When Adoption Is Justified

Not the actual note mentioned in today’s story.

From an adoptive parent – My son was surrendered to a hospital. Physically walked inside and handed over, with a pretty lengthy note. The note was taken by the investigative social worker that night and put in his “file”. It is assumed that the biological mother called the safe haven hotline asking for nearest box, but it was hours away, so they coordinated with the closest hospital for her to take him. As a licensed foster parent, I received a call for him that night (late) and met him next day.

Upon learning of this note, I asked to be given it for his sake. Besides the clothes he was wrapped in, when he was brought in, that’s the only biological tie he has left. The hospital thankfully sent the clothes home with me, which I still have. I was told “No” and that “wasn’t my place” every time I asked for the note because I was “just” the foster parent. (Basically his case was open for a year before adoption, so I was “just” the foster parent the entirety of that.) The case went through multiple worker’s hands and I tried each and every worker, only to be told the same thing. There are some details I won’t go into, but they did look for the biological parents to try and charge them. They even went so far as to review video footage from the hospital – to which the hospital told social workers no, and police got involved. He was born outside of a hospital, then brought in, so there is no way to know who biological parents are, unless they want to come forward one day.

After adoption, I asked for the note, which by then was in a sealed record. I was advised to do records request and do this and that and blah blah blah. Even though I did everything they told me to, nothing ever worked. Try this department next. This went on for a year. I called the ombudsman’s office and they were zero help. Eventually I got an attorney involved and just like magic, I got a COPY of the note in my email. I was thankful for that, but I continued to push for the original. My perspective is that it is my son’s right to have this. I was told the original had been destroyed. Don’t even get me started.

Based off of the note, I do assume the biological mother really DID want to remain anonymous. I have spoke with the safe haven organization and asked if they ever heard anything since that night to which they have not. I told them to please let me know if they ever do because I personally know of another safe haven family that was able to connect with biological mother and they have an open adoption. Biological mothers can call into safe haven organization and receive counseling, as well as let them know if they are seeking an open adoption or even just contact in general. Organization was able to connect adoptive mother and biological mother. It has to be wanted on both sides, or they won’t connect them. I wanted them to know I was open to that, if anything were to ever come in the future.

Who Is Really Responsible

Sharing some intelligent and knowledgeable thoughts today (no, not my own but so good, I had to share) –

Responsibility In Adoption

WHO IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR FORCED ADOPTIONS?

A few people make the point that sometimes foster parents are forced by the state to adopt their foster children. Since there was some demand for a topic addressing forced adoptions from foster care, I thought this topic was important. Let’s start with some language.

ARE FOSTER PARENTS FORCED OR ARE THEY COERCED?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, “force” includes situations where a person may be threatened into cooperating with an action they would prefer not to perform. In this way, you can say that adoptive parents are “forced” to adopt from foster care under some circumstances. But I think the word “coerced” is better because it is a more nuanced word that conveys the fact that while there were no good choices, adoptive parents still made a choice.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE FORCED ADOPTIONS?

There’s a who and there’s a what. Let’s start with the “what.”

What we’re talking about is the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), a Clinton-era law intended to encourage state agencies to find and secure permanent homes for children waiting in foster care following the termination of parental rights. This act provides Federal monies for state agencies for each child adopted out of foster care in a given fiscal year. In order to continue to receive this stipend, the state agencies must increase the number of adoptions compared to the previous year. Agencies, therefore, train their caseworkers to push for (or coerce) adoptions so that they continue to receive these federal funds for their services. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) is largely responsible for the number of children in foster care waiting to be adopted as well as the coercion in adoption.

The “who” is the adoptive parent.

I know you don’t want to hear this. It is so much easier to blame someone else for your involvement in a system of oppression. But let me put this simply: You would not have been forced to adopt, if you had not been involved in foster care as a foster parent in the first place.

Leaving aside any feelings many of us have about adoption and foster care in the first place, this is factually true. The caseworker could not have coerced you to adopt, if you had not already been fostering, which most of you signed up for in the first place.

THE REALITY OF FORCED ADOPTIONS

They do happen. Period. But when we put the emphasis on adoptive parents, we shift the tragedy of forced adoptions away from the helpless party: The adoptee. We also shift the emphasis from the party who truly had no choice and was literally forced: The natural family. Because the adoptee didn’t choose to be in foster care — the adoptive (formerly foster) parent did. Because biological parents didn’t choose to engage with the system — the adoptive (formerly foster) parent did.

Before you argue that biological parents chose to engage with the system, sit down and listen. Please.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) demands a supply of children to be adopted out of foster care, and Child Protective Services uses increasingly aggressive techniques to source these children. Many children in the system, even post-Termination of Parental Rights, are in the system because their parents were facing temporary situations and then the system saddled them with requirements they simply could not complete. When parents don’t complete the objectives of their case plan, their rights are terminated. Their children may be adopted “for the sake of permanency.”

