ABSTRACT
Adopted children absolutely need to be told the facts of life. Adopted children find adolescence more of a strain than other children; and in the author experience this is due to ignorance about their personal origin. Adolescents in general need someone outside the family with whom they can see their home from a distance and criticize and evaluate it. The alternatives to adoption were haphazard arrangements; and the one thing children cannot deal with is fortuity. Adoptive parents, who may be unable to deal with the adolescent’s very special need for help, have no one to advise them. Adoptive parents have special problems themselves when their children reach puberty. Adoptive parents and stepparents share a special difficulty in that they cannot identify with their adoptive or step-children at the same deep level as with their natural children. One parent has remarried, and there has been a good deal of divorce among other people the boy relied on.
