I think I reserved My Father’s Daughter because I saw someone talking about in the Adoption Books Challenge. It sounded interesting and I didn’t have any other adoption themed books on my list – so I grabbed it.
It was… interesting.
Told from the perspective of the adopted child as adult – most of the adoption books I read are about young children or about the birth parent or the adoptive parent, so this was something slightly different.
When I read books about children from war-torn or third world countries being adopted by Americans or Euorpeans, there’s almost always a tone of… privilege. By adopting this poor child, we’re giving her a better life. Which is true… except when it isn’t.
Hannah Pool is a good example of this. White American mother and English father adopt African orphan. Mother dies, father does a nice job (once he gets his bearings), Hannah grows up in England – gets a good University education. Has traveled all over the world. And yet… what child, no matter what the situation, wants to be adopted. What child, no matter the situation, wouldn’t wish for her birth family – the experience of growing up with that culture and heritage? When she learns she wasn’t an orphan, her birth father was not dead, and that she has siblings and finally visits… she sees their poverty, hears about a sister lost in the war, understands that if she had not been taken to that orphanage, she’d have grown up there – been like her sister(s) – and part of her, a big part of her, wishes that had happened.
I get it.
No matter how wonderful an adopted child’s life and family are, there’s always something that makes them different from others. I understand.
I don’t even know if having a completely open adoption can completely resolve these kinds of feelings and issues for adopted children. But I also know that adoption can be a good thing and the alternatives – children growing up in homes where adults can’t properly care for them or in orphanages or multiple foster homes, those are situations where it’s obvious adoption is a good alternative. But still.
Lesson learned: Adoption isn’t the ultimate solution. It brings problems all its own.