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[quote=Anonymous]OP---I am an adoptive parent and there is no one-size fits all answer to your question---it all really depends on the individual kid.  
I have several friends who are adoptees and happy, well-adjusted people who never had an interest in finding their birth families.    
While open adoption is the current norm and thought to be better for the child, I have my doubts about that---I think it has the potential to set up a situation of divided loyalties from the start---especially if "open" becomes "occasional visiting fun birth mom bearing gifts" while adoptive mom is doing the actual heavy lifting of parenting.  
We adopted internationally precisely for that reason.  Legally, ours is a "closed" adoption; however, I have maintained some contacts with the extended bio-family---though I could easily have limited or stopped such contact had I felt the effect to be deleterious on our child.  I have felt that the fact that I have always left the door open has actually resulted in my DC being much less curious---DC knows the contact could be there if DC so chose.  
All kids go through moments of wishing their parents were something other than what they are.  Adoptees though, have the reality that they do have this other set of parents out there---so I think there is often a feeling of the "road not taken" ---that's probably why adoptees who struggle do so most during the teenage years of identity exploration and forming.  
I think that each adopted child's processing of the adoption is highly individual.  Some kids struggle greatly with feeling like they somehow weren't good enough.  Our DC had been removed from teenage birth mom due to neglect; I try to explain that sometimes, no matter how much someone may want to parent or love their child---they simply don't have the life skills, education, resources or family support to be a stable parent.  The biggest thing is letting your adopted DC feel what they feel---and acknowledging that they can in fact have many feelings (anger, wistfulness, curiosity, sadness) all at one time and all of that is perfectly normal.  There's a writer named Sherrie Elldridge who has written several books--"Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adopted Parents Knew" and "Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Need to Learn to Succeed" that are good reads.  [/quote]

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