I'll take my comment elsewhere....and add to it

The issue of "responsibility for the emotional welfare" IS a huge burden placed on children by parents, period. I agree that an adoptive parent could be more inclined to engage in this harmful behavior but no more so than a single parent, divorced parent, widowed parent, a parent who's experienced the death or loss of a child, or for that matter a natural/first/birth/bio parent or their damaged adopted adult children.

Since offspring have a natural tendency to "care" about their caregivers or parents (even if they're undeserving for whatever reason) it's very difficult to convince them their parent's issues are not their problem. If they're able to do this though, especially without severing the relationship with the guilty parent, it can be very liberating!

In my experience people (most of whom are biological parents raising or have raised their own or their partner's kids) who are prone to neediness and selfish ego driven behavior, when it comes to their children, don't want to realize what they are doing and why. You can tell them til you're blue in the face and most of the time they'll refuse to own and/or change their behavior. It always comes back to but.. but.. but, poor them.

When I speak of my experience I'm talking about real live people I know in real life situations. The reason I'm so aware of these circumstances is I become involved in them emotionally and/or physically. Sometimes it's from afar with there never being a possibility of me becoming involved or saying something but other times my "ear" is solicited with words of encouragement or advice to follow. Although I'd like to say that my "help" is, well, helpful it usually does no more than supply a sounding board to get it all out as it's easier said than done, this separation from parent's problems without separating from the parent. I know it's easier said than done because I struggle to do it myself with my own mother.

When it's the most sad is when I can see it happening with a non adult child. When I'm forced to watch the selfish behavior of a parent and the effects of their behavior on their child. There are nine children I can think of off the top of my head that "survive" this crap every day. I subtly (and not so subtly at times) do what I can but there is no changing people like this, it would appear. Their personal problems and needs will always be more important than their children.

A recent rather stern conversation with a parent of some children I'm close to left me frustrated and feeling helpless. Everything we talked about ended up coming back to him and his problems with his own father demonstrating a complete inability to see himself through his own kids eyes and how his actions negatively affect his daughters. Watching his wife, these kid's mom, allow her children to be subjected to this emotional abuse is even more infuriating.

The other kids are children of divorced parents who allow "step" parents to mistreat them, children of a widowed mother who carry the burden of their mother's emotional welfare every minute of their young lives, and one child of a single mom who could not get her act together for her now grown son and is so far unable to do so for her 8 year old daughter.

So, we have kids of a widowed parent, a married couple, a divorced set of parents who've introduced new caregivers, and a single parent all of whom have children that are biological to them and are carrying the weight of their parent or caregiver's emotional welfare.

My point is that although I do agree that adoptive parents could be more inclined to make their children, grown or not, responsible for their parent's emotional well being it is in no way exclusive to adoptive parents.

I believe it's a personality flaw or an unwillingness or inability to truly look at themselves and their behavior, not biological connection, though outside influences such as adoption can certainly exacerbate what's already there.