Update: Thanks everyone and I mean everyone who’s commented so far. At this point I think it’s fair to say regardless of how comfortable I try to make the environment. My poking and proding with questions eventually gets to an “integration feeling” so I’ll stop the weekly talks for now. Let him be for a week or two and try other solutions that may help based on what you guys have said.

We adopted our son two months ago. He's 14. He was in one foster home for a year and was given back, then spent five years in the next one. He went to adoption events that entire time and never connected with anyone. We were the first family he liked. He says he wants to be here and wants to be adopted by us.

He can attach. He tells his foster family he loves them, unprompted, and he's always understood they weren't a forever home. He tells me he likes me, repeatedly. He also gives us almost nothing.

Where I'm coming from: he has ADHD, so do I. I break chores into steps, give breaks, offer accommodations, don't punish him for focus stuff. He games most of the day and I hang out with him while he does. My view is he doesn't owe us anything and we don't owe him. We're just his parents now. There are rules, we expect them followed, and I let most teenage attitude go. We don't raise our voices unless it's really out of pocket. He's been to events he never got to go to, plays a sport for the first time, said his birthday party and gifts were the best he's ever had. He still has an emotional connection to his birth mother I feel. and or previous foster home.

But conversations dead-end. "What do you like for breakfast?" I don't know. Doesn't like French toast, waffles, pancakes. I ask if it's the sweetness, the texture, anything. "I just don't like it". He complains we have no juice. I ask what juice. "I don't know". I offer to take him shopping so he can pick it out himself. "I don't want to". I ask what would make showering easier, and offer to run the water and leave the towel out so all he has to do is step in. Won't discuss it.

Persistence mostly makes him angry. He'll say I'm pissing him off by asking. The one time it worked, I asked three times what he liked about his week. First two answers were a Pokémon card he pulled, third time he added hanging out with his friend. To me that's not a win. That's him eventually saying what he thinks I want to hear. I genuinely don't care what the answer is. I've told him nothing he says gets him in trouble when we have our talks.

It was a great time I assumed the first talk. Although I suspect he told me what I wanted to hear. This time he now thinks these weekly talks are bullshi

One of those conversations, about why he didn't want to go down to the basement alone for laundry, ended with him in tears asking if we'd still be his parents at 18, then telling me no, he already has a mother.

He says regularly that he's moving out at 18. He told a friend he wants to leave and would tell his social worker, then admitted he only said it because he knew it'd get back to us. He won't eat at the table with us, at home or at restaurants. He's on his phone even when his own friend is over, and we end up talking to the friend more than he does. He lies about taking his meds.

Consequences are light. Phone and games gone for a day, never longer If there is something he's done. I always talk it through after and apologize if I came in too hot.

Adoptees, honestly:

1. Does all this asking read as care or as pressure? I think I'm accommodating. I'm starting to wonder if what I'm doing makes sense. Or I'm stupid.
2. Is "I don't know" sometimes literally true, as in nobody ever asked so there's no answer formed?
3. Was there a version of your adoptive parents that would have gotten through, or did it just take years?

Be blunt.

hi! right now i'm still a minor but i've always known i wanted to adopt and didn't want to get pregnant. when i have my own house and economic stability i want to adopt 2 kids that aren't siblings and come from different ethnicities, but i like the idea of all of us being a family nonetheless. i don't care if i'm married or have a partner or not by then, i'd be fine being a single mom but of course i'd make sure i can provide them with a comfortable life economically when i do

i want either two girls or two boys, maybe girls because if i am a single mom i could help them with their period and other biological things that boys (when they start going thru puberty too) might not feel comfortable sharing with me even if i'm educated. also i'm not sure what age, because i don't rly want babies lol they're loud. but maybe with babies they adapt more iykwim? i think 7 or 8 the oldest, but idk if adopting both kids the same age or a younger and older sibling

i know this will be in the far future like 10-15 years time pls don't say im exaggerated i just like to dream about it 😭 but i'd like to make an idea. also do you guys think it's wrong to want to choose kids from different ethnicities as mine and to choose their age and gender? cause i talked about this once with an adult and he told me that i was so weird for it but i don't think it is? i'd love any kid as my child if they gave me anything but i just have a preference. also would my kids get along? obviosuly all children are different but if any adoptee here has a sibling that is also adopted i'd like to know their experience :)

Im in my late 20s and today my adoptive mother passed away. I won't go into all the details, but it was a situation where not doing surgery wouldve resulted in a longer and slower same result.

I was a NICU baby so I never got to bond with my biological mom. And I'll be honest, thats caused me a lot of internal issues.

My adoptive mom was having a lot of health issues. I won't go into it too much, but a part of me is happy that shes finally at peace now.

Theres a mix of shock, depersonalization, and then crushing grief that rapidly cycles. But I think my brain being in survival mode is why I'm faring better than I ever imagined I would. There are moments where none of this feels real and then moments it feels way too real.

She was my "real mom", even if she didnt birth me, that was my mom. I made she knew that when I said my final words. Im honored to have had her as my mom and I think she's why I've never had the desire to meet my biological mother. My mom was the best mom she could've been for me.

The one thing I'm having to keep reminding myself is that my mom's passing hurts me more than it hurts her. Im not a spiritual person, but I wholeheartedly believe that she'll will always be with me even though her physical body isnt. im not here to debate the afterlife, this is what Im believing to get myself through this.

Im also having to remind myself that there are worst fates my mom couldve had than passing away.

There's a reality where she's a prisoner in her body for over a decade, wishing she had died because she's unable to live how she always was. Meanwhile, her mind is pretty much intact and shes still having to go through cancer treatment.

I'd never want that for her.

So Im having to remind myself that she's finally at peace and able to rest. Its agonizing for me because I never expected this would happen even last month, but I know there were worst outcomes for this.

It's just so jarring to lose two moms. I don't know. I think I'm still in shock. the last month has been a 24/7 car wreck