Kid’s Count

Someone noted – Foster Care causes 61% of All Child Abuse in America. So I went looking and found this, at The Annie E Casey Foundation – LINK>Child Welfare and Foster Care Statistics. KIDS COUNT is a robust source of the best available data on child well-being in the nation. This includes state-by-state data on child abuse and neglect and children living in out-of-home care from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, and the National Youth in Transition Database. These data help our Foundation and leaders across the country to monitor trends, assess the child welfare system, and advance policies and practices to improve outcomes for children, youth and families — particularly for children of color who are overrepresented in the system and more likely to experience negative outcomes.

KIDS COUNT offers more than 60 measures of child welfare, encompassing how many children and youth are in the system, the rates at which they enter it, their demographic characteristics (including race and ethnicity when available) and their experiences in foster care, exiting care, being adopted when applicable, aging out of the system and more. In addition to child welfare statistics at the national and state levels, KIDS COUNT also provides data by territory, when possible. Policymakers, child welfare agencies and others have used these data for decades to understand how well the system is meeting the needs of vulnerable children, youth and families, and how it can be strengthened so that all abused and neglected children can heal and grow up with safe, stable families.

Children and youth who experience trauma, including abuse or neglect, are at increased risk for long-term emotional, behavioral and physical health problems, among other challenges. The data measures high-risk behavior, such as juvenile justice system involvement and substance abuse, difficulties with mental health, physical health and academic performance. The consequences of child maltreatment can be mitigated with equitable access to trauma-informed services and nurturing, lasting family relationships and support.

Foster care is meant to provide safe, temporary living arrangements and support services for children who have been removed from their families due to maltreatment, lack of safety or inadequate care. The rate of children entering foster care has hovered at 3 or 4 per 1,000 for two decades. Kids ages 1 to 5 make up the largest share (29% in 2021) of children entering care. National data also show that Black and American Indian and Alaska Native children continue to be overrepresented among those entering foster care. The reasons for this are complex, and efforts to improve racial equity in child welfare have been underway for many years.

In encouraging news, placements with relatives increased from 25% to 35% during 2000–2021, while placements in group homes or other facilities were cut in half, from 18% to 9%. Fewer children are placed in pre-adoptive homes (4% in 2021) or have trial home visits (5%), and some older youth live independently with supervision (2%). Over a third of foster children and youth experience more than two placements each year, meaning their living arrangements change at least three times a year. Child welfare agencies are working to minimize these moves, as they are disruptive, stressful and often traumatizing. Stable relationships and home environments are critical for healthy child and youth development.

Of the more than 54,000 kids adopted out of the child welfare system in 2021, over half were young kids ages 1 to 5, consistent with previous years. Most of these adoptions are by the foster parents (either relatives or non-relatives), who cared for the children while in foster care. Unfortunately, the median amount of time in foster care has increased over the last decade — from 13.2 months in 2011 to 17.5 months in 2021, based on children who exited care in each year. However, the percentage of kids who spent 5+ years in care declined slightly from 7% to 5% in the same time period. Among children who exited foster care in 2021, about a third (35%) were there less than a year, while nearly half (48%) spent 1 to 3 years in care and 12% stayed in foster care 3+ years.

More than 19,000 youth left foster care in 2021 without reuniting with their parents or having another permanent family home. Thankfully, this figure has declined since peaking at nearly 30,000 in 2008. The transition to adulthood is a significant and challenging developmental phase of life for all young people, but youth aging out of foster care on their own must face this without the support of a stable, loving family. Many also lose access to services and supports that were offered to them through the foster care system. Not surprisingly, these youth and young adults are more likely to experience behavioral, mental and physical health issues, housing problems and homelessness, employment and academic difficulties, early parenthood, incarceration and other potentially lifelong adversities. In line with the racial inequities noted earlier, youth of color are more likely to experience these challenges. The trajectories of these young people are not unavoidable. They can be positively influenced by policies and practices that ensure these vulnerable youths receive culturally-responsive, trauma-informed transition services and support to navigate the steps to adulthood, achieve stability and reach their full potential.

