their birth parents, but also for the loss of part of themselves. The adopted child is likely to have an “increased interest in his or her birth parents”, which does not mean that they are rejecting their adoptive parents (Simon, 169). Psychological studies have found that transracially adopted children appear to handle the identity issues, all adopted children face, better than most because, researchers theorize, they cannot pretend to be like everyone else (Adopting Resources, 1). They deal with adoption issues before the turbulent teenage years. For an adolescent, finding an identity, while considering both sets of parents is a difficult task. The adoptee does not want to hurt or offend his adoptive parents, and he also does not want to ignore what is known about his biological roots. In most of the studies, the researchers are in agreement about one fact; vital to the adopted adolescent's identity development is the knowledge of the birth family and the circumstances surrounding the adoption. Without this information, the adolescent has difficulty deciding which family, birth or adopted, he resembles. A V During the search for an identity in adolescence, the child may face an array of problems including hostility toward the adoptive parents, rejection of anger toward the birth parents, self-hatred, transracial adoption concerns, feeling of rootlessness (McRoy, 498). Adoptees satisfy their curiosity in various ways and to various extents. They have to find “the balance of both their heritage and culture of their new family”(Cox, 1). Instead of the usual struggles over separation and the establishment of a cohesive sense of self and identity, the adopt...
