Phantom Parents

An adoptee found a clipping from 1985 about “Talking to children about their unpleasant past.” What jumped out at more than one person who saw this was the part about “phantom parents.” The quote from the clipping read like this – “birthparents mean something symbolically to children. At some level the child is attached to these phantom parents. An attack on the parent is an attack on them.” Someone noted – It’s written as though this is a fact but also a mystery.

When I went looking for an image, I actually found where an adoptee, David Enker, had written a memoir titled LINK>”Phantom Parents” released as a paperback in May 2023. It is actually a collection of short stories and illustrations. He is a writer and designer living in Haarlem, which is a city in the Netherlands, with his wife and son.

David was unofficially adopted as a baby, so he decided to use that experience to explore the world from a unique perspective. He lived and worked in London as a freelance designer, taking him to many places and companies across the city, using the experience to write short stories and create photographs and graphic novels with deep personal and contemplative, often humorous, components.

Since there wasn’t much there, I kept looking and found a piece on Medium – LINK>Phantom Parent Syndrome. It is not related to adoption but the definition was helpful – There is a phenomenon known as phantom limb syndrome. This is when someone who has lost a limb still feels its existence through pain in that area or other sensations. There is a tug of presence, pain of loss, and irreversible change of life and connection to others.

So, interpreting this concept related to adoption, yes, I can believe that adopted children feel the existence of the parents who are not raising them. In that context, it makes sense.

Psychology Today has a piece on LINK>Phantom Families. Elinor B Rosenberg feels that while adoption meets real needs of kids, birth parents, and adoptive parents, she feels that it also denies deeply held wishes. Their longings often go underground, driving behavior and feelings in hidden ways. Adoptive parents wish they could have borne the kids they are raising; adopted kids wish the parents who bore them and raised them were the same; and birth parents wish the circumstances might have been such that they could raise the child they bore. Rosenberg has found that adopted children have greater identity struggles and that they launch later than their peers. Adoptees build a more grandiose “birth-parent romance” based on shards of information given to them by adoptive parents. They use the fantasy to explain to themselves why they were adopted, who their biological parents were, what kind of children they are now, and what kind of adults they will be.

Rosenberg says “It’s a narcissistic blow to be given away. They must come to terms with it.” It is honest to note that Rosenberg is also the mother of two adopted daughters (so there is that) as well as a clinician.

Cobbled Together

True, the one is very dangerous and does not apply to all cobbled together parent/child relationships, which is what adoption does. However, there are frequently cases of abuse that make it into the news and the natural parent usually has love that stays their worst potentials, whereas an adoptive parent would not have an equal bond. And, I do know a thing or two about severed origins. All of mine were severed – all 4 grandparents lost to me – I only rediscovered who they were and something about their families and histories, after I was well over 60 years old and they were long deceased.

One adoptive parent commented in my all things adoption group – When I saw this I really didn’t look at it from the perspective of being zapped, it was more like natural fit verses cobbling something together, yet the world pretends that they are equal. One is designed to fit and the other is like “let’s see how we can make this work” but it should be abundantly obvious that they aren’t the same. (blogger’s note – thanks to her, I had a title for today’s blog.)

One adoptee notes – there is no “bond,” only attachment. A bond exits more through deep secure connection and unconditional love, attachment is developed through trauma and having expectations and conditions. As an adoptee, it took DECADES to understand the difference.

There can be trauma bonds. Emotional bonds with an individual from a cyclical pattern of abuse, perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement through rewards and punishments. The concept was developed by psychologists Donald Dutton and Susan Painter.