Field Notes from an Adoptee

This guy, Brad Ewell, now has a monthly column at lavenderluz LINK>Field Notes from an Adoptee. He also has that “mini-series” at this LINK>Empowered To Connect Podcast. There is read, “A Texas Police Officer minding his own business, Brad got a Facebook message at age 48 that completely changed his life. As he pulled the threads of his own life story, even he couldn’t have predicted the twists and turns that emerged.”

From Lori Holden’s website – Lavender Luz – Introducing Field Notes with Brad Ewell. He is a Late Discovery Adoptee. He didn’t learn he was adopted until 2019 at the age of 48. He writes – “In the four years since my discovery, I’ve reunited with much of my birth family, lost my adoptive father, hugged my biological father as he walked out of prison, lost members of my birth family, and met a lot of adoptees. I’ve also taken a hard look at adoption and how growing up adopted, and with my true story unacknowledged, may have impacted the man I grew up to be.”

It is his desire, to expand the connections he has made since then, to reach further out of the adoptee echo chamber because he doesn’t believe growth and change occur when we only talk to people who are similarly situated to us. His aim is to speak openly and honestly about adoption’s good parts as well as it’s challenging parts. He hopes to improve adoption for those we love and everyone else involved.

He invites you to email him at mpebrad@gmail.com or connect with him on Instagram: @a_late_discovery.

DNA Matters

DNA Matters. If it didn’t non-adopted people wouldn’t do genealogy. We can’t pretend that it isn’t important. My adoptee mom had to quit working on a family tree at Ancestry based on the adoptive families of my two parents (both adoptees) because she couldn’t get over the knowledge that it wasn’t “real”. I am still committed to eventually getting the actual family trees for each of my parents into Ancestry and maybe on 23 and Me as well. I just haven’t found the time.

Today, in my all things adoption group I read – “An adoptive parent was asked why does she want biological children when she has two adopted kids. Her answer ? She wants a child that has a piece of her and her husband without any outside involvement. So, DNA DOES MATTER. It matters to all of us but many try to erase the DNA of adoptees and foster children. As if their DNA doesn’t matter and they should be grateful for it.”

My youngest son was sad when he realized that he doesn’t have any of my DNA. My donor conceived sons have contact with their donor at 23 and Me, if they wish to pursue contact. They have met her on several occasions but she lives far away and we don’t make long trips of several weeks duration out west currently. Yet, I knew DNA did matter and getting their DNA tested (both boys and their father) gave us an opportunity to explain why they were conceived the way they were.

Because they gestated in my womb and have been with me most of their lives pretty much 24/7, there is a strong bond between us. I also breastfed each of them for just over a year. My husband puts slide shows of our photos of our boys on his computer. I get lost in watching and remembering what it was like to have babies in my life again after so many years. My husband and I were married for 10 years before we started trying to conceive. I had my biological, genetic daughter when I was 19 and she has given me two grandchildren. My sons add a richness to our lives (myself and my husband) that I do cherish. I love it when they interact with me from a love that we have developed over decades. Even so, I know that DNA matters.

Our DNA can also tell us about the much more recent past. If we concentrate on the most recent bits of our DNA family trees, we can learn about the history of our modern human ancestors—when, where, and with whom ordinary people lived or moved about. I learned a lot about my own origins from Ancestry and being able to track a lot of details about my parents’ relatives. If you are not an identical twin, your DNA is unique. This means that no one else in the world has the same DNA sequence as you. Because your DNA is unique, your physical appearance, or phenotype, is also unique.

Your genes play an important role in your health, but so do your behaviors and environment, such as what you eat and how physically active you are. Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. Your epigenetics change as you age, both as part of normal development and aging and in response to your behaviors and environment.

A Present Danger

I’ve written about this before reading this book, especially for the role that Evangelical Christianity played in the election of that former guy (the ex 45th President). There is a very strong converting the heathen masses tendency in this religious persuasion. The parallels in Octavia Butler’s prescient novel are deeply unsettling. Modern day “Crusaders” become cruel vigilantes in Christian America. They take the children of those they deem in need of re-education and place them for adoption into good Christian American homes.

