Sex/uality Artifacts

My artifact was the video from Buzzfeed, “I’m Adopted, But I’m Not…”. This particular video heavily related to the section of “Proper Families” that discussed adoption. According to the article, the Adoption Act in the UK allows for parents to give up their legal guardian rights over a child to new parents, but cannot change their mind once this has been done. 1926 is when this act was placed, however this just made legal options of adoption available. There were informal adoptions that occurred before this time and making a legal and formal way for adoptions to occur paved the way to destigmatize single motherhood. It was common to see children given over to other relatives of a “lone mother”, like aunts and uncles or grandparents. Sometimes, a child would be raised around who they thought was an older sister, but was actually their mother, in the households where they were provided for my grandparents. Nowadays, kids often know if they are adopted. However, this does bring the social stigmas and ideals into question when they are told or they happen to tell others. The video, “I’m Adopted, But I’m Not…” brings these to light. The video features adopted people talking about how that just because they are adopted doesn’t mean they’re “damaged goods” or “unwanted”.

At one point in the video, a person mentions how they may be adopted, but they sound just like their mother. This brings up a good point that we talked about in class on how donor matching helps people make their children seem similar to them as a whole. This can occur in adoptions too. Aside from what the person in the video mentions, my family has experienced something similar to this. My little brother is adopted from Guatemala, but he looks just like my dad. We get this comment a lot after telling people he is adopted; it goes to show that people don’t question that he is part of the family, at least when we’re with my dad. He often gets confused for the child my mom is watching, instead of being her son, because she is much paler than he is.

In today’s society, we see more kids that know about their adoptions and have provided options to them if they want to know more about their biological families. While this isn’t always feasible, there are attempts to help. The world has changed to see adoption as a viable option for parents who cannot take care of a child, instead of something they need to hide and do secretly. It has made lone motherhood less stigmatized and complicated; it has also made being an adopted child something that isn’t a bad thing. They may get backlash for it, but they are not all of the negative assumptions people make. They may look different from their parents, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of a family.

Watch the video here: I’m Adopted, But I’m Not…

Article used: “Proper Families”, pages 17-23