why anyone thinks this is a big deal. I figure if you raise the kid to have enough self-confidence and -esteem this crap shouldn't really matter to him/her all that much anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]
Respectfully, that is incorrect. It matters a ton to children as a whole and the only reason people dont realize this is because of all the lies of the adoption industry.

[/ QUOTE ]

My point isn't whether it does matter or doesn't. My point is that it shouldn't.

[RobRod]

I was adopted the day I was born, to the point where it has my adoptive parents' names on my birth cirtificate, yet I can't remember not knowing that I was adopted. I think this is the best way to handle it. I never think of my parents as anything other than than my parents if that makes any sense.

[Utah]

Sure it should matter. I can't think of many things more unnatural then separating a baby and child from their natural parents.

One simply shouldnt live with zero sense of their history or where they came from. People dont just appear our of thin air.

[Blarg]

If you never find out, by definition, it can't bother you.

[Utah]

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If you never find out, by definition, it can't bother you

[/ QUOTE ]The reality is that they usually do find out. They find some hidden document, get a medical condition that doesnt make sense, someone lets it slip they were adopted etc. Also, these kids often already have a sense something is amiss.

Ultimately, regardless if it will or wont bother them, they simply have a freakin fundamental right to know.

[Freerollin`]

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....better questions How would you tell em?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not the way he found out...

[Freerollin`]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you never find out, by definition, it can't bother you

[/ QUOTE ]The reality is that they usually do find out. They find some hidden document, get a medical condition that doesnt make sense, someone lets it slip they were adopted etc. Also, these kids often already have a sense something is amiss.

Ultimately, regardless if it will or wont bother them, they simply have a freakin fundamental right to know.

[/ QUOTE ]

Guess what...

This is EXACTLY what happened to my wife. Believe me, finding out when you're 16 years old really sucks.

[Gunny Highway]

[ QUOTE ]
Sure it should matter. I can't think of many things more unnatural then separating a baby and child from their natural parents.

One simply shouldnt live with zero sense of their history or where they came from. People dont just appear our of thin air.

[/ QUOTE ]

Read my first post. I used the words "big deal". Sure people are curious. But as far as I'm concerned a person's history is the history of the people that raised him. He has the learned attitudes and cultural behaviors of those people. If he was adopted late in childhood, the case may be different. I'm really referring to people that agonize over this tuff, which I see as just silly and a sign that they have low self-esteem and are not really comfortable with themselves so thety're looking for something else to fall back on.