The protagonist of her novel, Lauren Oya Olamina, has her infant daughter taken from her. The home that Larkin is placed in is not a happy one, echoing what so many adoptees say about their own experiences. The adoptive mother is cold and not nurturing. The adoptive father has wandering hands over the young girl’s body. Her birth mother searches for many, many years to uncover what became of her daughter. A huge upset occurs when she discovers her brother Marc knew where Larkin was all along and that as a whole-hearted believer and even minister for Christian American churches, he lies to the child (even though her mother had asked for his assistance in locating her daughter) and tells her that her mother died.

I found this WordPress review by LINK>Alive and Narrating. Like the blogger, ” I feel incredibly fortunate that I chose to read Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents to “officially” delve into Octavia Butler’s oeuvre.” I am almost finished with “the Talents” and have read “the Sower”.

The reviewer writes accurately that “Parable of the Talents is also the story of Lauren’s daughter, Larkin, renamed Ashe Vere after she was snatched from Acorn and her parents, the first in a series of crimes committed in a prolonged ordeal of violence, degradation, and suffering enacted by religious militants, members of The Church of Christian America.”

Her review continues – The United States, tired of the apocalyptic chaos the country has experienced during the past decade, has voted into power the fanatical and fascistic president (*)Donald Trump Ted Cruz Andrew Steele Jarret. (At one point he actually says as part of his campaigning that he will “make America great again. *SHUDDER*). Jarret is the founder of the powerful, right-wing Church of Christian America. He preaches a return to godliness, in the form of persecuting, prosecuting, and “saving” any American who refuses to lead a good Christian life. And that includes stamping out all “cults” who go against the bible’s teachings and allow women to speak and hold positions unacceptable for their gender. (*) blogger’s note – I would add Gov Ron DeSantis to this worrying mix of bad characters.

An armed group of Christian America militants invade and destroy Acorn, turn the place into a “re-education” camp, and enslave all the adults with electric collars they use to administer excruciating punishment. All the children are stolen and sent for “re-education” elsewhere to be fostered and adopted by Christian American families. Larkin Olamina—renamed Ashe Vere Alexander—grows up in one of these Christian American homes, unloved and abused by her adoptive parents, never knowing who her biological parents are. Only as an adult does she learn that her mother is none other than Lauren Olamina, founder and leader of the now-powerful and widespread religion Earthseed.

Parable of the Talents is a harrowing and frightening yet soberingly realistic story of a future United States where the separation between Church and State no longer exists, where in the absence of law enforcement on behalf of the government or even the police, the Church of Christian America steps into the void and enforces its own violent set of edicts. It’s the story of religion as a social force, used in order to uplift or to subjugate, and the ways in which it unites people out of fear and desperation, and also out of the need to believe in something more than just this universe, or simply to be more than who or what we already are.

It’s also an intimate, personal story of a mother and daughter, each of whom spend their lives needing each other and not getting the person they wanted. The true story of many adoptees and their original biological/genetic mothers who lost them to adoption, often with the coercion of their religious leaders. It’s a story of guilt, regret, bitterness, and deep, heartache pain of not having each other. Humanity needed Lauren’s Earthseed philosophy, needed to embrace change, needed something to reach for and aspire to. In adopting Ashe as his own, rather than give her back to Lauren, Marc imposes his own power over what he thinks the world should like and what his own family should look like, all from his position of power as a minister of the Church of Christian America.

The entire thing is a hopelessly and painfully knotted set of familial relationships as seen through the lenses of religion, power, morality, and destiny. These books are about people, and the humanity of people, which includes both the admirable and the detestable and all the variations in-between. Like the blogger, I feel lucky and blessed to have read these books, to have read them now, and that they exist in the universe for people to read and be inspired by.

What is also amazing to me is that Octavia Butler wrote this “current” story in 1998, which goes forward for over a decade or more beyond our current time. Octavia Butler identified in a 1999 interview the line between duty and selfishness, between caring for and saving the world and caring for and saving one’s own family. It is not a clear dividing line for most of us.

