“The number one thing people say when I tell them I’m adopted is… ‘Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,’ and to me, it doesn’t make sense,” said Matthew. “I’ve grown up my entire life knowing I was adopted and knowing that I’m different from other people. I’m just kind of curious why they’re apologizing when it’s not really an issue for me.”
Matthew Morales is originally from Templeton, California. He went to Templeton High School, Cuesta College and now attends Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He has two loving parents and an older sister.
In other words, he sounds like a typical college student. And that’s how he feels. So when people apologize for bringing up his adoption, he doesn’t understand.
Matthew was a part of a closed adoption, meaning there is minimal interaction between the biological and adopted parents, and little identifying information on the child. But he doesn’t believe that has changed the way he has spent his life.
“I grew up with a wonderful family and wonderful friends. I have a great school that I’m attending and everything else that has fallen into place for me,” he said.
He does admit that he has had his struggles with his identity, but he says his older sister, who is also adopted, has been a positive support system.
“We’d always joke around saying, ‘my mom is going to be cooler than your mom’,” he laughed.
Matthew says he has always appreciated being able to talk about his adoption with his sister and everything that comes with it, as she has gone through nearly the same experience.
His sister did, however, receive a surprising message a few years ago.
“My sister comes running into my room and she was like, ‘Matthew, you’ll never guess what just happened,’” he explained. “And she said that she got a message over social media from a woman and it said, essentially, ‘I’m your mom.’”
He was naturally excited and happy for her. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if the same would ever happen to him.
Even so, he says he loves his adopted parents and will always consider them his mother and father regardless of what may happen in the future.
“I don’t think it should be something that people feel bad for,” he said. “I would say to look at it more positively. We’re the same as everybody else. We just have a different path that took us here.”
Modern Mindfulness 
I loved your opening quote because I have actually hear people say that to other people who were adopted. I have always been curious how they truly feel when people respond that way. The placement of the video could have been more effective in between paragraphs just to break up the the story. I think would be powerful before the paragraph that starts talking about his sister finding his birth mom. However, that is just a suggestion I think it wraps up the post nicely as well. The link to the closed adoption advantages is awesome. I think that really assists the flow of that paragraph and his story in general.
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