Hey, Mom loves me more, you are adopted.
We picked you from trash or gutter.
Hey bro/sister, be thankful you are adopted.
Happy Rakshabandhan, you are adopted.
You must have heard all these lines.
Well, I have heard all of them by famous YOUTUBER to RJ, brands to siblings and seen such jokes on social media.
What I have observed in the past few years is that adoption has been talked about a lot but very few talk about it sensibly. People around us say these lines so casually without thinking about their effect on people/kids who are adopted or the parents who embraced parenthood through adoption.
Such jokes are not funny, they are offensive. Why???
If given a choice, nobody would like to be orphaned or abandoned and get adopted. It’s a situation and we should at least be sensitive towards it.
When you say “Be thankful as you are adopted” or “we brought you from trash” as a joke, you are somehow spreading the wrong message that kids who were adopted will always be less than the biological ones and they should be thankful as they were adopted. Does that even make sense??? Also, that’s not how adoption works in real life.
Adoption is a way to have a family, yet it has become a topic for such insensitive sibling jokes. “At least be thankful, we adopted you” or “Mommy loves me more because you are adopted” are common lines you will hear every now and then on social media. Actually, you are spreading false information to those who are unfamiliar with this practice and they are going to believe that adopted kids are and should be less loved, less respected, and less cared for, which is not true. There is nothing shameful about adoption.
“We picked you from a trash can or gutter.” Do you know that millions of kids are abandoned in India, sometimes in garbage piles or on the roadside, and then they are rescued and moved to orphanages? Think about the children, what they have been through, how traumatic it was for them, and for adoptive parents who are working on attachment and dealing with their childhood trauma before making such insensitive jokes.
Your jokes can have a long-lasting effect on a child when they will read or hear such jokes on the Internet and brands products and trust me sometimes it’s irreparable. It can impact a child who was adopted and which can make them believe that there is something shameful about it and that can result in keeping adoption a secret among their friends or peers.
Last but not the least, you are also giving the wrong message to all other biological kids that they should feel privileged as they were not adopted and have the right to make fun of their friends who were adopted.
This is happening every day on social media, in your neighborhood, even in your home. Pay attention, raise your voice and try to make the change because there is nothing shameful or funny about adoption.
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