A Missing Mom

Tina Turner with sons

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26 1939. Her parents, Floyd Richard and Zelma Priscilla Bullock, were sharecroppers. She was raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, where she recalled picking cotton with her family as a child. She sang in the tiny town’s church choir. When Anna Mae was 11, her mother Zelma left her abusive husband (Tina’s father, Richard) and moved to St Louis. When her father Richard remarried, he left Anna Mae in the care of her grandmother. True this was a kinship guardian kind of situation and not all that uncommon then – or today. It still left wounds of abandonment. blogger’ note – I did much the same, leaving my 3 year old daughter with her paternal grandmother, when I took a leap of faith to try and earn enough money to support the two of us (since there was no child support forthcoming).

Tina became pregnant during her senior year of high school. She moved in with the father, saxophonist Raymond Hill, who was living with Ike Turner as part of his Kings of Rhythm band. She welcomed her first child, Craig, in August 1958, though the couple had already broken up before he was born. Tina Turner lived as a single mother until she began her relationship with Ike. Tina then helped raise his two sons from his previous marriage to Lorraine Taylor – Ike Turner Jr and Michael Turner. Tina and Ike Turner had one biological child together, Ronnie, who was born in 1960. Ike adopted Craig and Tina adopted Ike Jr and Michael. Tina adopted Buddhism and feels the practice of chanting has had a positive effect on her life.

Tina suffered the deaths of both her biological sons during her lifetime. In 2018, Craig died by suicide at the age of 55. He had been working as a real estate agent and had struggled with his mental health. Tina is known to have said that he was always an “emotional child.” She described his death as her “saddest moment as a mother”. She scattered his ashes off the coast of California. Ronnie Turner was born two years before Tina and Ike married in 1962. Ronnie had dabbled in acting, including with his mother in a biopic movie based on his mother’s life titled What’s Love Got To Do With It. His father, Ike Turner died in 2007 at the age of 76. Ronnie spoke at his father’s funeral. It was shortly after that, when his own health battle began leading to his death in 2022 from the complications of colon cancer.

Ike Turner Jr has spoken about the estrangement he and his brother experienced when their mother moved to Europe. She was the “only mother he knew” and he felt that she had abandoned him, saying “I haven’t talked to my mother since God knows when – probably around 2000. I don’t think any of my brothers have talked to her in a long time either.”

Tina has said – “I had a terrible life. I just kept going. You just keep going, and you hope that something will come.”

The Jim Twins

Jim Lewis and Jim Springer

I am a Gemini, so I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of twins. I often fantasized that there was a twin that didn’t make it to make my birth but there is no proof that ever happened. I have a sister only 13 months younger than me and when we were young, we were often dressed alike, as though we were twins – then she got much bigger than me. When I had my daughter, she would say that we were twins when she was still very young and I wondered if she was my missing twin, later born to me as her mom instead. That probably didn’t happen either. In assisted reproduction, there is a circumstance known as a vanishing twin (I experienced that with my oldest son’s conception). Adding to my own interest is the fact that I married a man who’s father is a twin. His twin brother, who was deaf due to an illness he was afflicted with when he was very young, was always tickled when local people would mistake him for my father-in-law.

Twins who were separated after birth have often been studied with remarkable results considering they were not raised together. These kinds of identical twins provide a rare opportunity for scientists to study how environment versus heredity influences human development – nurture vs nature.

Such is the case with the Jim twins. Identical twins that were separated at birth after they were placed for adoption. They did not meet one another until they were finally reunited at the age of 39. Even their wives have the same name as both married women named Linda and both divorced their wives several years later. Then both brothers married a second time to women named Betty. They also both had sons who each named – James Allan.

The Jim twins were born in 1940. Each was given the same first name by their respective adoptive parents. They even grew up just 40 miles apart from each other, their lives lived in a kind of parallel existence. Jim Lewis grew up knowing that he had a twin brother. Jim Springer’s mother had told him that his twin had passed away as a baby. Both had a brother named Larry and a dog called Toy. They shared the same interests in school – mathematics and woodwork – and both hated spelling. They shared a common interest in mechanical drawing and block lettering.

Both ended being heavy chain smokers and even owned the same make of car – a Chevrolet. They took vacations and went to the same Florida beach resort. Even so, they never encountered each other at the time. While their employment was not identical, their jobs were similar – Jim Lewis worked as a security guard and Jim Springer became a deputy sheriff.