ADOPTIVE PARENTS AREN’T VICTIMS

It is harmful to adoptees and their original families when adoptive parents make themselves out to be the victims in adoption. Not only does this potentially (likely) harm the adopted child and/or their first family, but it prevents the adoptive parent from healing the parts of them that are wounded by whatever causes led them to adoption. You have to be responsible for your choices. Period. As a first mother who lost her children to CPS and is now in reunion, I strive to recognize that whatever I may feel, I am not the victim. My children were. For the sake of your child, keep things in perspective. In the long run, it will also help you.

BUT WHAT ABOUT KINSHIP ADOPTION?

Kinship adoption is a true tragedy. The majority of kinship adopters didn’t set out to foster or adopt in the first place and accept responsibility for a relative’s children to keep them out of the system. In many states, they are then threatened with stranger placement, if they don’t adopt their kinship child. Adoption isn’t the right answer, but keeping children with family has to come first whenever possible. No adopter gets a free pass, but if there is an argument that can be made that kinship adopters have almost no choice because they didn’t choose to participate in the system apart from the pressure applied by the need for care inside the family.

YOU CAN DO THE WRONG THING WHILE TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING

It’s easy for those suffering cognitive distortions (often as a result of childhood abuse and trauma) to believe that participating in a broken system makes them a bad person.

Nobody’s saying that. We recognize the choicelessness you felt when confronted with the option to either adopt or allow a child you care deeply for to be removed from your home to be adopted by strangers — and you may never see them again.

But it is important, for the sake of your adopted child — that you not make yourself the victim of some third party — especially when that third party is faceless and nameless (“the system”).

LET’S GET VISIBLE!

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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.

A Little Bit Of Everything

Short and sweet today because I don’t have much time. From an original mother in reunion.

She has yet to figure out the shortest way to self ID for she IS the adoption triad –

-International infant adoptee

-Former foster youth

-Former kinship guardian

-Adoptive parent of adult who was placed with me for kinship guardianship but asked to be legally adopted at the age of 20

-Natural mother and sole guardian of a child formerly in the system

The picture was posted with the child’s permission – from a mother and son reunion and reunification a week ago. They are still well inside their “honeymoon” period, but so far, everything is great. The child so happy to be back with his mom again and she feels whole again for the first time in years.

Fragility Self-Test

Before you decide to adopt or foster a child, consider your own emotional state. Here’s some help for contemplation.

1. Do I feel defensive when an adoptee, former foster youth or birth/first mother says “adoptive parents tend to…?”

2. Do I feel angry when people tell me I benefit from adoptive parent privilege — that the adoption industry works in my favor, or that my socioeconomic class and/or race enabled me to adopt?

3. When an adoptee, former foster youth or original mother talks about adoption, do I feel defensive because they’re describing things that I do or think?

4. Do I feel angry or annoyed by the above questions?

5. Do I have a history of embracing hopeful or adoptive parent behavior that I now feel ashamed of, so I need to show people that I’m no longer “like that”?

6. Does saying “not all adoptive parents” or similar phrases make me feel better when someone calls adoptive parents out for some perspective or behavior?

7. Do I expect an apology when I feel like I’ve been unfairly accused of poor adoptive parent behavior?

8. Do I feel better when I say, hear, or read, “every (adoption) experience is different?”

9. Do I try to convince adoptees, former foster youth and original mothers that they’re wrong about adoption by pointing out people from their position in the triad who agree with me?

10. Do I feel the need to talk about my own hardships (such as infertility, a “failed” adoption, or a difficult childhood) when an adoptee or original mother talks about their pain?

11. Do I think the adoption community would benefit if people stopped talking about the hard stuff, were more supportive, learned from “both sides,” or focused more on the positive?

12. Does being told that something I say, think, do, or otherwise value is harmful make me want to shut down, leave, or express my discomfort/displeasure in some way?

13. Do I feel the need to state that I have friends/family who are adoptees or first mothers when someone points out my problematic behavior?

14. Do I feel the need to prove that I’m one of the good ones?

15. Do I feel that my opinions and perspectives about adoption should be given equal weight to that of an adoptee or original mother, that I have something unique and important to contribute to the adoption conversation, and/or that it is unfair to be told to listen more than I speak?

16. Do I feel the need to defend myself on any of the above points when commenting in a discussion?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are dealing with adoptive parent fragility. Take time to reflect on why you feel the way that you do. Take time to listen to adoptee and original mother perspectives.

Adoptive parent fragility is a hindrance to healing because it prevents adoptees/original mothers from being able to engage with adoptive parents in honest conversation, without also having to bear the burden of catering to adoptive parents’ emotional comfort.

At its worst, adoptive parent fragility can cause an emotionally unhealthy situation for adoptees/original mothers because of the power dynamics and the weight of being responsible for the adoptive parents’ feelings, while not being allowed the same consideration to express their own.

There is also the weight that comes with people that you care about lashing out at and abusing you (verbally, emotionally, and/or digitally).

If we cannot talk honestly about the issues surrounding the traditional adoption industry, then we cannot make progress towards creating a healthy reform.