Jealousy After Abandonment

Today’s story – I was abandoned by my birth mother at 8 weeks old and my birth father gave up his rights before I was born. I was left in a house for a week long while my birth mother went on a drug binder. Her roommate is the one that called the police and my grandma. My grandparents become my legal guardians with in the week. At 5 years old I was legally adopted by my grandparents. I do call them mom and dad and those are the terms I will be using here since they are all I know! My mom has 3 children from a previous marriage (my biological mother being one of them) and my dad has 3 children as well. I do have 3 half brothers and 1 I am super close with (we share the same biological mother) and my mom and dad also adopted him when he was 16 years old. I will not be sharing his story, just noting that there was a lot of abuse!

Growing up I never really fit in with my siblings (actually my aunts & uncles), other than my biological brother. They never wanted my parents to adopt me. My dad’s daughter literally cut him out of her life because of it. Both of my mom’s daughters never failed to make me feel out of place. Constantly reminding me that I was “adopted” and therefore, not “blood”. Which technically I am… One of my mother’s daughters would always bring it up, whenever my mom and her got in an argument, even if it was not about me. Mind you, there is over a 20 year difference between that daughter and myself. By the time I was born, she was married with 2 kids. Any time my parents did anything for me, it was “you treat her better than me and I’m your blood daughter”, even if they actually did the same things for her. Anytime I would be hospitalized and my parents would stay at the hospital with me, it would turn into “you spend all your time with her and she’s not even your real daughter”.

Then, she does admit – I had a lot of behavioral issues growing up due to my adoption trauma, so anytime I would have “out bursts” and she was around, she would yell at my mom “are you really gonna let her treat you this way, She’s not even your real daughter. You need to put her in her place”. Comments like that. Her own dad was a “dead beat” dad. So any time my dad would be a dad, she would get pissed. Even though my dad always treated her with respect and never tried to be her dad but he’s all I know. Plus both my mom and dad do so much for her. If she comes for a visit and I’m not there, she wants to know why I’m not helping. My parents are older and have health issues and so, I do my best to take care of them because I only live 10 minutes away.

My mom recently had major back surgery. I went to the hospital and then, cooked for 2 weeks straight – so my dad could focus on my mom and they both could eat good. Well she ended up coming down and my mom asked her to make dinner. She said “ I don’t know how to cook” even though she was a cook for 10 years at a restaurant…. She did end up cooking dinner and I went over there to eat with them. At the dinner table, she made the statement “I don’t cook as much as she does, so it probably won’t be good”… but it was good and everyone said that. It was nice to have someone cook for me as well but she complained that I didn’t help.

The happy news – I got married on October 3rd and so, she will no longer be in my life because I’m tired of putting up with her trying to make me feel small and saying that I do not belong. That is because there were conflicts on the day of her marriage that she was directly responsible for and issues related to her birth mother who is in jail but knows information about her and her brother that appear to have come from this sister/aunt, even though she knows about the abuse and trauma that both of them have endured. Anyway, she says that she is really hurt, heartbroken in fact, and can’t help but think it hurts even more because she is adopted. She notes – That I never felt “at home” or whatever but I always tried to be nice, respectful, and loving and even when I felt like she thought I was not deserving of love.

Another adoptee shares – I’m so sorry! Yes in my experience it has been other family members making adoption feel less than. I feel like I don’t have a family unless I am impervious to being offended and a major people pleaser.

Setting The Record Straight

Simone Biles with Ronald and Nellie Biles

There is not a doubt that the support of grandparents is important in every child’s life. The Olympics have brought a renewed emphasis on the story of Simone Biles and how much her grandparents, who adopted her and a sister, have made her life possible when her parents just had challenges that prevented them from being good parents. I wrote about her quite a few years ago here.

Someone who’s perspective I appreciate shared what are for her key points in this story and so, I will share that here today.

1. The entire story focuses on adoption and adoptive parents and never adoptees. Athletes and celebrities have good PR teams around them to create a narrative about them. During the Olympics, this is when you hear the hardships stories because it allows people to create a connection which equals more money. These kinds of hardships stories are seen on talent shows too.

2. Simone was adopted by her grandparents. She has access to her roots, story, DNA. Kinship adoption is different than stranger adoption. The saddest part is the older children were separated from their younger siblings. The grandparents adopted the younger two which is Simone and her sister who were toddlers at the time, the older two were teens.

3. In 2016, an article said her grandmother, who became her adoptive mom, told the kids they can call her mom and be a real family. Simone stated ever since that day she called her grandparents “mom and dad”. How many adoptive and foster parents try to force or ask the children to call them mom and dad ? Another article said kinship should never try to replace the parents because kinship is about keeping connections.

4. The media paints her biological parents as terrible and adoption as amazing. Simone has contact with their biological mother and was part of her life. The media outlining her biological mother’s struggles and bashing her to uplift adoptive parents and adoption was gross. TMZ found her biological mom and she’s doing well now. It’s sad how people’s past, when they were struggling, is used against them. We didn’t need to know her biological mom’s story.

5. I’ve heard former foster youth and current foster youth who are upset that Simone is being used as a poster child for foster care and adoption. After the Rio Olympics, one of my former placements said she’s tired of hearing about Simone Biles because she felt she doesn’t represent the majority of foster kids. A former foster youth, said a foster child will never be an Olympic gymnast and it’s ridiculous to use her to recruit foster parents. Also, this forces the foster child to feel grateful.