Eventually, Jim Lewis went to an Ohio courthouse seeking contact details for his long-lost twin brother. They spoke to one another on the phone and subsequently agreed to meet. Even though Jim Springer did not know his twin was still alive, he said he had “always felt an emptiness” growing up.

A study of the two men by Dr Thomas Bouchard, director of the Minnesota Study Project – Twins Reared Apart, discovered that their medical histories and even their brain-wave tests were almost identical. They both suffered a type of migraine headache that began when they were at the age of 18. Both suffer the same degree of disability and the same frequency — and they even use almost identical words to describe it. The cause may be far more biological than doctors in the field have believed. The twins also scored nearly identical on a personality test. During that study, when asked to create a picture, they even drew the exact same thing.

“We even use the same slang,” Jim Lewis notes. “A lot of times, I’ll start to say something, and he’ll finish it!” Researchers have said this phenomenon can be attributed to the twins having remarkably similar brain waves. This causes the perception that some identical twins “think alike.” One has to wonder if there are genetic influences that affect our life choices.

Information about twins is being gathered and analyzed globally. Most of the Scandinavian countries maintain a twin registry. The Swedes, for instance, have data on 26,000 pairs of twins, dating back as far as 1886. In Rome, more than 15,000 pairs of twins are registered with the pioneering Gregor Mendel Institute for Medical Genetics and Twin Studies. And here in the United States, there is another one at the National Academy of Sciences — National Research Council’s Twin Registry. That director is Zdenek Hrubec. He keeps tabs on 16,000 pairs of male twins, in which both have served in the military.

There are an estimated 100 million twins in the world. Identical twins are called monozygotic twins because they develop from a single fertilized egg that later divides to produce two embryos that are genetically identical. About 3.5 identical twins occur in every 1,000 live births, a rate that has remained constant without regard to socio‐economic factors or even individual characteristics such as maternal age. In extremely rare cases (usually involving some chromosomal abnormalities), twins of opposite genders are born. Only one in three twin births produces identical twins. Much more common are fraternal twins. This occurs when two eggs are fertilized about the same time. Genetically speaking, these “twins” are no more similar than any other siblings.

There is some progress in adoptionland – identical twins are rarely separated and reared apart today. Thanks to more enlightened welfare policies and changing social attitudes that have removed the social disgrace that was once associated with illegitimacy.

There is much more information than I have shared here in this New York Times article – LINK>Twins Reared Apart: A Living Lab.

#notallmothers

I have been neglecting this blog, as I have been away and then once returned home, totally wiped out exhausted and behind on everything. There are so many blogs here that I wonder at times if I should continue to write them but something always appears that should be shared in this space. Today that something is by LINK>Tony Corsentino, an adoptee with his own Substack blog, from which I will borrow today as I try to get back into my normal routines (which are rarely normal anyway LOL). My blog title is his. His Substack is titled LINK>This Is Not A Legal Record.

He writes – “Mother’s Day is an occasion for breakfast in bed, a vase of flowers, brunch with mimosas. It is also an occasion to teach and reinforce a doctrine. It celebrates mothers who mother.” I remember when my sisters and I were children and we did the breakfast in bed for my own mother.

He shares many common expressions related to Mother’s Day but notes – “Cute, trite, sweet, banal, inoffensive—and no space for severed motherhood.” He goes on to note – “I asked my birth mother if she found my birthday a difficult date on the calendar. She replied that the date had become blurred in her memory. For her, the worst date on the calendar was Mother’s Day. It is an annual reminder to the severed mothers that they are the ones who were not there and therefore do not count.” Sadly, I can relate. I allowed my daughter to be raised by her father at the age of 3 because he was never going to pay me child support (and had told me so) but I could not financially, adequately, support us. So, he provided for her because he had to and no doubt he was happy to have her with him. However, when I would look for commercial birthday cards for my daughter, they never reflected what seemed to me the strange kind of relationship I had with her as an absentee mother.

Tony says – “Mother’s Day is a call for gratitude. Where gratitude is merited (not all mothers merit it), it is fitting to bestow it. But adopted people hear the call for gratitude differently. When I question why I am to call one woman ‘mother’ and not another, when I question why I was not even permitted to know the one I am not to call ‘mother’, I receive a question in return: Aren’t you grateful?”