Googling “Adoption Severs Origins”, I arrived at a site – LINK>The Ex-Puritan and saw this – Imagine learning the word “adoption” at the same time you learn words like “mother,” “father,” “home,” ”birth,” or “safe.” (blogger’s note – How confusing, I think.) It continues, other words you learn are “abandoned,” “given up,” “loved,” “wanted,” and “adopted.” You learn that the one who gave birth to you is a parent, that you have a mother but she gave you up. You learn that the people looking after you are also your parents, a mother and father, who took you and kept you. You are not related to them, but you are. They could not have babies of their own, so they adopted you. You are told your biological mother wanted to keep you, but couldn’t because she was too young. You are told that she loved you, and that you are wanted, yet you know you were still given up. You must reconcile the fact that you have no power to choose for yourself, that these people you find yourself with are your parents, and that you may never fully know who or where you came from. You don’t remember a time where you weren’t told any of this.

More at the link above, if you are interested in reading further into that story.

Financial Compensation Truth

Some suggestions in my all things adoption group today from a former foster care youth, adoptee and mother who lost her own child to adoption –

What I want to discuss is the financial compensation foster and adoptive parents often receive (not always). If you are a Foster Parent or Adoptive Parent – listen: Do not try to hide the fact you make money from this. Communication and transparency is important, regardless of age. Express that it’s THEIR money, earned for them.

Example: “Our family receives this check to help support you. You’ve been growing so big and I think it would be fun to use this money on new clothes! What do you think? We could also put it into your savings account.”

Don’t downplay it by expressing how it’s ‘not enough’.. Of course not, no government assistance ever is. But at the end of the day you are being paid money to parent another person’s child. That is an unnatural concept and can make a child feel dehumanized, like an item to be bought and sold.

Do you know what it feels like to look around and realize your family is being paid to love you? If you think “Pft nooo we LOVE them! my FC/AC would know it’s not like that–” then you clearly need more time listening to the broken hearts of stolen children. Sometimes all the love in the world can’t cure that “I was paid for” feeling. It takes therapy.

For me, I never knew people profited from my custody. I was a foster youth, adopted at 12, and then my adoptive parent died when I was 15. I down spiraled and by 16, I was raising my premature son in a shelter/group home. A month in, staff hands me a check for $1.7k with my name on it. My legal guardian on paper (the ex-husband of my dead adoptive parent) had been cashing these checks every month, despite not having lived in our home for two years. I was told by my social worker that they’d last until I was 21 and she helped me open a savings account for my son. I used my final checks for a down payment on my first apartment. I was a homeowner by 25.

Moral of the story is that it’s wrong to hide from kids that the foster or adoptive parent receives compensation. Yes, the aid ‘isn’t enough’ to help some struggling families, but IMO those people should have stabilized their situations prior to fostering. You shouldn’t depend on subsidies as an income; The child is not there to support you. You wouldn’t give birth to a child and expect them to somehow contribute financially to the family, right?

Financial literacy is such a vital skill to learn and this is a great opportunity to teach it to them from a young age. Begin a conversation. We deserve it!

Reality. Finally this from the LINK>Foster Parent Journal – Foster-to-adopt parents are entitled to continuing support after the adoption. This may include a monthly per diem subsidy, medical insurance, reimbursement for expenses, a federal tax credit, and help later with college tuition.

In some cases, the reality is it IS about the money and NOT about the welfare of a child. Some of these people are not saviors but opportunists.

Safe Surrender

Certainly, babies have been abandoned and later found with tragic results. I was aware of Baby Safe Haven boxes at fire stations. I wasn’t aware that the concept has expanded. Advertisements for the option include words like “No Shame, No Blame, No Names”.

Today, I read an informed person’s thoughts about Safe Surrenders – she wrote there is “so much ick surrounding the “safe surrender” story line, when with resources and help, the family would have been intact. It just broke us. I understand the “reason” for the anonymity of the surrender but I really wish there was some kind of question to determine why they felt this was their option. Do they need funding? Housing? Clothes? Material things? Emotional support? Physical or addiction needs? There really isn’t a situation, that without services, couldn’t be resolved and the family remain intact. I wish our country (US) was more willing to put the programs in place but I wish communities were also more empowered for this. It breaks my heart that these moms and children are separated when possibly very little is needed to help them.”

It is a refrain that I read over and over again. A point I make about our society being unwillingly to appropriately support families in crisis.

