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Return of `The Bad Seed'?

Thursday, December 18, 1997; Page A26

As an adult adoptee, I was appalled to see the revival of the "bad seed" doctrine in the letter of Richard C. Nicolaus on Dec. 6. It is terribly convenient for an adoptive parent to blame the consequences of his own parenting on the genetic tendencies of his previously "model" offspring. Certainly, adoption agencies have a tremendous obligation to compile complete histories of birth parents and to share the records with adoptive parents. Yet Mr. Nicolaus's letter contains the insidious implication that all negative character traits flow from the birth parents and all positive ones from the adoptive family.

I had a tumultuous adolescence and young adulthood myself, and looking back I believe one of the reasons may have been the lack of acknowledgment by my parents and society as a whole that I was indeed the product of two heritages, and that complete lack of knowledge about one half of myself left me confused and angry.

The dawning realization that one does not have a right to information that all other adult citizens take for granted is no small part of the acting-out behavior of these young adoptees. I also would not negate the rebellious feelings of those who feel their adoptive parents have been waiting and watching for those undesirable genetic traits to manifest themselves.

If one grows up with the perhaps unspoken but still unconsciously communicated assumption that one's parents of origin were less than respectable, one may be tempted to give the adoptive parents exactly what they secretly feared.

CINDY BERTRAND HOLUB

Philadelphia