“Thousands of women in this country have had their children disappeared, under a system that receives nearly universal praise—with a long waiting list of hopeful participants. Thousands of other women in this country have acquired the right, through this system, to the word ‘mother’ and, if they mothered well, to the expectation of cards, flowers, and morning cocktails this weekend.”

“Mother’s Day picks a side. To those severed from their children, it says ‘this is not your day.’ ”

In my case, learning about my adoptee parents (both were adopted children) genetic origins also made me aware of the minor miracle of my own childhood. Tony shares this funny greeting – “I’m so grateful you never put me up for adoption, though I’m sure there were times you were seriously tempted! Happy Mother’s Day!” I AM grateful that I was not put up for adoption because it is a wonder that my unwed, high school student, mother was not forced to do that to me. Thankfully, my dad left his university studies to marry her and support our family.

We Began In Darkness

Regardless of whether we were raised by the people who conceived and birthed us or were surrendered to strangers who then raised us as their adopted children, we all begin the same way – in the womb of the woman who gestates us. Today, I was reading a piece in my LINK>Science of Mind magazine that felt like a good way to start today’s blog. It was written by Sunshine Michelle Coleman and is titled Light Within the Shadows.

She writes – we were born from within the dark. The quiet womb nurtured and sustained us, as it allowed us to develop and grow. It was a place of stillness and comfort. It was home and a place of assuredness and safety. It was warm and cozy, with life-sustaining liquid nutrients, the beautiful sound of a parental heartbeat and a constant hug that let us know we were loved.

Can you imagine being shocked into birth, forced to leave that home of dark beautiful comfort and thrust into another form of life in the external world with lights, sounds, cameras and so much action ? Even though we eventually adjusted to all of this newness of life on the outside, we probably longed to be back in our dark safe space just a little longer. That is likely why it is so vital for babies to be touched and held, so they survive and thrive with a smooth transition to life outside the womb.

Adoptees however, especially domestic infant adoptees, are handed over to strangers to raise. Letters from my mom’s adoptive mother to the adoption agency indicate a frazzled woman dealing with an unhappy infant on a long train ride from Memphis Tennessee to Nogales Arizona. There are hints that a pediatrician drugged my mom to calm her down. The last picture of her original mother holding her shows a happy baby. She was not a newborn when this happened and she had been temporarily placed in an orphanage while my grandmother did her best to find a way to support them both with my mom’s father not present for reasons I can never truly know. Even so, the transition upset her.

In the article I was reading, she writes of “buried treasures” that can be discovered in our shadows. These are the deepest parts of ourselves, those emotions that can yield pain, grief and sorrow. Many of us learned as children to hide or push away those parts of ourselves in fear of the hurt and agony they might cause.

The author suggests leaning into the shadow parts of ourselves so that we can work through them, until we are able to reveal a healing. Looking honestly at our emotions and into those dark places. It may be necessary to shift our perspectives and unlearn lifelong lessons from what we previously judged as being bad. As children, we probably feared what we did not understand and certainly all that we really had no control over. It may be necessary to examine our unconscious biases and judgements about how our life unfolded. Regardless of all that may have happened to us growing, we are the only ones who can create a positive change in our own lives. Peace to each who struggles and compassion for all that has come before.

Adoptees Becoming Mothers

One writes – Was just writing an email to my toddler daughter’s email account (it’s my way of preserving memories in lieu of a baby book) and realized: WOW. I couldn’t believe my birth mother gave up her own flesh and blood as a newborn when I held my daughter for the first time, but I also can’t believe how she’d give up these amazing toddler moments now either. And it’s not like she didn’t know…she had two children of her own already! Just a big F YOU to her. I’m so upset the more children I have, the more I watch them grow. I don’t understand it. I never will. And as much as I guess I love her? I’m still angry. And hurt. Even after all the conversations and heart to hearts. It is all just words. She still gave up her own baby. Later, she adds – I was an affair baby. So I was adopted simply because of who my father was. She had the resources (financially) to keep me. She just didn’t want the shame. If my birth mother had given me up due to lack of resources, I think I would feel much differently. Because that is a system problem, and a society problem. Not so much a personal one.

