Since this involves legal advice, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Please explain why someone would adopt you and leave you with your biological parents? That makes no sense, despite the attempts by other posters to explain.
What makes you think this occurred?
Do you think you have some claim against your unknown adoptive parent?
Is this some sort of fantasy that there some other person out there that loves you in a way that your parents don’t, and if you only knew who they were?
First of all, there are questions in this thread. I should answer them. It took (relatively) long time to clear my mind in order to be able to answer.
I was raised by my biological parents, and I am wondering if I am adopted. Adoption does not necessarily mean the child has to move from his/her biological parents to the adoptive parent(s) home/house, does it? Please correct me if I am wrong.
I never thought my parents wanted to give me up. Do parents not love their children.
I take your question to mean “why do you think this?”. This is a very difficult question to answer.
The questions about the reason of an event/action/theory/thought/whatever is difficult to answer completely, maybe even impossible.
I would love to give you a definitive and clear answer. But this is not possible. However, there are many factors contributing to the reason of my thought. One of them is: I have been told that I was adopted by different people throughout my life. I have difficulty accessing my clear vivid memories. For some reason, I cannot point out a single person who told me this. But I remember being told that I was adopted.
As I mentioned before, “why” questions are difficult to answer. I remember a term from my management/organization class: “bounded rationality”. Wikipedia defines it as follows:
“Bounded rationality is the idea that when individuals make decisions, their rationality is limited by the available information, the tractability of the decision problem, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the time available to make the decision.”
However, with the limited information that I have, I can speculate.
I might not be adopted but rather I could have a godfather or a godmother, perhaps.
Also, it could also be possible, for some legitimate reason, that they left me with my birth parents.
You made the assumption that my biological or adoptive parents never talked about it to me, in other words “maintained complete secrecy”. I can neither confirm nor falsify your assumption. They probably talked about it but I dismissed it as a joke or I cannot access my memory of the situation where they talked to me about it. They might have never talked about it as well.
This is also a good question but again I cannot answer. They probably talked about it but I dismissed it as a joke or I cannot access my memory of the situation where they talked to me about it. They might have never talked about it as well.
It is likely that they are going to untruthful or euphemistic.
I will be glad to clarify anything that is not clear.
I think I “attempted to” answer your question a little above in this post. Your further questions are welcome.
I am not even sure that I am adopted. (The words have denotative meanings and connotative meanings.) Adoption cannot be “adoption” in its strict sense. I remember hearing sentences like “you are like my son/daughter to me”.
I don’t think that I know the exact identity of the person that adopted me.
Again, I think I “attempted to” answer your question a little above in this post. Your further questions are welcome.
Again, I think I “attempted to” answer your question a little above in this post. Your further questions are welcome.
“that makes no sense” is a subjective sentence. It doesn’t make much sense to me either with the limited information and “cognition” that I have.
I did not understand what you mean by the word claim.
Claim has the following meanings which could fit the context (Merriam Webster Learner’s dictionary, Claim Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary)
2) an official request for something (such as money) that is owed to you or that you believe is owed to you
3) a right to have something
I have nothing negative against my adoptive parent and I have no claim against my adoptive parent.
It could be real that there some other person out there that loves you in a way that your parents don’t. I am under the strong impression that a human being love to be loved and would like to to know she/he is being loved. But this sort of human nature does not necessarily make the person think that he/she is adopted. I can hardly understand how your question fits the context of this thread.
Okay, but so what? Is this not a common expression in France? Here in the US it would in no way suggest an adoption, just a close relationship. For example, my best friend’s parents say that they consider me another daughter, but I didn’t meet them until I was 20 so there’s no chance they’d ever have tried to adopt me.
Not required, but it’s certainly true in the vast majority of cases. Why would a judge approve an adoption in the birth parents had custodial care of the child? I can’t really imagine it happening.
My aunt and uncle actually did do quite a bit of the rising of me, and even had physical custody of me for several years, and say this all the time, but they have never adopted me.
MaverocK, please don’t take this he wrong way, but you did say you are in France: is English your first language? Maybe “adopt” is not the word you are looking for. Maybe you mean “heir.” It is possible that someone could have put you in their will, ie, “made you their heir,” because they valued you as their own child? that happens, and it’s a legal process, but it is not adoption. If you are wondering if you have money somewhere that you have not been told of, or will inherit money, that is an interesting issue, but it isn’t adoption. When you are adopted, you cease to be the child of your biological parents (if that has not already happened), and become to all intents and purposes the child of your adoptive parents, who have all rights and responsibilities as though they had given birth to you. It would be unorthodox and possibly illegal for you to remain in the custody of your biological parents’ following an adoption.
