is the problem. It is the secrecy that used to be demanded by the adopting parents, agencies, and sometimes the biological parents that ignores what is often a basic human need to understand where we come from -- philosopically or literally.
My mother was adopted. She adored her adoptive father and didn't regret having been adopted by him at all. It was a differnt story with her adopted mother. Her adoptive parents were divorced when she was 13 and she stayed with her father. My personal take on my mother and her relationships with her adopted parents is that her father spoiled the heck out of my mother and her mother tired to instill some sort of discipline (we all know how situations like that can go).
However much she loved her fataher, she always had a need to connect with her biological family.
She learned that her adopted father was an aquaintence of her biological maternal grandfather. She had four other siblings, all older, three of whom survived. Her biological mother died when my mother was around a year old. Her biological father was overwhelmed by the need to care for four children, all under six years old in the darkesst days of the Depressison. Two of the children were adopted, two spent a lot of time being passed around by relatives. Later, the biological father remarried, fathered two more children and then died at 46 years old.
Having had no adoptive siblings, my mother was anxious to make contact with her biological family. Both biological parents were dead, so there was no meeting between them, however, there were some aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings. She made contact with them and enjoyed life long relationships with them.
This never harmed her relationship with her adopted father... he actually helped her make contact with some of them while my mother was still in her teens.
I know that my mother continued to adore her adopted father and enjoyed their relationship right up until he died. I rather think that finding one's biological family can actually strengthen the adopted families ties.
(on edit: corrected typo: I typed biological father when I meant adopted father
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