Beyond the Fairytale

By Kimberley Rankin

Beyond the Fairytale: What If Adoption Is not the Happily Ever After We Were Led to Believe?

For most of my life, I have been told that I should be grateful for the life my adoption provided. That I was chosen, that I was lucky, that I had been given a “better life.” I absorbed this narrative because, it was the only one available. Society had already decided what adoption meant for me before I ever had the words to explore it for myself. 

Growing up there was no vocabulary or space for my experience to be explored. In the eyes of my parents and all who surrounded me, I was a blank slate, my biological roots did not count as my story according to them, began at 6 weeks of age. When I arrived in their home, they changed my name and family tree, as I was assimilated into their family; expected to act and behave as their biological child would.

What if the adoption story goes beyond the happily-ever-after we have been led to believe? What if, we unlocked the missing chapters; chapters filled with unrecognised loss, silent grief, a suppressed voice from fears of rejection and abandonment and a lifelong search for identity and belonging?

This is the part of adoption that society as a whole does not want to see. And it is time these unseen chapters of the adoption story are unlocked.

The Invisible Imprint of My Adoption

Adoption is often framed as a beautiful act of love, a perfect solution to a difficult situation. It’s the story people want to believe. Biological parents are painted as selfless for relinquishing their baby, adoptive parents seen as heroes for stepping in, and the adoptee? Well, we are the lucky ones!

But the fairytale leaves out a crucial truth: adoption begins with loss.

On my birth day, before I was welcomed into a new home, I lost my mother. She was the one who had carried me, the one whose voice, heartbeat, and scent were my first home. Before I was given a new name, I already had one. Before I was told I belonged, my body had already felt, through my relinquishment, the deep wordless truth, that I did not and this was not home.

The biological connections and losses don’t just disappear because adoption paperwork is signed, and an altered birth certificate issued. The illusion that adoptees are blank slates; too young to remember, too young to be affected by their experience, and ready to seamlessly integrate into a new family, may be comforting, but it is not our reality. We come with a history, with bonds already formed, with a deep, preverbal knowing of who we have lost. These losses leave an emotional fingerprint, shaping the way we navigate the world, our attachments and relationships, and how we develop our sense of self.

The Unspoken Chapters of the Fairytale

Growing up as an adoptee means learning to exist between two worlds, one you were born into but taken from, and one you were placed into without a choice but expected to fully embrace. Even in the most loving of adoptive families, there can be an unshakable feeling of disconnection, or otherness.

The reality of adoption is far more complex than the fairytale suggests. It can mean navigating identity confusion and constantly questioning, “Who am I?”.  It often comes with emotional suppression, as the unspoken pressure to be grateful silences the very real feelings of loss and displacement. There is the fear of rejection, a lingering thought “If I was given away once, will I be abandoned again?”

The absence of genetic mirroring can leave adoptees feeling unanchored, with no one who looks like them, moves like them, thinks like them or shares their unique talents and traits. Then there are the lifelong unanswered questions, the gaps in our history that no one can fill or answer. Adoption is not just about living with a new name and family; it is also about the quiet, often unseen challenges that shape an adoptee’s experience.

None of this is to say that adoption is only pain. But the insistence that adoption is only joy? That’s where the harm lies. When adoptees try to express the complexity of our experience, we are often met with resistance ‘You had such a great life’, ‘You were chosen’. Yet, what is missing from this fairytale is the truth that our lives began with loss. I lost my mother the day I was born, yet society tells me I should be grateful as I was given a new mother. Whilst she was the one who nurtured me, she did not innately know what I required, her touch, her voice, her presence were not what I yearned for or needed.

If my mother had died in childbirth, my loss would be acknowledged, explored, and met with compassion. But because she lived and I was relinquished, my grief is unrecognised, erased by the idea that a new family should be enough to replace what was taken. 

Historically, our losses have been dismissed, our grief denied. But both can be true: we can be loved and still mourn what we lost. We can be grateful and still question the life we were meant to live; the one shaped by our biological connections before adoption rewrote our story. 

Adoption isn’t one-dimensional, so why are adoptees expected to be? 

Moving Beyond the Fairytale

As an adult adoptee, I’ve had to unpack and examine the deeply internalised, silent thoughts that have shaped my life. To reclaim my truth, I’ve had to rewrite my own narrative, one that holds space for all of my experiences, not just the parts that make others comfortable. Adoption is not a onetime event; it is a lifelong journey, and it deserves to be understood in its entirety.

If we truly care about the wellbeing of humanity as a whole, we must start listening – really listening to those who have lived this experience. It is time to move beyond the societal rhetoric that frames adoption as a fairytale. Adoption is not a happily-ever-after tied up in a bow. It’s complex. It’s messy. And it’s time we start telling the whole story.