Love Isn’t Limited But Our Narratives Sometimes Are

By Karen Chaston

Some comments stick with you.
Not because they resonate; but because they reveal just how misunderstood adoption still is.

Recently, someone commented on one of my posts with this:
“Adoptive parents should come above biological parents. They have chosen to love, while biological parents of adoptees chose to abandon.”

Now, I understand that this may have come from a place of loyalty or gratitude; perhaps even pain.
But let’s pause for a moment and look at what’s really being said… and what it overlooks.

This belief – though confronting – is not rare.
It reflects a long-standing societal narrative:
That adoptive love is selfless.
That relinquishment is selfish.
That love is something to be ranked.

That love is in limited supply

But here’s what is rarely acknowledged:
Most biological mothers did not choose to abandon.
They were shamed. Coerced. Silenced.
Told they were unfit, too young, or simply not good enough.
Many were offered no real choice at all.

They didn’t stop loving.
They didn’t stop longing.
Wondering; every day, if their child was living the promised “better life.”
They simply lost the right to mother their child.

And love?
Love is not a competition.
It isn’t erased by separation or proven by a legal document.
Just as love doesn’t end after divorce,
it can continue; in different forms, in different places.
It can live in both families:
the one an adoptee was born into, and the one they were raised in.

To say one is “better” than the other;
especially by suggesting that biological mothers chose to abandon their child;
is to overlook the circumstances, the coercion, the lack of choice that so many faced.
And often, these judgements come from those with no lived experience of adoption at all.

No understanding of what it feels like to be an adoptee who belongs to two families; and yet feel torn between them.
This isn’t about ranking love.
It’s about honouring the depth of an adoptee’s story; and the humanity of everyone in it.
Because healing begins when we replace judgement with empathy…
And assumption with curiosity and understanding.

This isn’t just unkind.
It’s emotionally harmful.

Adoption begins with loss.
And healing begins when we stop asking adoptees to choose sides in their own story.

Let’s move beyond outdated beliefs.
Let’s bring in compassion, awareness, and understanding;
by choosing to pause… and walk in someone else’s shoes.
Let’s hold space for the full story.

Because no one wins in a war of “who loved more.”

But everyone heals when we start listening;  not to reply, but to understand.
With empathy, humility, and an open heart.

#AdoptionAwareness #AdopteeVoices #ForcedAdoptionEra  #TraumaInformed

#BiologicalMothersMatter #AdoptionNarratives #EmpathyFirst #HealingStartsWithUnderstanding