
What It Feels Like to Be Adopted at 17 - Thevet
http://narrative.ly/being-the-change/what-it-feels-like-to-be-adopted-at-17/
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kevindeasis
This story is nice because it reminds the audience how a person's situation
may look different from another person's perspective.

I've seen and heard terrible parents who are unfit to even raise a single
child. It is really sad that the parents are not aware that they suck at
raising children. In fact, they can't even raise themselves. The worst part is
that the child/ren would be unaware how terrible their condition is/are. It
gets worse. The social circle of these parents sometimes are unaware of how
bad things truly are even if they know what is going on.

However, through the author's experience; it seems that in a strange way Lyric
is gifted with having the ability to realize different perspectives, which is
something that some people can't seem to do.

~~~
jacalata
It's odd that you describe her as 'gifted with the ability to realize' when to
my reading it is pretty clearly an example of an excellent counsellor
deliberately guiding her to this realization, not some innate ability that
other people must be lacking.

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carlodelmundo
What a very touching and poignant story.

I dated a girl in high school who was adopted as a baby from a Russian
orphanage by an American family. She explained some difficulties with
adjusting with non-biological parents: the adoptee cannot help but feel like
an impostor.

Adopted as babies, I suppose in some ways it’s easier to transition into a new
family. Babies typically do not remember much about their biological parents
at such young ages.

A theme in her life was to meet and reconnect with her biological parents.
After playing “private eye,” she was able to track down her biological mother
and her now half-sister. She and her biological parents keep in touch, but the
true heroes here are the adopting parents (like the Esparzas). Without them,
who knows what would have happened.

~~~
kiiski
One should of course keep in mind that stories like that give a very biased
view of the life of adopted children. The stories are invariably about adopted
children wanting to find their "real" parents, because that's the only way to
turn beign an adopted child into a story. You never hear about the ones that
just live their life like anyone else, never giving much thought to who gave
birth to them. I imagine the latter group is the majority.

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peatmoss
Anyone here on the other side of this? I mean has anyone here adopted a nearly
adult minor? I wonder about that experience and if anyone here could share.

~~~
dpratt71
Not exactly, but...we adopted two thirteen-year-old girls from Ethiopia.
They're 24 now. One of the best decisions of my life.

~~~
hitekker
Hats off to you!

I'd be interested in reading a blog post describing your experience, or at
least some part of it.

~~~
dpratt71
How about a really long comment instead? :)

This was our second adoption. The first was for an infant. We planned for
another infant adoption for #2, but several things conspired to change that.

The first of those was that the political winds in country of child #1 had
changed such that the adoption programs in that country were practically at a
stand-still. So we looked around. I believe that Ethiopia was the only other
place we could adopt from due to our age/income/etc.

For our first adoption, we were given a referral. Basically, this is your
child, take it or leave it. For our second adoption, we were given a video of
all the children in the orphanage...oldest first. We were told that the
orphanage would only house children up to age 12. And we learned that the
prospects for children who had "aged out" were not very good.

So we decided to adopt one of these older children. And since we had clearly
lost our minds, we called the adoption program director and asked her for
advice. She said that she always gives people the same advice: "If you can
possibly adopt two children at once, do it". We were obviously completely out
of our minds, because we took her advice.

Of course it was very challenging at times, especially at first, for both us
and them. But I am so glad we took that advice. The feeling of isolation that
children in these situations have to face...it's probably the hardest part for
them. And it makes sense to me that in any situation, no matter how hard, it's
much easier when there is someone in your same situation you can talk to about
it.

We are in contact with many other families who have adopted older children. It
seems obvious to us that our girls have dealt with those challenges better
than most.

There is a documentary that aired on PBS, "Girl, Adopted" about a girl adopted
from the same orphanage as our girls at around the same time. I could
definitely identify with a lot of what is depicted in that program, but...I
think it was just a bit harder for Weynsht and her family than it was for us.
Alas, it isn't free ($10 for streaming/download):
[http://www.girladopted.com/](http://www.girladopted.com/)

~~~
2drew3
>I believe that Ethiopia was the only other place we could adopt from due to
our age/income/etc.

Can you clarify? Are there different age/income standards to adopt children
from different countries?

~~~
dpratt71
Yes, although there is also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Adoption_Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Adoption_Convention)

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smoyer
This is a really touching story ... there are so many hurting children out
there and you can help even if you can't practically effect an adoption. Find
a place to help broken kids.

In our case, we adopted our daughter at 11 months and the adoption agency had
arranged a loving foster home for her while the paperwork was done. I can't
imagine our home without her, but I also wish we'd been able to help more
kids.

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jzd
What happened to the brother!?

~~~
brazzledazzle
It sounds like he's older. It's sad but there's a very good chance he's an
adult making the same mistakes as his parents did. I hope he's not, but I know
it can be nearly impossible to break out of that cycle on your own.

She was lucky to be young enough to foster and adopt, have an unusual amount
of self awareness and someone in her life that would step in to act as the
foundation and example for her life as an adult. Missing even one of those and
who knows how it would have turned out for her.

