The Cranky Adoptee
Something that really ticks me off about being an adoptee is the cavalier and hackneyed fashion in which adoption stories are presented. The latest culprit is Time Magazine with the same old story of adoptive reunions being facilitated by the Latest New Thing. In the 80's it might have been "modems," and in the 90's "the Internet." Replace with "Social Media" and you have the latest story.
They're all the same, these stories.
First, describe in heartwarming terms the reunion of an adoptee and birthparent(s). Because while adoptee reunions are culturally taboo, they ARE acceptable if presented for audience entertainment. (Searching for your birthparents? That's wrong/disloyal/not allowed/selfish/cruel/insensitive! Oprah presents your tearful tale of frustrated searching, and then trots your birthparents out so your first embrace is on camera? Wonderful! Heartwarming!)
Second, bring up all the usual reasons adoptees should not search: the birthparents might still be traumatized over an unplanned pregnancy two or three decades ago! They might not have processed any of their feelings, or told anyone, or admitted it to themselves. So you and your children should enable this theoretical dysfunction forever!
Then bring in some "expert" in adoption from an adoption agency. This is like bringing in an "expert" investment reform from Goldman Sachs. When the agency experts give their sober and oh-so-reasonable advice about how everybody should just hold on a minute here and calm down and not do anything and stay quiet and not risk upsetting anybody by, say, searching, the reporter never seems to come up with any questions like "What is your agency's interest in keeping adoptees apart from their birthparents?" or "How does the secrecy around the adoption industry enable abuses by adoption agencies?" or "How do we know you're not just kidnapping babies and selling them to the highest bidder?"
Those questions never get asked. The agencies are able to repeat the same old maintain-the-status-quo propaganda unchallenged.
Finally close the story on a cautionary note. It's important to point out that while THIS reunion may have turned out well, the NEXT one might go very badly.
And of course, the adoptee must always be referred to as a child, even if they are forty or fifty or sixty years old. Infantilizing adoptees helps dehumanize them and minimize the validity of their concerns. When an adoptee says "I need to know my contemporary medical history because genetic risks were unknown when I was adopted," the story can translate that into "The lonely adoptee yearns to learn more about where he or she came from." And when the adoptee replies, "No, you don't get it, both my spouse and I are adopted and our children are showing signs of possibly having inherited a genetic illness and we need to interview our biological families about inherited diseases in order to diagnose the situation," the story can translate this as "Some adoptees become cranky when challenged."
Because what's important is not that a significant portion of the population is being denied their rights, treated like children, and placed at greater risk of inherited conditions. To report that, media outlets would have to be concerned with Nineteenth-century concepts like 'justice,' 'rights,' 'journalism,' 'the welfare of children,' and 'the common good.' What's important is that media outlets have a reliable romantic story that they can recycle every year or two to fit the latest trends, and that the adoption agencies maintain their unchallenged, unsupervised industry of supplying people willing to pay almost anything with the renewable resource that they desire.