Do most people assume that adoptees come from white trash backgrounds?

ladedamom

I think this is all in your head. I've NEVER heard such a thing. They probably said "just who do you think you are" because it wasn't in their budget to pay higher prices for things you needed just because you wanted a different pricier option. I don't think it has anything to do with you being "white trash". "White trash" are people that live in trailer parks and buy their clothing from dollar stores. "White trash" are the people that are dumpy looking with no class at all. It has nothing to do with being adopted or not. To say that it does is a bit offensive to other adoptees and their families although I'm sure the bitter ones may agree with you.

Rosie

Sunny,

Our foster children come from very distressed homes that are chaotic and abusive, and that's all I could generalize about it.

Not getting fancy enough clothes is a universal teen complaint.
I don't see how it has anything to do with how your parents started their family.

The causality is tenuous and thread bare.

Serenity71

The term "White trash" is American. So its not part my vocabulary. I don't like that term at all its degrading on all levels. There are millions of people in the world, so if a child is surrendered for adoption then so are the reasons for it happening in the first place. From what I gather most people don't give it much thought about backgrounds of first mothers if they're rich or poor.

The only thing that bothers me the most is that so many wealthy and middle class people are more concerned about what everyone thinks over whats best for their own daughter. If she wants to keep her baby why don't they support her and stuff what their social concious friends and other family membersrs think. I'd be more angry about that than anything else. Biological families tear themselves apart moreffectivelyly than adoption does. If the support was there in the family, she wouldn't be put in that position in the first place.

There's nothing wrong with working at 15yrs old, no shame in it all. Most teenager girls want designer clothes, make-up and other luxuries-sounds like you were very normal as a teen.

And no matter how much money we have in the bank my kids won't be spoilt with getting everything they want for nothing, no effort. Other wise I'd be a poor parent in teaching how to get weathy on their own steam and have good character in getting there.

nicki

my aparents were/are middle class working people.they gave me and my brothers/sisters everything we needed.i guess you can say we were spoiled at a middle point.they never said anything negative about my nparents.

Sam

"Whenever I wanted for anything other than bare minimum, say jeans from somewhere other than Sears (when I was in junior high) my aparents would say in haughty voices, "Just WHO do you think you ARE?!""

I'm not adopted & my parents said this to me. I'm not sure why you think this is just something a AP would say.

Just a Mom

I don't know if first family having more money than adoptive family really makes a difference or the other way around. My children's first family had very rough lives filled with drugs, alcohol, abuse, and rape. On the other hand, they probably have much more money than we do because we are raising the 7 children, which is not cheap by any means.

I don't know. My sister in law told us that we are white trash for having 7 kids. So, I guess, who am a to call the kettle black?

dontknow86

That is a sad story! I'm sorry you were treated that way.

myst1998

This is a comment for the ignorant woman who doesn't know much about adoption.

Women LOSE their children to adoption as much as a mother LOSES her child to DEATH or ABDUCTION. As you are an adopter, you wouldn't know anything.

As for this question, yes, I have seen many adopters like the one I am addressing above tell mothers of children lost to adoption they are just white trailer trash. It is staggering. I think many adopters do it to make themselves feel better. Stupid really.

SJM

I think my ap's were of different opinions on my natural family. My amom had a pretty good understanding of where adopted babies came from. She had friends who had daughters who surrendered. She knew what was happening, and she never really tried to hide it from me.

I don't think my adad ever really understood, though. He was pretty convinced that searching was risky because, well, you never know what you'll find. He made it pretty clear that if it were him, he wouldn't want to know if he came from dirt poor people with bad morals. He wasn't quite that polite about his description, but that's basically what he said. I guess he never saw a girl from a "good" family with an illegitimate child. Apparently, he never put two and two together.

JennaBear

yeah, I totally grew up with the assumption that all adoptees came from poor, white, uneducated women, like my n-mom. When I learned that my a-bro's parents were 22 and 29 when he was born (and both college educated) an later got married, I was SO ANGRY because why the hell couldn't they keep him? I guess I was understanding of my n-mom, who was a teenager, but I was really shocked to start learning that a lot of adoptions happened from middle class families.

Cam

Natural families come from wide range of social and financial backgrounds. I would be willing to bet that most adoptee's are born to natural families ranging from middle to upper class.

So no, I've never had the belief that adoptee's come from "white trash" backgrounds.

Walter Ford II

I think they like to think so.......for the sake of justifying adoption in general.