An adoptive parent noted – The “safe haven baby box” doesn’t necessarily have to be a part of it. My daughter was surrendered at a hospital. None of the safe haven babies I know about (around 30) were surrendered to a box in a wall…… they were surrendered at hospitals (the mother gave birth and left or simply walked in and handed the baby over). Some are surrendered at fire stations to an actual person or in a police station to a actual person.

To which someone asked – Isn’t there a window of time the mom or dad could come back for their baby? The answer was – Yes. The window does depend on the state. I’m in Wisconsin and here it is 3 months. If someone steps forward, then the case turns to a “regular” foster care case AFTER DNA is proven. ANY blood relative can step forward. After 3 months, the case continues as an adoptive case and adoption can occur after 6 months.

Again, the really is when local groups rally around a mom who’s struggling, very little help is necessary to support them. It can make a huge difference in a woman feeling so desperate that dropping her baby off at a hospital is a rational decision vs having that community support so that she can be successful in providing for her child. It’s almost insane. I think this is the reason people are very quick to point out a double standard. Too often, society will rally around an adoptive mom but a single mom struggling ? She really has a much more difficult time receiving the same offers of help. To the sad situation that a lot of them get shamed and so will not ask for help.

Many hopeful adoptive parents will sign up to foster “safe haven” babies. Their hope is to adopt (yes, this is actually a thing). In another person’s state, the natural parents have 14 days to come forward. I can’t imagine how bad a situation would have to be, to surrender your newborn. And there is heartbreak for that mother … and heartbreak for that child as they go through life not knowing their parents or medical history (or even their real birthdate).

Encompass Adoptees

Thanks to a mention by a friend, I learned about LINK>Encompass Adoptees. I had not heard of them before and so I wanted to share the awareness. This is what they write about their mission – Encompass provides resources and services for individuals of all ages with adoptive, foster, kinship care, (AFK) or similar adverse childhood experiences, as well as their families. Encompass has recently expanded to include services for donor conceived people (DCP) with the understanding that DCP have started to speak about having some similar and overlapping issues related to their donor parent. Our goal is to help create bridges to encourage awareness, facilitate discussion, provide educational resources, and build community among individuals with these experiences, within families, and throughout the local Columbus area.

Regarding their logo, they write – The whydah bird is one of several birds that always lay their eggs in another bird’s nest. Since the whydah does not raise its own young, we have chosen this element of nature as a symbol of adoption and foster care for our organization. Adoption is a difficult thing to put an image to. Encompass Adoptees makes every attempt to honor and acknowledge the adoptees who are adults as well as those who are children. Therefore, we chose an image that would not reflect the adopted person as an eternal child.

They also write that their commitment is to “lived experience” is a unique feature of Encompass: we offer programming designed by those with lived experience (adoption, foster care, kinship care for those with lived experience). This approach is evident in our programming, resources, and outreach efforts. While we seek to honor adult AFKD voices in key leadership positions and programs, we also believe that in order to best serve them, we must include the voices of as many constellation members as possible. Additional services for other constellation members, such as spouses, siblings, extended relatives, and professionals, are some we hope to include as we grow.

Investing in Families

Some thoughts from my all things adoption group today –

The state pays struggling families welfare benefits and the federal government also pays hundreds of billions in welfare and Medicaid benefits and subsidized housing and food stamps for poor families. The federal and state governments don’t enjoy financially supporting poor people’s children, they don’t find it to be a good investment. They think children raised on public funds grow up in large part to have more kids raised on public funds.

The federal government tasks states with promoting adoption of children whose parents get public assistance or whose parents qualify for public assistance. That means everything from fresh from the womb infants of uneducated unmarried girls who would qualify for welfare if they applied, to already born children of parents who are either on welfare or make so little as to be statistically likely to qualify for benefits at some point.

The federal government invests hundreds of millions of dollars in adoption incentives to save hundreds of billions on welfare benefits which also artificially sterilizes the poor by taking their children away and giving them to wealthier families who can afford to support them either totally on their own or with subsidies amounting to less than would have been paid to the parents on welfare.