Another writes – I was pretty “healed” from my adoption trauma until I had my son. It ripped open wounds I forgot I had and gave me a WHOLE new perspective at just how f*cked up both of my moms were. We deserved better and I just remind myself all the time that my baby (possibly babies in the future) will NEVER know that kind of pain.

Yet another – My birth mom kept me for 4 months then put me up for adoption after she found out she was pregnant again. She went on to have and raise 4 children total including the one she was carrying when I was surrendered. I have 5 kids myself and it’s very hard to understand, as a mother.

And this – I know that my birthmother was placed under incredible pressure and everyone told her that if she loved me, she would relinquish me. And, also told her they would put her out on the street if she did not. She did not have access to other voices or assistance. She said no one told her that her body would ache for me and she would spend her life yearning for me. When I see comments from adoptees or former foster care youth that have experienced birthmothers who did not seem to grieve their loss, I feel terrible.

One notes – when we finally got to the point that I could have this talk with my mother, this is the same sentiment she shared. She had a lot of problems and wasn’t much of a mother when I was born. She thought I was getting a better home and a better life. The sadness in her voice when she realized the trauma I endured was… a lot to handle.

And this – I bought into the whole narrative of being grateful for being rescued. I was sure I didn’t even care to know my mother. Then I became one myself. I think that’s the first time it hit me. Whether she was anything special or not, I WAS. I was a precious new life. I should have been protected. I should have been shielded. I should have been wanted enough to cause whatever action was necessary to keep me. I wasn’t. And that’s HER loss… but it was my loss too.

Another – Having my own kids made me so angry about being given up voluntarily and utterly denied the comfort and co-regulation that I needed as a baby and that I saw my kids needing (and of course receiving from me). My birth mother had her reasons, and I quite like her, but ALSO on behalf of tiny, baby me: f- her. Having reasons doesn’t erase the trauma she caused.

One adopted at 7 hours old in a closed adoption writes – My birth mother already had a 2 year old, and gave me up. Then, she had 3 other kids after me. The reasons she gave me will Never. Be. Enough. Being a mom with two kids and seeing all the milestones etc…it just makes me confused and angry all over again, when I think about it. I still have trauma, I’m in counseling but I will never get over it or the feelings, and I will always have unanswered questions because the answers won’t be good enough.

From a mother who gave up her child – I did not know at all the trauma that it would cause my child. There were so many people in my ear telling me how beautiful adoption is and how I’m doing the “right thing” for my daughter. If I would have known then, what I know now, I would have NEVER put my child through that. I was conditioned to believe (based on my own shame and the false positivity all around me) that I was not worthy of caring for my baby. It pains me because it was never about her not being enough, but thinking I wasn’t. There is not a second that goes by where I am not wishing I was having those moments with her and I am mad that I robbed myself and mostly her of that.

Another echoed this – I believed that my son would hate me for keeping him instead of placing him. I believed that by placing him I was doing the very best for him because he would have stability and 2 parents. I never thought that anything bad would happen as a result of placing him. Of course, so many years later, I realized that I could have kept him and we would have been fine. But in 1973, at age 18, I didn’t know.

A woman writes – I have a sister in law who arrived here from an international adoption (and her adopted parents still deny any trauma). They adopted her at 18 months, changed her name and brought her to the US. When we had our own son and he was around that age, it made it so hard to believe that someone thought it was okay to just pretend like the first 18 months didn’t exist. I try to be a very trauma informed person, but having my own child and then thinking about adoption – opened my eyes so much more than anything.

One mother shares – I seriously considered placing my third child for adoption…. Not because I didn’t love him, but it was an unplanned pregnancy and I was already suffering postnatal depression and feeling so incredibly inadequate as a mother to the two toddlers I had; I loved him so fiercely and deeply that I desperately wanted a better mother for him than I believed I was capable of being. At the time, I didn’t really know anything about the trauma it would have caused him.

