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Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Living with Lies : Late Discovery Adoptee (LDA)


Woman Forgives Adoptive Parents Who Hid Her Race for 19 Years: 'Supporter'

By
Life and Trends Reporter 
 
Most children take their parents' words as gospel while growing up, but Melissa Guida-Richards had more than a few reasons to question what her parents told her.
The 31-year-old's life went through a seismic shift after she discovered at the age of 19 that she had been adopted from Bogotá, Colombia.  Her Italian-Portuguese parents, who are based in the U.S., had always kept Guida-Richards' adoption story hidden from her.  For nearly two decades, she lived under the assumption that she was biologically related to her parents, who had chosen to raise her in a "colorblind" environment, in which she was oblivious to her true ethnic heritage.
 
"Love is not enough in adoption. Children need support and resources," Guida-Richards said, warning about emotional issues if the latter is not provided. "When you take a child and place them in a family of another ethnicity, the parents need to incorporate that child's birth culture and hygiene needs, like hair care, and provide racial mirrors of people that look like them."
 

"Like many adoptees of color, I was raised by a white American family," Guida-Richards, who went on to publish a book about her experience, told Newsweek. "I grew up in the middle-class suburbs of New York and was very sheltered.

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