A Different System

A women who lives in Germany and hopes to adopt, shares how their system is different than the one in the United States where I live. She mentions that her father is adopted and that she is half American/half German.

The German system is totally different when compared to the US. There are no adoption agencies, everything goes through child services and you can’t “pick” a child, nor are you allowed to talk to the birth parents and make a deal with them. In order to adopt here, you have to go through about a year full of different evaluations.

First they come to do a house inspection, you have to prove your income and debts. Then, you have very intense sessions with the social workers where you share your childhood experiences and upbringing, explain why you want to adopt and whether you’ve resolved the reason you don’t already have children or have grieved about any infertility or lost children.

After that, you have a 2 day workshop with a psychiatrist, who must clear you as fit to adopt. You also have to be cleared by your doctor, to determine whether you have any type of mental or physical illness that would make you unfit to adopt or foster, as well as anything of concern that might cause an early death (ie cancer, etc).

After going through all of that, there is another house visit is made to check whether anything has changed. Then, if you make it that far, you get the ok from child services and are on an adoption list.

If a child is put up for adoption, child services goes through the list and chooses the best couple for the child. Fully open adoption are very uncommon in Germany but the birth parents can change their decision during the first year of surrendering their child.

One commenter noted – Sounds like Germany puts effort into vetting and preparing hopeful adoptive parents but do they put effort into maintaining family unit, family preservation, and supporting parents in crisis pregnancies to keep and parent their child ?

One wrote – I do applaud moms having a year to change their mind and get their child back. Is it actually that simple or does a judge have to approve in best interest case?

This was the reply – In Germany, child services does take a look at the mom to see if she is stable enough to take the child back. Germany has great ways of helping – so if she wants it, she will definitely get the help she needs. The main goal is to always keep the children with their birthparents and if not, at least in the family, if at all possible.

Someone else inquired – You don’t mention how the child came to be available for adoption. Where do the adoptable kids come from? Once adopted, are they issued fake birth certificates with the adoptive parents names listed?

The answer – there are different ways: there are “drop boxes” in hospitals. If a mother has her baby at home, she can take her baby to the drop box. The baby is put up for adoption after an 8 week waiting period, to see if the mother comes back to claim the child. If she comes back up, after the 8 weeks or within a year, the adoption will be reversed. The second option is that she has the baby in the hospital and uses a fake/anonymous name, then the hospital contacts child services, who will try to talk her into keeping her baby, but if she doesn’t want to. then the 1 year stage also starts. And the third option is that a pregnant woman goes directly to child services and says she wants to put her unborn child up for adoption. If she remains consistent in that desire, she can have a say in the type of adoptive parents she wants for her child. She is allowed to meet them in person but no personal information is exchanged – no last names, no addresses.

In Germany, once the child is officially adopted in court, the birth certificate is changed. The mother can leave her name and an address for the child to be given when the child reaches the age of 16. This is entirely the birth mother’s choice to do or not. The birth father also has the 1 year right to make a claim. In some cases, if the adoption is already finalized, he may only receive visitation rights but in some other cases, the adoption is reversed and the father receives custody of the child. A judge makes that decision based on the child’s welfare and the father’s life.

There is a law in Germany that child services remains in contact with the family until the adopted child’s 18th birthday. The child always knows they were adopted and that fact is not kept secret.

It is noted that – the German adoption system will not lessen or alleviate adoptee separation trauma any more than the US system. All adoptees should deeply process all aspects of their adoption and realize whatever negative impacts they may be affected by. This is described as absolutely life changing and a gift by those adoptees who have. It does appear that adoption is not nearly as common in Germany as it is not the multi-billion dollar industry there that it is in the United States.

Late Discoveries

This is not as uncommon as you might believe. There are people who believe that someone is their original parent all of their lives, and suddenly, usually because someone in their family has died, they learn the truth. Today’s story is one of those . . .