The federal government requires states to hit a certain quota of adopting out special needs kids and pays $6,000 to $12,000 for every adoption of a child whose parents are on welfare or who qualify for welfare and states are mandated to increase the number of children on welfare adopted each year.

The state has zero incentive to return a child to a parent who has been meeting the state’s demands for return of their child, if that parent is on welfare. Returning the child to that parent literally costs the state money and so, there you go. Our judges work for the states that financially benefit from the adoption of welfare dependent children. There is a grave conflict of interest, when the arbiter is working for and paid by the state – who has a financial stake in the child being moved from the welfare dependent parent to a financially solvent adoptive home.

blogger’s note – The reality is that our society does not support struggling families well enough and is even a danger to many of them, causing the break-up of that family structure. It really is only about the money and our government would rather give it to the wealthy, who don’t need it but might donate to the politicians re-election campaigns, than help struggling families get on their feet and live dignified lives. Sadly, this is the reality.

The Parallels Are Haunting

Dutch Child Being Removed

I have a good friend that lives in The Netherlands. We’ve been communicating about their recent elections. She brought awareness to me about a situation there in her country that is a lot like we often have here in the US – the removal of children from their parents for no real safety reason but often poverty and ethnicity including skin color.

I found an article about this in the NL Times at this LINK>Far more children taken from homes of victims in tax office benefits scandal. My friend wrote – our tax regulations have become very bureaucratic and difficult to understand. So there have been major tax scandals in which thousands of people got wrongly accused of being frauds, just because they might have made a small mistake with filling in the forms. It was a big scandal because it turned out that it mostly happened to people with a foreign names (racial profiling) and many people got financially ruined, because as ‘punishment’ they got enormous high tax bills. Some of them lost their house and what’s worse, they took the kids away from some families. It was a big, big scandal and it turned out the people were found innocent of fraud but they still haven’t been compensated fully, even though it’s been some years now. The thing is there were warnings from good people within the tax system that something was not right but it was ignored.

From the linked article –

Roughly 25 percent more children were removed from the homes of parents who fell victim to the Dutch tax office’s benefits scandal than previously estimated. A total of 2,090 children were taken from their parents and placed in care during the period from 2015 through June 2022, according to a new calculation by Statistics Netherlands (CBS). The original estimate announced in May suggested the total was 1,675. In the future, the total could rise even higher.

Of the 2,090 children who have been placed in care since 2015, 645 were still not living with their parents or guardians by the end of June of this year. The benefits affair mainly affected households with an ethnically diverse background, single-parent families and families with a low income, Statistics Netherlands concluded earlier this year. The CBS could not say if there is a direct connection between taking custody of the children and the scandal at the Belastingdienst by looking at the updated figures. However, in all cases, it concerns children whose parents were victims.

The benefits scandal at the Belastingdienst, the country’s tax authority, involved the use of a controversial method of profiling parents to determine if they were likely to be fraudulently claiming childcare benefits. The criteria often involved racial and ethnic profiling, as well as whether or not the parents involved had a second nationality.

Once identified as fraudsters, a designation that was frequently inaccurate, the victims were forced to pay back all of the benefits they received in the past, and were cut off from future benefits. This put victims into positions of extreme stress and financial insecurity.

The number of custodial placements identified by the CBS on Wednesday is higher because the statistics office previously only had figures up to and including 2021. In the meantime, more victims have reported to the UHT, the organization set up to review individual cases for compensation claims. This organization must also use a recovery plan to ensure that children have access to professional help and an amount of money so that they can get their lives back on track.

Back Together Again

Image is not the people in today’s story from my all things adoption group –

When I was 6 weeks old, my biological mother abandoned me. My grandparents got guardianship of me and ended up adopting me when I was 6. My biological mother, that same year, gave birth to my brother. She and his father end up abusing him, so my grandparents become his legal guardians. Unfortunately, my grandparents chose not keep us together and so adopted him out. The family he was adopted into could not have kids at the time he was adopted but then, later on they ended up actually having 4 biological kids of their own.

