Adoption Gratitude, the Humble Brag, and Gaslighting

11 min readMay 5, 2021

“Adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful” — The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

NOTE: The following observations are based on four decades of conversations with adoptees, attending conferences, panel discussions, reading adoptee memoirs, blogs as well as posts and comments on social media. Their brave voices deserved to be echoed until heard,

I was introduced to the concept of gratitude by Buddhist authors such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, Roger Kamenetz, and Tara Brach and attending workshops and retreats in the presence of some of these mindfulness teachers. I wake each morning grateful to be alive and look at life through a lens of gratitude and try to see my cup as full to the brim.

This is spiritual, philosophical gratitude. It’s a world view. An attitude. And it is a choice. Other feelings of gratitude are earned like respect or in acknowledgement of something outstanding. It’s something I’ve written about previously.

When gratitude is *expected* of you . . . when it is externally imposed on you as a debt rather than your choice and you feel an obligation to be grateful and are demeaned for being acting in ways that are deemed ungrateful . . . that is very different.

Don’t get me wrong. On Thanksgiving my family shared what we were thankful for. However, this was done with children born into and raised by their family, children who had suffered no separation or loss and thus the concept of gratitude held no trigger; ingratitude no fear of rejection as it does for adoptees.

Adoptees, however, feel a deep sense of rejection and then unlike anyone else, are made to feel that they owe the world a debt of gratitude for having been “saved” and given a warm comfortable home, ample food to eat, clothes and schooling despite the fact that these are things all American parents provide all of their children to the best of their abilities.

Adoptees, are in fact expected to be grateful just to be alive and not having been aborted.

Why are only adoptees imagined to have been saved from this fate and asked — often by outright strangers — if they are grateful for having not been aborted, while non-adoptees are barely ever asked such an insulting question? Why indeed when many children were born to capable, stable parents who weighed the pros and cons of continuing with the pregnancy or aborting it? Married couples, even practicing Catholics have terminated untimely pregnancies because they thought they were we too young. Or too old. Or needed more time to establish careers or further their education. How many simply doubted if they really wanted yet another child?

To assume that adopted children are the only ones who, but for the flip of a coin, might have been aborted is ludicrous and extremely rude and offensive to adopted people and the mothers who bore them. It assumes that every mother who decides or is coerced to relinquish their rights to an infant, did so as an alternative to abortion. This is an untrue, erroneous assumption for many reasons:

Thousands of adopted children (approximately 26%) were born outside the U.S., many in countries where abortion is not an option
Approximately 59% of adopted children are placed after being in the foster care system
Only about 15% are infant adoptions
Pregnancy termination is about not wanting to be pregnant and is available for a very limited time. This automatically eliminates mothers of children who are removed for alleged improper care.
Most mothers of domestic infants who are adopted never considered abortion either, either because they found out too late for it to be an option, or for religious reasons, or because they wanted to keep and nurture their child but were too young or lack the resources and support to do so.

In addition, adoptees are told by all of society they ought to feel “fortunate” when in fact many adoptees are the third or fourth option to fulfill their adopters’ desire to be parents after being unable to conceive and carry a pregnancy naturally, and failing multiple fertility treatments before choosing between adoption a surrogacy. Most who wind up choosing adoption as a last resort, then generally rule out “special needs” children and opt for a newborn they can bond with immediately from birth. While they may have a “deal breaker” list, it’s more of a lottery with agencies and expectant mothers choosing them, more than they chose the child they want.

Adoptees are told they are “lucky” merely to be alive and to have been “rescued” by their adopters, despite the fact that adoption is a market-driven mega-billion-dollar industry that preys on natural disasters and wars; steals, and kidnaps babies; deceives and coerces mothers, and traffics children to meet an insatiable demand despite the myth that adoptees were “unwanted.” Yet the commodified children should be grateful for those who create the demand by their willingness to pay on average $40,000 often to unscrupulous baby brokers, no questions asked.

Along with gratitude comes other obligations, like loyalty. Most adoptees are today are told they are adopted and little more. Many adoptees (especially pre so-called “open” adoptions) feel it’s respectful and their duty not to mention or ask about their origins as it brings discomfort or even tears to their adoptive parents. Felling the delicacy of their relationship to the parents raising them, they spare them the pain by ignoring such natural curiosities often until the death of their adopters. They are aware of the trials and the tribulations their adopters went through to have a family and many live in the shadow or ghost of the child(ren) of “their own” that were unrealized or who passed away.

Every Adoption Begins with Trauma

Demand for adoptee gratitude negates the injurious psychological loss of kin, ancestry, culture and heritage. Even newborn infants suffer from removal from the sights, sounds, smells and rhythms of the womb. Society’s obligation for gratitude by adoptees invalidates the “primal wound” of separation that has been documented by neurologists to change the brain and cause lasting damage.

Andrea Ross, author of Unnatural Selection: A memoir of Adoption and Wilderness writes:

“When a traumatized person struggling with issues of abandonment is told they are lucky, that they should be grateful or that they were ‘chosen’, it negates the emotional experience of that person. When it happens to me, it makes me feel as though my feelings and thoughts and experiences don’t matter.”

The popular NBC television series, This is Us, has a very strong and well-written adoption story line. Recently (Season 5 Episode 13, April 13, 2021) the adopted character Randall verbalized both the loss that is adoption and the burden of gratitude he is subjected to:

His brother Kevin responds: “I think you sound wildly ungrateful to the people that saved your life.”
Randall: “You think I’m not grateful? Of course I’m grateful. I have listened to how grateful and lucky I should be my whole life. If I don’t act grateful, people come right at me like you are right now. Having to show gratitude all the same time is suffocating.”