My grandmother just passed away a few days ago. Yesterday my mother (grandmother’s oldest of six kids) gets a call from one of the sisters who has been taking care of things (the mother is in Colorado, sister and grandmother are in Hawaii). The sister tells my mother that my grandmother was married to another man, prior to marrying the man who we all thought was my mother’s dad.

The first husband was my mother’s actual biological father. He abandoned my grandmother, leaving her with my mom and disappeared. So the ‘grandfather ‘ we always knew, offered to marry my grandmother and tell everyone that my mom was his oldest daughter. They got married and moved to Germany. They told everyone that my mom was his daughter. And this was my mom’s life.

Somehow my mom, lived into her 60’s without ever needing a copy of her birth certificate….honestly, which I am not sure how…but yeah. Now, she needs her birth certificate and asks her mother if she has it….her mom tells her that the hospital had burned down or flooded and all the records were destroyed….

Somehow after going back and forth, my mom managed to get a copy of her birth certificate…which had what she thought was the wrong name on it. It had my great grandmother’s last name on it, my grandmother’s ‘maiden’ name….which coincidentally turns out to be also the last name of her biological father. (Apparently grandmother married a step brother? Maybe. No actual biological relationship though….because his father was not my grandmother’s father and his mother was not her mother.) My mom has a fit and somehow manages to get her birth certificate changed to my grandfather’s last name….all because that is who she has always thought she was.

Now she is questioning everything. Apparently she is not who she thought she was. Her birth certificate should not have my grandfather’s name on it. She wants to know if she is LEGALLY married to my dad…they have been ‘married’ for over 50 years.

But of course – Yes, she is legally married to the woman’s dad because she legally used her legal name when filing for her marriage certificate. Officials do ask for information on the parents, but that is to streamline county record keeping and would not make the marriage certificate null and void. The mom answered those questions to the best of her ability with the knowledge she had, she did not commit fraud and her marriage is valid.

It is shocking to hear something like this. It takes a while to adjust and get through the emotions that any person would feel when presented with such unexpected information. It is not unusual in these kinds of circumstances to find out after one’s mother has passed. In this case, the mom at the age of 70….this grandmother would have been 92, but she passed a few days before her birthday. It is life changing and learning this is like having the rug pulled out from a person.

The sister finding out was accidental. There are three sisters. The father told the second sister in 1984 after he had been drinking too much…and she told everyone but the mother and a third sister. The third sister found out and crying, very upset, told the mother. She only told her because the second sister was threatening to tell the mother but not a nice way. Sadly, the family is a bit horrible and not terribly close.

Adoptee Citizenship Act

I didn’t realize this was a problem until tonight. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 awarded citizenship retroactively to what advocates estimated were more than 100,000 international adoptees under 18 who were already in the country when it went into effect in February 2001. Today, children who are adopted from abroad by US citizens generally receive automatic citizenship, and adoption agencies and embassies are better at informing parents about any follow-up they need to do.

There are estimated to still be tens of thousands of people who were adopted internationally by American parents between the 1950s and 1980s but never naturalized. They are in effect stateless. They are also potentially deportable to countries they don’t even remember.

The Adoptee Citizenship Act is proposed federal legislation that would grant citizenship to anyone who was adopted by a U.S. citizen regardless of when they turned 18. It would also allow those who have been deported to return to the United States. U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (MO), Mazie Hirono (HI), Susan Collins (ME), and Amy Klobuchar (MN) introduced the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2019. A Virtual Rally will take place on Twitter on Wednesday, September 23rd at 2pm EST because HR2731 has still not passed the House. #Citizenship4Adoptees

Widespread adoption of children abroad by US citizens began in South Korea in the 1950s after the Korean War and then spread to other countries. It was initially less regulated than it is now. Advocates estimate there could be up to 18,000 from South Korea alone in this situation, along with an undetermined number from countries such as Venezuela, Germany, India, Guatemala, Vietnam and Iran.

Growing up, they were able to obtain Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. Before the 1990s and early 2000s ushered in a stricter era of screening, many even received US passports, served in the US military and voted — unaware that they were not citizens.