When asked how he feels about being adopted, Bill, a 17-year-old New Jersey teen who was adopted from Bogota, Columbia, remembers an incident at elementary school in America.

“Our teacher taught us to draw self-portraits with crayons after looking in the mirror. I drew mine with brown skin, and a kid asked why my mommy had white skin. I replied, ’She just does,’” says Bill.

Photography by Dan Strange

That was the end of a small discussion between two preschool children, but the beginning of a larger issue that will always be a significant part of Bill’s life as an adopted teen. 

Growing up is a difficult process for all teenagers, and being adopted, interracially or otherwise, only adds to one’s emotions. All teens struggle every day with who they are, their place in the world, and how they are supposed to mature in a “socially responsible” way without compromising their inner selves.  Adopted teens can face additional challenges when dealing with these tough issues.

There are many different types of adoption: open and closed, international and domestic, each of which has different laws and privileges governing its practices. 

Open adoption provides the child with every available record of his or her birth parents, while closed adoption allows the adoptee to see records of his or her parents only after he or she turns 18.  International adoption is faster for adopting parents, because many more foreign children need homes. Domestic adoptions occur just within the country’s borders.

Questions Remain

Many argue that if you are nurtured in a loving environment, it doesn’t matter who your birth parents are or were. But adoptees inevitably question their past and the reasons for their adoption.  

“I think about my birth parents every day.  I want to meet them one day, and even though I know there’s always the possibility of heartbreak, I’m willing to take that risk to discover who I could’ve been,” says Lauren O’Donnell, 16, of Ridgewood, NJ.

“Birth parents occupy an important place in an adopted person’s life throughout every stage in his or her being,” explains Ronny Diamond, director of post-adoption resources at Spence-Chapin Adoption Service, in New York City.

It’s natural for a teen to feel a sense of loss whenever a significant family relationship is missing from his or her life—whether it’s with a birth parent or a grandparent. If a teen grows up without a grandparent, he or she will wonder about the loss of that relationship. Adopted teens go through similar feelings of wonder and loss about their birth parents, according to Diamond.

“It’s not only the loss of the actual person but, more importantly, it’s the loss of the experience of having that relationship that can make an individual upset. The death or absence of a birth parent, even a parent who didn’t acknowledge any relation to an adoptee, is a loss within itself—a loss of a dream and loss of an image,” says Diamond.

Adopted teens can also face additional challenges with puberty and sexuality. 

“They have no markers or time frames around life-cycle events, such as the age of onset of menstruation, eventual height, start of facial hair growth (for a boy), etc.,”  explains Diamond.

“Biological parents are the best indicators of these events, and adopted teens can feel very anxious about not knowing what to expect.”

Some adopted teens can even feel confused about their eventual reproductive abilities. 

“On the one hand, they can think their birth parents are ’super fertile,’ but on the other hand, they can think their adoptive parents are infertile,” she explains.

The challenge for many adopted teens is to discover where they fit between the two extremes.

Talking It Out

While growing up adopted can be emotionally challenging for some teens, it can also present difficulties for their parents.  It is important for parents and teens to communicate in any relationship, but in an adopted relationship, open lines of discussion are vital for all involved. 

At first, Lauren and her dad were uncomfortable talking about how he adopted her and their feelings about the adoption.

“I used to be kind of sensitive to the topic, and I kept my feelings bottled up, except for short conversations with friends. Recently I began talking a lot to my dad. Our conversations helped us discover feelings that we never knew existed between us.  I feel so much better talking with him than I do with my friends, because he and I are in this together,” says Lauren.

From conversations with adopted teens, it seems clear that adopted parents love exactly the same way as birth parents. Bill captures the essence of adoption when he says, “I think I appreciate my parents more than most kids my age, because they’ve given me everything in the world—by their own choice. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

Editors' Note: Teen adoptees can find more information at the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.