The loss that precedes every adoption is also negated in adoption reunions which are regularly reported as uplifting human interest stories with headlines such as: “Siblings Finding one Another After 50 Years ,” and “Identical Twins Found Each Other.” The tone of these reports and the reaction of the public are joy and happiness for those reconnected with little if any recognition of all the lost years even for those who succeed let alone awareness that for each happy reunion, there are adoptees struggling unsuccessfully for such reunification because their original birth certificates are still today sealed from them, even in open adoptions.

In place of their authentic vital record adoptees are issued a falsified “birth” certificate that lists their unrelated adopters as their parents of birth — legalizing the myth that adoption is “the same as” having been born into your family. Recently, states have begun listing two mothers or two fathers as the parents on certificates of birth. Some states allow adoptees access to their true original birth certificate upon reaching the age of majority, often with restrictions that do not apply to non-adopted adults such as requiring parental permission or allowing names to be redacted.

The Humble Brag

In addition to the gratitude issue, another common public dialog seen on social media is the adoptive parent “humble brag” — an oxymoron described here, here, and here and specifically parental humble brags here and here.

The adoptive parent humble brag is a not-so-subtle tale of how they were knights-in-shining-armor, liberating their kids from squalor or medical need without ever using the words saved or rescued.

Many, to deflect from the savior mantle say things like “I’m the fortunate one” or feign humility by emphasizing how it is they who are the lucky ones. This is ironically very true, however, since it is always the adopters who initiated the process and often after longing for a child — and in the case of infant adoption after failing to have a child naturally or with the help of interventions such as IVF. They are very much the fortunate one who should bear all gratitude.

A classic example of an adoptive parent humble brag on social media was an adoptive father who in singing the praises of the accomplishments of his two interracially adopted sons, felt the need to share that they were born to drug addicts, one who also had AIDS and one who was high on crack cocaine when she gave birth prematurely and the baby could not be taken home for three months. This, he also felt the need to note, was her ninth baby, the previous eight from “common law husbands” and all in state care. His need to reveal all of this took precedent over any concerns for his sons’ privacy. He ended his diatribe on the hell holes he rescued them from and how well they are doing now, with:

“Neither my wife or I take credit for their accomplishments” . . . they simply provided “opportunities.”

The adoptive father who posted the comments above is an exceptionally intelligent, well-educated man with multiple graduate degrees. He is also well-intentioned. Yet he seems to lack the awareness that degrading a child’s progenitors demeans the child and instills fear in children old enough to understand genetics and heredity.

When the Humble Brag Becomes Gaslighting

After detailing and enumerating the horrors of the families his adopted sons were born into, he then — dripping with false modesty — claims to take no credit for their present state of well-being. This is analogous to someone jumping in a river and dragging out a person thought to be in danger of drowning and then meekly eschewing being called a hero, and disingenuously claiming: “All I did was provide a rope.” Not true, if you dove in and dragged him out.

What is the adopted child to believe?

When one’s parents post such things publicly, we can only imagine the myriad emotions evoked in the adoptee: disrespect and utter bewilderment at the faux disclaimers, not mention indebtedness. Other things that create anger and feelings of betrayal for adoptees who growing into adulthood without being told they are adopted. Is their fury at having their entire based on a falsehood not justified? What of the risk they faced of unknowingly committing incest? The majority of adoptees who know they are adopted and must fill doctors’ requires family medical history with a blank page. The adoptee who is not told is at far greater risk for themselves and their offspring by giving false family history. Should they not be outraged?

Yet, adoptees face criticism for being angry. They are labelled defiant, rebellious. . . and ungrateful.

Adoptee (and birth mother) activists who speak their truth are accused of being bitter malcontents. Not unlike government and industrial whistle blowers, they are subjected to efforts to silence them because the truth threatens those who profit from redistributing children via adoption.

B.J. Lifton, psychotherapist and author of Twice Born, Journey of the Adopted Self, Lost and Found, also describes the so-called “bad” adoptee as well as his counterpart, the “good adoptee” — a quintessential grateful, people-pleaser who seeks to prove his worth and prevent being given away again. Like victims of Stockholm Syndrome, many — if not most — adoptees become masters, adept at playing along with the giant game of pretense that is adoption. Some adoptees will assure anyone who asks that they are content, happy and have no desire to dig into their ancestry. And some even convince themselves. Their adopters in turn will accept this silence as lack of interest in their families of origins.

Reciprocity of love or an act of kindness is not an expectation or an obligation but is given freely if earned or when deserved. Gratitude is an expression of heartfelt appreciation, not a duty.

Jewish law describes levels of charitable giving from begrudgingly to the highest most honorable which is: “To help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.” Teaching a man to fish.

Love that is preceded by a major loss or multiple losses must be offered in the most gentle, caring and compassionate of ways. Offered, not demanded in return. No child asked to lose his family or to be raised by unrelated strangers. Children who need extra-familial care need to be allowed to grieve their losses. Their lives before they came to you deserve honesty with respect. They owe nothing more than what they are able to feel in return, even if that is hurt, loss and anger.

All of this assumes every adoptee is loved. Not all are. Many feel inferior to or different from siblings born to the family. Many experience or feel disappointment at not being able to be the child their parents wanted. Many live with adopters who have emotional disorders that were not screened out. And some are subjected to unthinkable emotional, physical and sexual abuse — lives of sheer torture: locked in cages, burned, starved.

Never assume that any adoptee should be grateful.