Living with Lies : Late Discovery Adoptee (LDA)

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

By Melissa Fleur Afshar

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."

 

READ:  https://www.newsweek.com/adopted-child-learns-truth-colombian-heritage-trusts-parents-1941091

"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.