Adoption

I was recently surfing the Internet and noticed just how many times the use of the word "adopted child" came up. It was particularly prevalent in terms of explaining a family's child in terms of a family's biological children. It was a bit disheartening. As an adopted child myself when asked who my mother was I never hesitated to answer - my adopted mother was/is/will always be my mother. Designating that a child is the "adopted child" sounds as though while they are that family's children they are really not their family's kids - at least as not as much as their biological kids.

I remember reading an article once with Michelle Pfeiffer. It was the actress's second interview with the same interviewer (though years earlier). The interviewer mentioned that they remembered Pfeiffer correcting them that her daughter was not her "adopted daughter," but merely her daughter. That thought struck me. As an Asian child brought up in an entirely white family it was never really a huge question about whether I was adopted or not - that being said people seemingly need the label in order to make sense of what they see.

Needless to say it's all just my opinion and perhaps some people are more comfortable being called the "adopted child." As for me I will just continue to refer to those who are adopted as children...