Microagressions

Adoption microaggressions are a common experience for adoptees.

Often, we fail to recognise these situations because we have been so indoctrinated into believing the malignant narrative the world has created to justify our separation from family. From childhood adopted people are ‘othered’, we are not considered to be ‘normal’. Popular print and screen media frequently portrays adopted adults and their mothers as unhinged, sexual deviants, manipulative, and murderous characters. We are often the source of deeply hurtful jokes and memes. “You’re so adopted”, is an insult my husband a secondary school teacher has heard from his students more than once in his decades of teaching. In May 2023 I experienced a deeply uncomfortable situation in a small social setting, where a second party disclosed to a group of people I did not know, that I was an adopted person. In seconds, an older male in the group took the opportunity to make an adoption joke. I was dumfounded, as he jovially (falsely) claimed that he was the ‘adopted brother’ of his 81 one year old sister who was standing beside him. I chose not to respond. I did not join in the group’s laughter. I swallowed down my disgust and the feelings of being ridiculed and shamed. Had I lost my mother at birth through a means other than adoption (her death), I doubt my loss would have been made into a group joke by a stranger.

Other microaggression statements adoptees encounter on a routine basis include;

·         ‘You’re so lucky’,

·         ‘you should be ‘grateful’,

·         ‘it happened so long ago, you should be over it by now’,

·         ‘you’re living in the past’,

·         ‘that’s just what they did back then’.

The media is also responsible for perpetuating harmful adoption tropes which silence adoptees from speaking their truth. In 2022, The West Australian chose to run a salacious title, to what was an otherwise well written article. The chief editor had altered the more appropriate online title; ”  https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/forced-adoptions-push-for-wa-to-follow-victoria-with-compensation-for-young-mums-whose-babies-were-stolen--c-7528557 to the ’sin-bubs’ online edition, seen above.

 The sinbubs title cast shame on an already highly marginalised group of people in society. Adoptees are invisible to the public eye because they learnt as children that they were ‘othered’ and it is far safer to never speak of your status.

Many adoptees report they were bullied throughout their childhoods, at school by their peers for being ‘unwanted’, a ‘bastard’ and for ‘not knowing their real parents’. The title did nothing to nurture, let alone elevate the voices of adopted people, instead it reiterated the old notions that adoptees are STILL invisible sinful, unwanted babies hidden away in a crib somewhere. We are grown adults, many of us are now parents, to children, who are being wrongfully burdened to live with consequences of their parents displacement from their biological families. Being characterised as a ‘Sinbubs’, in a national paper awoke uncomfortable childhood memories for me. The incident was incredibly upsetting and destabilising, it took me days to process The West Australian’s thoughtless click bait title. I did re-emerge and summoned the strength to contact the paper to make a complaint. I was met with arrogance and resistance, the editor refused to acknowledge the points I had made, and that they had harm caused. While my letter of reply was printed a week later, there was no formal apology from the media outlet. Once again, the onus was on survivors to teach others of the nuances of living the life of ‘being adopted’.

Microaggressions are also commonplace on social media platforms and can be difficult places for adopted people to navigate. Many of us simply do not interact in these unsafe spaces which further sidelines our community from participating in important conversations and the opportunity for connection. Psychological triggers can even come in the form of algorithms which incorrectly feed the adoptee, pro-adoptive information, adoption agencies promoting their services, news posts of ‘saved’ children and acts of surrogacy by the rich and famous.

At the same time these digital spaces have also made it possible to connect with others more readily from our community from across the world and are powerful platforms for sharing information and adoptee rights advocacy. This online support has strengthened our collective voices, networking, to clarify conceptual frameworks, share ideas and each other’s work with the core goal of raising global awareness that adoption and family separation is preventable trauma. Sometimes it is even a place to publicly push back against former adoptive institutions or question a politician or public figure.