Adoptive Parents

Our readers wrote letters throughout 1989 expressing their viewpoints on a variety of issues. Here are condensed versions of some of those letters. We appreciate their taking the time to share their viewpoints and look forward to hearing from more of them in 1990.

I am livid every time a newspaper runs an article regarding the meeting of adopted child/birth parent. The reunion always reunites the child with the “real” parent, when in fact the child has met the “birth” parent.

Please get it through your heads, we, the adoptive parents, are the real parents! We have gone through the grief process and mourning associated with infertility.

Our families are created through a deliberate and calculated process known as adoption, that while fraught with emotion and fears before its finalization, allows us the privilege of parenthood. And now we are parents--real parents.

We are tired of being treated by the media as 21-year-old baby-sitters until the “real” parents reunite with the adult child.

SUSAN KNIGHT

Orange