A lot of Aps on here seem to revert to foster care and abuse when trying to justify IA or private infant adoption, which I don't get.

My Aps put down poverty in general as if its almost a sin.

Carol c

I'm pretty sure my son's parents assumed that they were higher class than me. I get the sense that many adoptive parents need to feel they've rescued these babies and don't want to know or hear that the first mother of their child wanted to keep him or could have given them a decent life had they been supported.

The first time my son came to visit me in Ct. after our reunion, his adoptive mother called within an hour of his arrival and we could hear him answering questions about how my house was decorated and was it done in good taste!
I was pleased to hear him say "you would really like it - she collects alot of the same things you do" but it was also sad that he was put in the position of looking at material things to determine what kind of person I was. I would never have raised a child to be judgemental like that.

To this day I am convinced that my son would have better manners had I raised him. He thinks it funny to burp loudly at the dinner table and if anyone looks at him funny - he insists that he was allowed to do this - it's a compliment to the cook. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that I would have raised my son to be a gentleman.

Damitra

I have met a lot of first mothers who lost there children to adoption and I would say they are all from upper class families. I have heard adoptees say they thought that there first mothers were probably white trash before they even met and that was one of the reasons why they did not want to search.

Well this is completely what a lot of people think. But, for proof of completely the opposite look at the story of McNabb who reunited with her natural mother Barbara(Woodward)Piel. Barbara(Woodward) Piel was the heiress to the Jell-o fortune who passed away in 2003. In an article McNabb stated that she half expected to find a "bag lady" because women who loose there children to adoption are poor. Now she is in a battle over an inheritance of a 10 million dollar trust fund that was to be divided between her and her two half sisters.

AnnaBelle

People make all sorts of assumptions, and since adoptive families are formed through loss, those assumptions tend to be a little more...colorful, because there is no one from the original family there to prove them wrong.

We are foster/adoption parents awaiting a placement, and some of the comments/assumptions we have heard from people about our (would be) kids and their families are totally disgusting. I've already lost friends over it, and they're not here yet. Because our kids are coming from foster care, suddenly comments that would never otherwise be socially acceptable (regarding their prospective races, familial situations, state of health, etc.) become fair game. I'm trying to chalk it up to widespread ignorance, but it still pi$$es me off something fierce. It's just...gross. Totally inappropriate, at the best of times. Disturbing and infuriating at worst.

The mere mention of the word "adoption" seems to cause some people to suddenly become totally socially inept.

LinnyG

I think they do. I think it's just another way society views first Mothers. Poor, uneducated, drug users, promiscuous, etc. I was told that, as most adoptees I know were. Agencies do it constantly. It's part of coercing of adoptive parents- to make them feel entitled.

Surprised the heck out of me when I found my first family.
My f Parents could buy and sell my entire adoptive family, cousins and all. Not to mention, they both have post graduate degrees, and my ap's have high school degrees.

eta- Maureen- You never cease to amaze me. Women DO lose their children to adoption- and I would bet your children's first Mothers lost them, too. You are so clueless when it comes to adoption- from your opinions on things like this, and when you speak for your adult adoptees. You are in for a rude awakening one day. Wish I could see it. But, your answers are always good for a laugh.

Laurel J

I think people do assume it. I had a lot of work to do to convince my a'mom that most BSE adoptees came from "exceptional [upper middle class] backgrounds" like mine (and hers).

My a'parents were flat out told the economic/class levels of my and a'bro's original families. No assuming about that part of it.

CDraBella

I don't think I'd use the term white trash, but yet I do think there are plenty of assumptions in the world of adoptions that the adoptee must have been saved from some financially poor, no opportunity kind of life. I figure it plays with the "better life" promise that gets thrown around so often.

The problem is we, as a society, seem to place so much importance on a person's wealth in regard to what kind of parent they can or cannot be that it plays a lot into the world of adoption these days and creates such stereotypes.

Even if an adoptee's first family was considered poor or low-income, that shold never give anyone the right to assume that meant they were given better parents simply because of the size of their wallet.

Some of the poorest people I know make the greatest parents.

ETA: Mother's do lose their children to adoption and children lose their mothers. What purpose does it serve to deny anyone's loss, especially if you have never lived it?

kateiskate is getting married

Most people believe adoptees come from poor backgrounds because the idea is that children should be surrendered for a "better life". Social and economic pressures are two of the top reasons for surrender.

