Madeleine Melcher is a foster child, one of those who had a successful life. In 2015, she wrote an article in the Huffington post, in which she writes about the main issues that face adopted children:
“My experience is just my experience. It is clear that all of us, adopted children, are different, each of us has his own experience, his own feelings – there is the whole palette of emotions from black to white. By no means, I do not speak on behalf of everyone. But I am for everyone to have a chance to speak out.
She writes that orphans are just children who had to face a lot of terrible things, but nobody cared about them and nobody defended them. For Americans with their “family cult” it is often unthinkable that there is no one to go to on Thanksgiving or birthday. Foster children may have different feelings about their background, and these feelings should be respected. Madeleine believes that adoption is not something to hide or to be ashamed of. You will not become a “second-class child” just because you are not related.
People around you won’t miss a chance to dispose of it on your account, but it only matters that the abandoned child got a home, not where you came from. And the most important thing is what the foster parents say and how they react.
No opinion about the adoption should be more important for the foster parents than the opinion of the child himself.
“We are real people, and we have real families” is the most important thing that she can say on this topic. And it’s right – there are too many myths around adoption, and you can’t let them fool you.