<p>I’m glad to see some other people add some more nuanced views to this thread.</p>
<p>I’m a bio kid with adopted and bio sibs. I think it’s a lot harder to raise adopted kids when you also have bio kids and especially hard to do it when you have bio kids who are younger than the adopted kid. </p>
<p>Now, I know some of you have done this and apparently done it successfully. From the outside looking in, I think people would think we had a very successful family too. I think even the parents of a family with both bio and adopted kids are sometimes unaware of the issues between the kids. </p>
<p>Fertility problems run in my family and as a result there are LOTS of adopted kids in my extended family. Based on this family, the situations with both types of kids in the family are less successful than those in which all the kids were adopted. I think it’s especially hard when the bio kids are younger…and this is intensified when people adopt kids because they don’t seem able to have them and then, years later, unexpectedly have bio kids. The kind of jealousy some kids experience when mommy has a new baby when a kid is 5 or 6 may be intensified when the new kid is bio and the older kid is adopted. </p>
<p>I don’t think these situations are necessarily fraught with problems. Indeed, in 3 families I know–2 in my family and one a former work colleague–there are 4 kids, 2 bio and 2 adopted. One of the adopted kids in each is fine and the other has real issues. My former colleague’s oldest kid is adopted. She’s great–in her early 30s now, has a Ph.D and is married. I think her parents really thought they had figured out how to do this perfectly. Second kid is also adopted—and has been in intensive therapy for many years with limited success. The older adopted girl has really tried to help this sib–again with little success. </p>
<p>In another family the oldest kid is bio, the middle 2 are adopted and the youngest is bio. One of the adopted kids is fine. The other, now middle-aged, has had major substance abuse problems. The therapists–and there have been many over the years–say he really needs to know who his bio parents are and that’s the only thing that could help. (He stayed sober for more than 10 years until something triggered his “Who am I really?” issue again. And don’t criticize me for the language–it’s his. )</p>
<p>Another family adopted a child at birth and then adopted two older sisters from foster care. Older former foster kid told younger sis we are “real” family and the other kid isn’t “really” our family over and over again. That was hurtful to the other kid.</p>
<p>I also know two people who gave up kids for adoption and had those kids find them years later. I know a lot about a third such situation. There can be issues in those situations later too. In two of those situations, the adopted kids really prefer their bio parents–and that has been very hurtful to the adoptive parents. In one of those cases, the adopted kid’s bio parents married after his birth and never had any other kids. He is now in business with his bio dad and incredibly close to his bio parents. He has very little contact with his adoptive parents. </p>
<p>I do think things are better today with more open adoptions and with more medical info being given to adoptive parents. (Every time my adopted sib got sick the doctors did every test known to mankind because they didn’t have a family medical history.) </p>
<p>I think adoption is a wonderful thing and it usually works well. But there are issues that are unique to families formed by adoption.</p>