Research and experience indicate that adoptive parents can love and care for a child as fully and selflessly as biological parents. The ability to be a good parent has no relationship to one's ability to give birth. Adoptive couples can be marvelous parents because good parenting is a matter of consistently and continuously nurturing and loving a child, not a matter of biology. Adopted children become loved, valued family members, thereby diffusing the following myth. Top of page.
Adoptees grow up to have serious psychological problems.
Recent research does not support this gross misconception. Studies throughout the years have shown no differences between adopted and non-adopted children in terms of adjustment, delinquency, or mental health. No relationship between psychopathology and adoption has been found. In fact, most adopted children adjust as Tammy, age nine, did. Tammy had been told by her parents that she was wanted and adopted and most important of all had been loved across the years.