It is, however, possible that someone has made you an heir and not told you. I would expect them to tell you, but some people are odd-- or want to surprise you. I had a great-uncle die, and he had no spouse or children, so each of his nieces and nephews inherited an equal portion of his money-- totally expected, but he also specifically left $1,000 to each of his great-nieces and nephews (14 of us). I was not informed, and not expecting it, although it was not out of character for him. He always remembered all our birthdays, life events, and gave us each something on Purim. Anyway, there might be something like that.
“I will be glad to clarify anything that is unclear.”
What’s clear is that this statement is patently untrue.
You may have ‘attempted’ to answer but you were no more clear. You seem pretty ‘sure’ about something you ‘cannot access clear memory of’, and can’t or won’t answer direct questions about. You can’t remember who, but someone once mentioned you were adopted? Or not. Maybe.
Can’t confirm nor falsify? (You’re hilarious!) We’re welcome to ask you more questions? Why would we bother? And your parents can’t be trusted to answer this question? Oh, I forgot, ‘why’ questions are hard!:dubious:
And now you might not be adopted but might have Godparents? (Seriously, you should write comedy!)
(It’s not a bad Schtick, but I’m only giving it a 3 out of 10 because you can’t dance to it!:D)
You have no adoptive parent.
This seems to be more of an idée fixe; no amount of evidence will dislodge the belief, and the confirmation you seek is never going to come.
I suggest one of two options:
- Know in your own mind that you were adopted, and that this is why you are special / different with regard to your parents.
or
- Know in your own mind that you were NOT adopted, but explore the psychological reasons why it feels so true even though it isn’t, factually.
Well, there are fairly cheap DNA tests available to anyone nowadays. You could purchase one of these kits, and send in a sample from yourself and either or both of your parents. The results from this would prove one fact: are they your biological parents or not.
But I’m not sure that fact will mean much to the OP, or even be accepted by them. Seems that there is more at issue here than a factual question.
Somehow, this seems to be related to the common fantasy among some children that they really belong to a grander family and are somehow mistakenly stuck with the boring family they are in. A fantasy that he was seen as a pearl in the gutter and singled out by an anonymous Guardian, perhaps?
He doesn’t question whether the people who raised him are his biological parents. He’s got this completely unsupported idea that somewhere out there is someone who adopted him for unknown reasons, and decided to leave him to be raised by biological parents and failed to let him know about the adoption.
Goddamitsomuch.
Ok, here’s the story.
I rescued you from one of the Rhymer Industries Clone Farms and along with the other 501 in the batch, adopted you out. Stop looking. You don’t want to follow this rabbit hole.
I think it’s nice that Dopers try to be helpful, but the OP is either delusional or isn’t being honest with us. Either way, it’s a waste of time trying to make sense out of nonsense.
This is what it seems like to me. Perhaps the case that some rich older friend of the family who had no heirs decided to adopt him so that he would have someone to pass his estate down to when he dies. The catch being he didn’t want to wrest this child from his family, and he didn’t want him to grow up entitled, so he let him stay with his parents, only to discover his good fortune upon this benefactor’s death.
So people have told you that you were adopted, and you’re certain of that, but you have no actual memory of this ever occurring?
For anyone adopted in infancy, this is surely also true.
If the OP isn’t simply delusional, I think he’s just mistaken in what the word “adoption” means. You can talk about “adopting a better attitude,” or “adopting a style of dress,” and those are very informal, but in reference to a child, the word has a specific and narrow definition. However, if someone “adopted him as an heir,” that’s confusing. It’s not technically incorrect if it just means writing the person into your will as your primary beneficiary, but it does sound like you could be adopting the person as your own child, even if that is not the case. I would avoid that usage; however, I could probably find it somewhere-- probably before the late 18th century, or something said by a foreigner who didn’t entirely understand the narrow use of adoption in reference to a child.
So since the OP says we can ask questions, here is my question: is this what you mean? Do you think someone has selected you as their heir, and “adopted” you in the sense that you are being left and inheritance one might normally leave a child of one’s own?
Not to hijack, but my best friend was adopted in her infancy, and she has several clear memories of discussing the issue with her parents. Not to mention a particular hateful relative who would make remarks about her not really being part of the family. However, it was no secret that she was adopted and not a biological daughter. The OP seems to feel that his parents may not be honest about the issue if asked, so it seems unlikely that there was the same kind of honest atmosphere in his/her childhood.
Perhaps it is an issue of language confusion. Perhaps, as you say, the adoption of an heir. But i wonder if it was a dream, or a recurring childhood fantasy, that leads to the belief that multiple, unknown individuals indicated that the OP was adopted by an unknown individual(s).
You are wrong.
I meant clear memories of the actual adoption-- being picked up by the adoptive parents, going to the court for the declaration by the judge, the final visit by the social worker before court date is set… I doubt someone adopted as an infant remembers any of that.