Today’s story – An adoptive parent previously adopted 2 siblings. A year later, their biological mom gave birth. So this adoptive parent took placement of the new baby and baby has been with them for over two years. It’s looking like a reunification with the child’s mother will take place in 4 months. The adoptive parent is worried about any continuing contact after reunification and thinks it’d be too hard for the adopted children to see their sibling but not be living with them. The adopted kids are in therapy but they struggle with so much already.
So this person had questions – Would a clean break be better for the adoptees ? One of them worries about the “bad” life the sibling would have after reunification because they didn’t have a good life with their biological parent. They are worried that their parent didn’t really change and don’t want to see their sibling hurt. What would you want in this situation, if you were the adopted kids ?
In response, there was this heart wrenching plea – Please allow them to keep in contact. My youngest brother was adopted, we barely got to see each other growing up. He killed himself and we can never get those years back. He may still be alive today, if my 2 other siblings and myself were able to remain actively in his life to give him a support network beyond his adoptive parent.
From another adoptee – There’s no such thing as a clean cut/clean break. From someone who’s natural mom was told it was the best thing for me, it absolutely was not. While I don’t have known natural siblings, I would assume the same is true for siblings. Keep. All. Family. Ties. ALL OF THEM. The ONLY acceptable reason for a foster parent or adoptive parent to EVER cut ties is that the child of the natural parent is unsafe, if there was contact – and even then, it’s almost never going to mean completely cutting them off. There is the possibility of limited or supervised visits between them.
From an adoptee’s personal experience – I have siblings that were adopted by other homes and my sister got to go back to live with our mom eventually. We were unable to keep in contact before I was 19 because I wasn’t allowed. I’d give anything to have those years with my sister back. I think having my sister accessible would have been better for me, even if we couldn’t live with each other. Someone who looked like me. Had the same memories. Loved the same people. Had the same family. I think it would have been beneficial.
This is not uncommon among adoptees. This one discovered later in life that she had been adopted – that often causes feelings of betrayal and distrust.
I am COMPLETELY miserable on my birthday, and with each passing year, the sadness becomes more and more pronounced until it’s debilitating. It is nothing I can control; my mind and body practically go into shock all on their own without any conscious thought on my part. I’m down the entire day and can barely function. I try to put on a happy face, especially for our son because I know he doesn’t understand how one could not see a birthday as a celebratory occasion; however, I am strongly contemplating telling everyone next year to please stop recognizing my birthday, that the well wishes only bring me grief as opposed to gladness. (It’s exhausting thinking of how to deal with the confusion and—for lack of a better word—blowback.) Yes, I’ve seen therapists, and they have been no help. I stopped seeing two of them in 2024 alone, and quite frankly, at this point, I’ve lost count as to how many I’ve seen over the years.
Joyce Maynard with the two Ethiopian daughters, ages 6 and 11, she adopted in 2010.
Famous moms like Angelina Jolie, Madonna and Charlize Theron make adoption look easy. In as many as a quarter of adoptions of teens, and a significant number of younger child adoptions, the parents ultimately decide they don’t want to keep the child. But what happens, and who’s to blame, when an adoption doesn’t work?
Writer Joyce Maynard revealed on her blog that that she’d given up her two daughters, adopted from Ethiopia in 2010 at the ages of 6 and 11, because she was “not able to give them what they needed.”
Other cases have been more outrageous, like the Tennessee woman who put her 7-year-old adopted son on a plane bound for Russia in 2010 when things went south. Recently she was ordered by a judge to pay $150,000 in child support.
In the adoption world, failed adoptions are called “disruptions.” But while a disruption may seem stone-hearted from the outside, these final anguished acts are complex, soul-crushing for all concerned and perhaps more common than you’d think.
On her blog, Maynard wrote that giving up her two adoptive daughters was “the hardest thing I ever lived through” but goes on to say it was absolutely the right decision for her – and the children. Yes, she has been severely judged by some people. She says, however, that “I have also received well over a hundred letters of a very different sort from other adoptive parents – those who have disrupted and those who did not, but struggle greatly. The main thing those letters tell me is that many, many adoptive parents (and children) struggle in ways we seldom hear about.”
Statistics on disruption vary. A 2010 study of US adoptions found that between 6 percent and 11 percent of all adoptions are disrupted before they are finalized. For children older than 3, disruption rates range between 10 percent to 16 percent; for teens, it may be as high as 24 percent, or one in four adoptions. Adoptions can take anywhere from a few months to a couple of years to become final – and that window is when most disruptions occur, experts say. While some families do choose to end an adoption after that, those cases are rarer (ranging from 1 percent to 7 percent, according to the study).
Disruption rarely occurs with infants. It occurs more often (anywhere from 5% to 20%) with the older children. That is because the complexities of parenting a child who already has life experiences and certain behaviors is more complicated. When a child is rejected and traumatized early in their development, it changes the way they function and respond to people. Older children – especially ones who have been neglected, rejected and abused will often distance themselves from other people and develop a hard-shell.
According to the study, the older the child is at the time of adoption, the more likely the adoption will fail. Children with special needs also face greater risk of disruption, particularly those who demonstrate emotional difficulties and sexual acting out. Certain types of parents are more likely to end up giving up adopted children. These include younger adoptive parents, inexperienced parents, and parents who both work outside the home. Wealthier parents and more educated mothers are also more likely to disrupt an adoption. There is less tolerance, if someone’s more educated or they make more money,
What happens when a parent decides to give up an adopted child?
If a child has been adopted legally, then it’s like giving up a birth child. The parents who adopted the child have to find a home for the child or some other resources. That could be the adoption agency or the state (who would most likely put the child in foster care). If the parents decide to end the process before the child has been legally adopted, the child would then likely go into foster care. International adoptions follow the same rules, except the adoption agency usually notifies the country that the adoption has failed, however, returning the child to their country of origin is never an option.
If an adoption fails before the parents become the formal, legal parents of the child, the courts usually aren’t involved. If the adoption has been finalized, however, then the parents must go to court. A dissolution – sometimes referred to as an annulment – takes place after a child is formally adopted by a set of parents. The law treats these situations very seriously. States vary on their handling of these situations. Generally speaking, a parent will petition the court where they adopted the child asking to un-adopt them.
Disruption is never easy for the child. It takes an extreme toll and can cause lifelong issues of distrust, depression, anxiety, extreme control issues and very rigid behavior. They don’t trust anyone; they have very low self-esteem. They’ll push away teachers and friends and potential parents and if you put them in another placement and they have to reattach again and then if they lose that placement, with each disruption gets tougher and tougher.
If you are a hopeful adoptive parent – be careful what you wish for. Some adoptive parents believe are will be able to help a child and sometimes, to some adoptive parents, this means changing the child. They believe that if they just love the child enough . . . Truth is, it takes so much more than love. It may be harder to handle than you ever thought possible in your fantasy dreams.
Missing Mom 