The Silenced Adoptee
The latest fad in adoption positive rhetoric is being “trauma-informed.” Make no mistake, being a trauma-informed parent or mental health practitioner is a good thing. But being trauma-informed does not absolve one from knowingly and willingly inflicting trauma.
This is what we are seeing now with the newest wave of “adoption reforms” that aim to make adoption “more ethical.” If prospective adoptive parents are trauma-informed, they will be better parents and therefore, adoption will be better. But let’s examine the logic of this. Adoption is an institution founded on classist, racist, ableist, and colonialist ideologies. It is rooted in the idea that the only valid family structure is nuclear, that only certain people are worthy of parenting, and that money is the best indicator of parental fitness. Most importantly, adoption causes trauma, and we know this, through both empirical research and the testimonials of plenty of adopted and displaced people. Adoption is systemically harmful, unjust, and unnecessary.
The idea that being a trauma-informed adoptive parent is somehow going to magically dismantle all these intersecting oppressive forces upholding the adoption industry is a category error. You are mistaking your individual experiences within an institution for the institution itself. The system is fundamentally unethical and it cannot be reformed into a state of moral goodness by some trauma-informed parenting. If you know adoption causes trauma and that trauma is preventable, then you are perpetuating a harmful system if you adopt. And it doesn’t matter how much you have read about or been trained in trauma-informed parenting.
Positioning trauma-informed parenting as a way to make adoption more ethical is like saying it’s ok to buy this puppy from the puppy mill because I’m going to give it such a loving home. Not only have you not made puppy mills more ethical, but you are perpetuating the practice.
#adoption #adoptees #adopted #displaced #systemicharms #trauma #traumainformed #ethics #humanrights #morality #familypreservation #abolishfamilypolicing