What Matters A Name ?

A common practice in adoption is to change the name of the child being adopted. Often this name change is sealed from revealing what name that child was born with in the adoption records. If you were to ask a young child, who is yours genetically and biologically, growing up in the family that child was born into and you ask them how they would feel about changing their name, their answers might be something like this – yeah, that would be awesome, okay by me.

So when adoptive parents (who adopted older children but then changed the names they were born with) say – “She wanted to change her name.” or “He is excited about changing his name.” – it could be only that small children don’t know any better. Adoptees, when they are yet very young, can’t understand the ramifications of such a decision.

That said, more than one of my friends has allowed the child she is raising to make some change to their name, on their own initiative, once they have entered their teenage years. That is empowering – a decision made by their own self, without suggestion nor coercion. That is a different circumstance and is made consciously from a state of some maturity.

And in an aspect of today’s modern perspectives, these same adoptive parents who once rushed to change their adopted children’s names, will criticize natural parents for allowing their kids to pick out new names for gender affirming reasons. It is a kind of double standard perspective.

One person responding to the question in the first paragraph wrote – “I’m not adopted and haven’t had my name changed. But I had wanted to change my first and last name a lot growing up. I had the same name picked out for like 10 years. As an adult, I’m glad I didn’t get the name change. And I wasn’t even a small child who wanted the name change. It was from the ages of 7 through 17 that I had wanted it.”

Another shared her biological daughter’s perspective saying – “Every time the conversation of names comes up, she is adamant that her name is the perfect name for her and there is no other name in the world she’d ever want. She has asked what other names we considered, which we answered truthfully (because why not), but she is always relieved that her name is hers.”

And one adoptive mother wrote – “Therapists are no help either. My daughter who was five when we adopted asked to change the spelling of her first name. I loved the spelling but wanted to do what was right by her. The therapist told me how healthy it was that she wanted to have control over her life and this was part of her healing. 11 years later she doesn’t remember it was her idea and was mad at me for changing it. I’m so sad that she was thinks I would do that to her. I told her she could change it if she wants.”

In community with adoptees, this is one topic that is sensitive. The name changes have often been to obscure the fact that the child was adopted and is not the natural offspring of the adoptive parents. It is like taking possession of a human being. It can also make finding out one’s true origins that much harder. Names are a very personal issue with most people, even if they did not choose that name for themselves.

You Can Start Over

There is not much a child can do about the circumstances of having been adopted. When a adoptee matures into adulthood, there is a chance to reframe the experience, to find ways to make the unique experiences that an adoptee goes through – a strength.

There is not a universal agreement that adoption harms the self-esteem of adoptees. Studies seem to indicate it does not but adoptees will often highlight the ways that it did harm their own self-esteem. I trust the adoptee’s perception over that of a researcher.

Without a doubt, an adoptee suffers the loss of their natural family connection. This impacts the development of their identity. Often, as an adoptee matures they have an understandable interest in their true genetic information.

Compared to a true orphan who cannot regain the physical presence of their original parents, an adoptee will have a sense that out there somewhere are the people who are related to them genetically. It is like missing a limb that one knows should be there. There will always be an uncertainty and often a level of grief or anger over a situation the adoptee did not create. There is often a fear that if the adoptee does not live up to the expectations of the adoptive parents they could be rejected, abandoned or sent back to some place that is not a home.

In every person’s life there are emotionally charged milestones – marriage, the birth of a child, or the death of a parent – when the unique issues of having been adopted are more keenly felt. In fact, it is often in giving birth to their own children, that an adoptee begins to really want to seek their origin information and if possible, experience a reunion with the people they were taken away from.

It is not possible to undo a life that has always been informed by having been an adopted person. It is possible to seek a perspective that empowers rather than victimizes the adoptee. An adoptee can seek to take control over their life and it’s further direction, something most of them lacked (control) in their childhoods.

In Memoriam

I am now reading a book titled – Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption From a Place of Empowerment and Peace. I read an essay yesterday by Susan Perry and felt such a connection with her that I was seeking to reach out to her and discovered sadly that she had died some years ago.

She is quoted as saying –

“Sealed record laws afford more rights to the dead than they do to the
living and they bind the adopted person to a lifetime restraining order.”
~ Susan Perry

Just like my paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather, she was the product of a married man and a woman not his wife. They were both of Danish ancestry, just as my paternal grandfather was. An immigrant, not yet a citizen, married to a woman 20+ years his senior.

Susan’s adoptive mother had no idea how often her interior thoughts had turned to her ancestors. Who were they, and what was her story ? My own mom had similar questions.

Mrs Perry did know that her adoptive parents truly loved her, and that love
and support helped to make her the person she was in life. I believe I can say the same about all of the adoptive parents in my own family’s lives.

Yet, our genes are some part of what makes us the person we each are as well.

It is only natural that any adoptee that reaches adulthood (if not sooner) will want to know who passed those genes down to them.

I have bumped up against sealed records in three states – Virginia, Arizona and California. I realize how incredibly fortunate I am to have uncovered ALL of my original grandparents. I have the DNA tests that no one saw the inexpensive cost and prevalence of even 20 years ago as well as the matching sites Ancestry.com and 23 and Me to thank for most of my own success.

So many adoptees are never that fortunate. Sealed records are unjust and damaging to so many people. They encourage unhealthy thinking, repression, and denial as the means for coping with life.

I wonder if, because of adoption, my own mom did not feel empowered to take charge of her own story, just as Susan wrote in her essay.

Even so, every adopted person’s journey is unique.

It is difficult for me, as the child of two adoptees, to understand why as a culture we continue to shackle adopted people to an institution that is governed by such archaic and repressive laws, when the data clearly shows that most original mothers are open to contact. Those who are not, can simply say “no”.

Once an adoptee becomes an adult – they do not need outside agents supervising their own, very personal business.

Repressive laws set the tone – either/or thinking. There is a belief that adoptees who search are expressing disloyalty to their adoptive parents, or that the adoptee should just “be grateful” and move on. Attitudes of this kind are hurtful and dismissive.

Here’s the TRUTH, adoptees have two sets of parents – and a unique mix of DNA and upbringing. It is belittling and unfair to tell adoptees that they are not entitled by law to access their own original birth certificates. Every other American citizen has no such restriction.

This is institutional discrimination and there is no really good reason it exists. Adoptee rights bills have accumulated plenty of evidence that they are beneficial for the majority of persons for whom adoption is some part of their personal story.