Adoptees Are Told to Bond With Strangers—While Everyone Else Is Told Not to Take Candy From Strangers
From the moment we’re born, the world gives humanity one universal safety rule:
Don’t trust strangers.
Unless, of course, you’re adopted.
Then you’re expected to do the exact opposite—immediately, completely, and without question.
Adoptees are asked to bond with strangers, attach for survival, and call unfamiliar adults “mom” and “dad,” while the rest of society clutches their pearls at the idea of a child talking to someone they don’t know. Is this fair? Or even logical?
Let’s talk about why trust is complicated for adopted people—and why this isn’t a personal flaw, but a predictable response to a system that strips adoptees of basic human rights.
Adoption Begins With a Broken Trust
Trust doesn’t start with words.
It starts in the body.
We are biologically wired to our biological parents. We recognize their voice, their smell, their heartbeat. We are not blank slates. We are extensions of our parents through DNA, biology, and lived connection.
Then, abruptly, that connection is severed.
Not because we chose it.
Not because we understood it.
But because adults decided it was “for the best.”
From day one, adoptees learn a devastating lesson:
The people you are biologically designed to trust can disappear—and you will be expected to adapt and be grateful.
Adoption and the Denial of a Human Birthright
Knowing where you come from is not a luxury.
It is a human right.
Infants are born to biological parents—not agencies, not governments, not adoptive families. Yet adoption systems routinely:
- Alter or seal birth certificates
- Withhold or falsify family histories
- Rewrite identities
- Erase names, cultures, and ancestry
Imagine telling non-adopted people:
“You don’t need to know who your parents are. Trust us.”
That would be considered unthinkable. For adoptees, it’s standard practice.
And then society wonders why trust doesn’t come easily.
Why Trust Is Hard When the Truth Is Withheld
Trust is built on truth.
Adoption is built on secrecy.
Many adoptees grow up sensing that something is off—missing pieces, unanswered questions, stories that don’t quite add up. When the adults and institutions responsible for your life refuse to tell you the truth about your own origins, what message does that send?
It says:
- Your feelings are inconvenient
- Your questions are threatening
- Your truth is negotiable
And somehow, adoptees are labeled “grateful” instead of gaslit.
Being Adopted Means Losing the People You Were Supposed to Be Safest With
For most people, trust begins at home.
For adoptees, home is often the place where loss is never named, grief is minimized, and loyalty is demanded. We are expected to feel safe with people we did not choose, while the people we were biologically designed to trust were removed—sometimes through coercion, deception, or poverty-driven separation.
This creates an internal contradiction:
- Trust the system that took you
- Don’t question the story
- Be thankful
That’s not bonding.
That’s survival.
Adoptees Are Not Broken—The System Is
When adoptees struggle with trust, intimacy, authority, or truth-telling, it’s often framed as a psychological defect.
Let’s be clear:
This is not an adoptee problem. This is a human rights problem.
You cannot remove a child from their biological family, erase their identity, withhold their truth, and then expect unquestioning trust. That’s not how trust works. That’s not how humans work.
Trust is earned—not assigned by paperwork.
Adoption Truth: Trust Requires Accountability
At Adoption Truth, we reject the idea that adoptees should “get over” loss we were never allowed to name.
We advocate for:
- The right to original birth certificates
- The right to truthful adoption records
- The right to identity, ancestry, and family history
- The right to speak about adoption without being silenced
- The right to our birthrights
Trust cannot exist without accountability. Healing cannot happen without truth.
So Why Do Adopted People Have a Hard Time Trusting?
Because we were taught—by lived experience—that:
- Love can be conditional
- Truth can be hidden
- Safety can disappear
- Authority doesn’t always protect
- And strangers are somehow supposed to replace biology
And yet, adoptees are still here. Questioning. Surviving. Telling the truth.
Not because we are ungrateful—but because we are human.
Trust adoptees when we say this:
You don’t fix trust by demanding silence.
You fix it by telling the truth.
And adoptees deserve nothing less.