Finally, this perspective from someone in the field – I have worked with vulnerable children for over twenty years. I have worked with many women who have decided to relinquish their children. This discussion makes things seem like it is an easy decision for a birth mother and there are so many factors involved for each situation. I can’t ever stand in someone else’s shoes and judge the choice that is made. I have spent years with young children / teenagers and young adults in orphanage care (that was in an Asian country) and have tried to be a support to them as they have expressed their anger and hurt, watched them struggle as they have tried to figure out their whys and their who am I questions. My heart aches for these women, it aches for these children. The system is so broken and I don’t have any answers but I don’t want to make assumptions about birth mothers either. Adoption is messy. The world likes to paint this beautiful picture about adoption that is not reality.

Every Person Deserves To Know Their Origins

From LINK>The Huffington Post by Marie Holmes – There are some key differences between the experiences of adopted and donor-conceived kids, but one thing remains the same: They should know about their origins.

For many people today, a surprise DNA test result opens the door to their true identity. The outcome can reroute their lives around uncovering of their family’s secrets. Many become advocates for people having full access to their genetic histories. I certainly believe that is important. From experience, I know that my genetic origins did matter greatly to me.

One woman describes finding out that her parents’ story, the story she’d bent herself into a pretzel to continue to believe, was a fabrication. The years that followed were difficult. “I went through a really serious time of grief and just identity crisis.” For a time, she didn’t speak to her parents.

The current consensus among professionals in the related fields is that it is best for children to know their whole story from the very beginning. That has been the perspective for me and my husband with our donor egg conceived sons. A communicative openness is best between parents and their children. Always we have believed in as much openness as our children encourage. We did not made a big deal of it, just a matter of fact-ness on occasion when called for.

And yet, secrecy is still an issue. Advocates today recommend a ban on anonymity. In my mom’s group, almost 20 years ago, we split into “tell and don’t tell” members. No one anticipated the inexpensive availability of DNA matching sites like Ancestry and 23 and Me. Parents who have not yet disclosed to a child that they were donor-conceived, are encouraged by advocates not to wait another moment. Ideally, children would never remember a time before they knew they were donor-conceived, because parents would speak about it frequently and openly. There is no minimum age a child needs to reach in order to hear the story of their origins. It is the right thing to do for their children and parents owe this truth-telling to themselves. Secrets do have a tendency to out themselves.

Unfortunately, sperm banks, egg donation agencies and other providers of third-party reproduction continue to remain silent on the issue of a donor-conceived person’s right to information about their origins. To be honest, in the past parents were usually not given any information about their donor, and donors weren’t told how many children were born as a result of their donations. Today, queer couples and mothers who are single by choice make up a majority of any sperm banks’ customers. These families tend to have a different attitude toward their sperm donors’ anonymity, with many specifically search in advance for “willing-to-be-known” or “identity release” donors who agree to allow their children to contact them once they turn 18.

To be certain, there are crucial differences in the experiences of adoptees and donor-conceived people. The latter generally grow up knowing one biological parent. Adoptees must also reckon with deeply emotional questions regarding why their family gave them up for adoption. Donor-conceived people do not have that challenge. A recent study published in the journal Developmental Psychology surveyed 65 families formed via third-party reproduction (sperm, egg or embryo donation) and compared them with 52 families who had not used assisted reproduction. The children were 20 years old at the time they completed the survey. Researchers found “no differences between assisted reproduction and unassisted conception families in mothers’ or young adults’ psychological well-being, or the quality of family relationships.” I find this good news but also my own experience.

It’s worth noting that in families where the children were informed about the donor by age 7, they were less likely to have negative relationships with their mothers, and the mothers themselves showed lower levels of anxiety and depression. The study’s authors say their findings “suggest that the absence of a biological connection between children and their parents in assisted reproduction families does not interfere with the development of positive mother–child relationships or (the children’s) psychological adjustment in adulthood.” With donor conception, an intentionality on the parents’ part appears to make them feel more responsible about telling their children the full story of their creation. So, are not adoptive parents also intentional about their choice ? I wonder. As my sons matured, we did 23 and Me, first for their father and then, for each of our boys. This allowed us the perfect opportunity to fully explain the reasons behind our choice. Their donor also did 23 and Me and they have the ability to privately contact her there should they wish to. They have had some contact with their donor, though years have passed since. They are aware she has other children and I show them photos from Facebook so they have some idea.