As recently as a generation ago, being adopted seemed no different from being born into the family that raised you.  We used to think that parents simply chose and received a perfect baby, told her at the age of three or four that she was adopted, and then went on to live a family life that looked just like Ozzie and Harriet’s.  Being told about adoption, went the thinking of the 1950s, was like being told about sex:  the subject was raised, carefully and appropriately, at the right stage in the child’s development, and then it never needed to be raised again.