The adoptive family were racist people ! They abused him mentally, financially, and physically. They had cut all ties with me, claiming I was a bad influence because I would call him my brother, which was confusing their other kids. Fast forward, when he was 13-14 years old, they locked him out of the house due to a physical altercation. His adoptive mother claimed he was the cause it happened but the only person that was beaten up was him. He was told to “go find a new family, that he was not wanted anymore”.

The first person he called was me ! My grandma and I drove for 10 hours overnight. We contacted a lawyer and went to see him (he was at a friend’s). That started a long, hard, 3 year battle in court to get him away from them.

This situation really shined a light for me on how messed up the system is ! I’m happy to say my grandparents won ! We all won !! Today marks the 2 year anniversary of us becoming brother and sister legally again !! I am happy to say he is thriving since getting away from those people. Our bond throughout the years never wavered !

Health Is Why Some Reach Out

My mom had a mysterious health condition which caused her to want contact with her original mother (before she was adopted). Today’s story reminds me that is the reason many adoptees search for their genetic family.

I was adopted at birth. My son and I have been dealing with some neurological health issues and we were ultimately diagnosed this year with a genetic nerve disease. It pushed me to do Ancestry and I found my paternal family. My half brother and his wife are very active on social media, so I reached out to them and it’s been wonderful. His dad told him about me when he was a teenager, so that made it easier on both of us.

(blogger’s note – I found out something similar from the daughter of my mom’s genetic, paternal half-sister. Her father had told her mother about my mom. It did help a lot regarding how I felt about that side of my complicated family.)

He’s so receptive and we text quite a bit. He’s been able to clear up the medical stuff and provide family information. I’ve been able to provide info he didn’t know. I asked him if he was going to tell his dad and he said yes but he hasn’t, yet. It’s been about 4 months and I think he’s worried about what his parents’ response will be and there is another brother that doesn’t know about me either. On one hand, I’m in no hurry and feel so grateful. This has been such a blessing. On the other, I feel a little vulnerable waiting on his timeline. I’m always wondering if he’s told him and if he wants nothing to do with me (the agency reached out to him in 2009 and he never responded).

blogger’s note – In my own experiences as well. This is how it goes. A step or two forward and then . . . not much.

Why I Count My Blessings

Given that being adopted or giving up a child for adoption was the most natural (or is that normal ?) thing in my childhood family, it was not until I finally learned my original grandparents stories that led to both of my parents ending up adopted in the 1930s, that I truly realized the minor miracle of my own life that I was not also given up for adoption.

I was conceived when my mother was a junior in high school. My father had only just started his university studies in a nearby city but in another nearby state. I don’t really know how I came to be there in my mom’s womb but I guess it happened either just before my dad went away to college or during some brief visit home.

One of the joys of my discoveries was a letter a friend of my mom and dad who sent a letter to my dad when my mom died. He was also a good friend of my mom’s adoptive older brother. In it, he described taking her to a party and that after meeting my dad, the two of them left the party, leaving him bereft of a date.

My parents were married for over 50 years after their hastily arranged marriage to confer upon me legitimacy. Still considering they both had adoptive parents who must have believed in the value of babies given up for adoption to other people to raise – it will always amaze me that I was not given up as well (both of my own sisters ended up giving up babies to adoption).

The author, Barbara Bisantz Raymond, of the book The Baby Thief (about Georgia Tann who was involved in my mother’s adoption) found this blog. In a phone conversation with her, she said, “I’ve never met anyone with so much adoption in their family tree.” It’s true, there is a lot of that. Even so, I had a wonderful childhood with good enough parents and siblings. Therefore, I will always be grateful I didn’t end up with that fate of being adopted as well. The unhappy ending stories I’ve absorbed about adoption go very far towards making me exceedingly grateful for my own good fortune.