Intergenerational Voices of Adoption

Little is known about adoptees experiences through adulthood. Individuals sometimes make sense of their heritage, and come to understand and express themselves in their unique voices, through storytelling. Five mother-child(ren) dyads and triads participated. The mothers had been adopted in infancy and raised by an adoptive family. Their biological child(ren) had grown up aware their mother was an adoptee. The feminist relational method of the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2003) was employed to hear the adoption stories passed from one generation to the next. Parent and adult child(ren) were interviewed together to witness the relational dynamics of their story. Interviews were analyzed for the different voices. The findings suggest parents passed down stories of positive adoption experiences through voices that were both embracing of adoption and sometimes cautious. The children spoke from voices of embrace and curiosity. Both generations stated the meaningfulness of co-constructing family adoption narratives.