I just wanted to add....who is Maureen to judge other moms when she has clearly raised her son to disrespectfully refer to his mother as "trailer trash"? My adoptive mom raised me to respect others and not judge them.

ETA: My own adoptive mom has been known to refer to HERSELF as white trash because she came from a very poor background. So technically, (since I'm supposed to take on her race like a chameleon right?) one could say that I got a white trash background after I was adopted....After all, we were SUPER poor when I was growing up.

Sorry...I just thought that was kind of funny.

Pip

It's beyond me why people believe this as statistically, in the UK, it has been more common for young women from middle class families to have surrender either by choice or coercion. Most of the ones I have got to know certainly didn't come from poor backgrounds. Nor did I and at the time I had a good, secure job in the civil service when I was coerced.

I've had a few "interesting" conversations with people who believe that's it's only white trash who surrender.

kitta

Most often, mothers of children who are surrendered are described as 'poor'...and this was usually true, because the mothers themselves had little or no money due to their age.

I was a college student from a professional family, when I became pregnant in 1967.

If the grandparents sent the mothers away and the fathers of the babies abandoned the mothers, and there was no way to get child support( no DNA testing existed during the baby scoop era) then the mothers were left with nothing.

The mothers were very often middle to upper-middle class in the baby scoop era, and this is still true. But, people persist in believing that mothers who surrender are always of a 'lower class."

They may be of any class...and so are adopted people.

When I found my son...he was living in a trailer, with his wife and baby. i certainly did not consider my son , my child, to be 'trailer trash.' He was just my son. I was glad to find him again.

gypsywinter

UH! yes many do. In my case there were 2 scenarios going on in the heads of my adult child's adoptive family. And I was told this directly to my face when I first met the adoptive family!!!

1. That I was extremely poor and would be so forever
2. I was a Socialite Debutante that had an affair with the Mexican Gardner!! (Saints Preserve Us...Me diddling with the hired help!! LOL!LOL!)

ETA: Hey! Psssstttt...Saintly Maureen...YES! my kid was lost to adoption because I had no freakin' idea where she was for 34 years... Get off your high Saintly Amother Horse...Jaysus do you never get tired of bragging on yourself? You adopted 40 years ago...that means BSE Babies that were gotten off of BSE Mothers...don't hang that Halo too high...it might fall off one day and hit you right on your snobby nose!

SLY

I see that these delusions die hard. Maureen said, "When a person puts a child out for adoption, they are not lost, they are surrendered. Lost means one does not have a say in the matter, and of course that is not true..." so clearly she has learned NOTHING about the time when her children were lost to their mothers by surrender. What do you think SURRENDER means, Maureen? It means succumbing to forces that are greater than you due to your (no matter how temporary) powerlessness. Since in our country we assume that money equals power, that naturally equates in the mind as poor.

What amazes me is how determinedly they will hang on to these ideas, no matter how often they are proven, statistically and thru contradictory statements, to be lies. Or, as Kitta says, that a temporarily poor young middle class well-educated woman would remain in abject poverty for the remainder of her days, due to that one thing. Granted, the women that we became are NOT the women we were destined to become, but for the most part, we as most people do, have gone on to lead productive lives, and have gone with the teachings of our forefathers.

Kassy

It may be my age, but when I was younger I always assumed that babies given up for adoption were from daughters of middle class families that were embarrassed about the unplanned pregnancy. I guess I always thought that white trash kept their babies because they didn't care what the neighbors thought.

maybe

The assumptions made about mothers who lose a child to adoption are never-ending; the stereotypical white trash mother is only the tip of the iceberg.

Just look at another poster who wrote, "when a person puts a child out for adoption, they are not lost, they are surrendered." She seems to believe that young mothers have SOOO much power to make choices in adoption. Not hardly - try taking on clergy, teachers, parents, PAPs, boyfriend, siblings, social workers, doctors, and nurses as a young expectant mother. Good luck with that.

And even if you believe they make a so-called "choice" to surrender, the child is still lost to the mother forever. The name is changed, public records are falsified, the baby is "disappeared," with the goal of never allowing the mother to see her child, EVER. That is definitely a LOST child.

That is what the adoption system is designed to accomplish - it is a willful, barbaric attempt to destroy the mother-child bond and replace it with a shake-and-bake family created by legal decrees instead of blood. Thank God for the brave adoptees and mothers who are are fighting against this inhumane and abusive system and are seeking to reunite with their LOST family.

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