6. Simone is an amazing gymnast but she has trauma and struggles with her own mental health. Placing her as a poster child for foster care and adoption, does a disservice to foster kids and adoptees. It also does a disserve to Simone. She’s not here to save the day.

7. Recently, a video has been going around of Simone stating adoption saved her and if it weren’t for adoption and her parents, she wouldn’t be here. The Today Show host Hoda is also an adoptive mom. I can’t say this enough, but if an adoptee says they’re grateful for adoption and their adoptive parents, please don’t use this against adoptees you disagree with or with your own children. Never ever expect your foster and adopted children to feel grateful for you or for adoption/foster care.

Unfortunately the media and public loves a good tragic back story, but Simone’s story shouldn’t be used against foster kids or adoptees. I remember cringing when my local agency said you can foster and adopt the next Simone Biles who made the Olympics. Gross.

Adoption and foster care IS traumatic.

If Simone ever decides to speak about any of her experiences that the public disagrees with or doesn’t tow the party line, she’d be called ungrateful. An adoptee went though this at the winter Olympics after saying she wanted to find her biological family. She said some things about adoption many didn’t like hearing.

I wish her family didn’t go public and allowed her to decide when she wanted to and if she wanted certain things shared. Now that it’s out there, she has to be careful about what she says.

Also, for those fighting reunification just stop. Supporting Simone means advocating for families to stay together. We don’t know where Simone would’ve ended up or who she would have become – if she didn’t have her grandparents to take her in. The majority of outcomes for foster kids are extremely sad. The odds of doing gymnastics as a foster kid are vanishingly very low.

One other note from an adoptee – I am quite sure many Black people do not acknowledge her adoption. It is common in our community for grandparents to step in and raise grandchildren, when the biological parents are incapable. The majority of us from the Caribbean were raised by our grandparents while our parents left for different countries, neglect us or new opportunities. (blogger’s note – in fact it is common in the rural community in Missouri where I live and there are very few Black people living here.)

Difficult Conversations

Not the child in today’s story.

We have guardianship of a 7yr old. He has lived with us twice before through foster care but always returned home after sobriety was achieved.

Guardianship happened after the 3rd relapse in 6 years.

Grandparents have guardianship of some older siblings and often go camping in the summer and invite his mom to join them (their daughter and mother of the kids).

How would you navigate the conversation of yes he can go camping with his family but he can’t move back in with his mom, since she is still in rehab and we don’t know when/if he ever will, due to her substance abuse history?

Is it as simple as saying it that way? I don’t want to overcomplicate it.

He knows that his mom was arrested for drugs and that’s why he has lived with us through the years. His whole life we have genuinely had a good relationship with his mom. We send her pictures and he has had several supervised visits since the last relapse and they FaceTime several times during the week.

One suggestion – “All grown-ups need help taking care of kids. That’s why we are teamed up with the adults in your family, so that we can all help each other take the best care of you.”

One person formerly in foster care asks – Do you think he would want to go? I’m only speaking from my personal experience. I didn’t like events like that when I was a kid with my father because he would try to act like he was this good dad and it was uncomfortable and I felt out of place the entire time. That’s not to say he shouldn’t go but there are a lot of emotional things to navigate outside of just her sobriety.

Another one suggested – put it back on the courts, if he asks. “Right now the judge decided it’s best for you to stay with us. When the judge tells us you can come back to your mom we will absolutely make it happen.” And if he asks when, it’s okay to say that you don’t know but will keep him updated as soon as you do.

An elementary school teacher who has some experience with parents that have addiction issues said – the camping experience is an opportunity for an extended visit with your mom and grandparents. Your mom and grandparents are going to make sure you and your siblings have a great time together. Your mom is still doing some really important work to be her best, and she still needs some more time to do that. Which means you are not going to go home to live with her yet. She added – ask if he’s comfortable with that because it might be more traumatic for him to deal with that separation all over again. She also suggested a therapist to talk about the trauma he’s experienced, in general. She then shared – My mom struggled with addiction for years and, while I was never removed, I wish I could have had someone who didn’t make her the bad guy for fighting a really difficult disease. It takes an incredible amount of work to fight that addiction, and kudos to his mom to keep trying.

One adoptive parent said – Sometimes the answers are just what they are and there isn’t a nice explanation just a hard truth. we just talk about it honestly. Mom had a drug addiction and tons of childhood trauma herself. We talk about those things. How trauma and addiction can effect us. We always emphasize that it isn’t anything against them. She added – my experience is to always go with the truth. Sometimes the situation just sucks and it is ok to say that. And added – she never negatively talks about their Mom – ever – but the girls sometimes express anger. We validate those feelings but I never jump on that bandwagon.

A Grandparent’s Lament

A woman writes that she is heartbroken because her twin grandbabies were recently adopted. I was surprised by how many other grandparents chimed in with similar sadness. They were only 3 days old and she didn’t know if they were still in the hospital. She said I’m so clueless – how could this be done ? Does it get finalized in court ? Does mom have to appear to finalize the adoption ? She has researched it and found the mom has to go to court within 72 hours and appear before the judge to confirm signing off her rights as they are in Tennessee. She notes that her son and the mother are both here at her house hiding in their room. She admits that she hasn’t spoken to them in almost 2 weeks, but also told them they had to find somewhere else to live. She feels that she will never want to speak to my son again and yet that saddens her.

Someone shares her own experience of how these things sometimes proceed – in her case, both were both discharged at the same time, according to the hospital’s typical protocols (48 hours after vaginal birth, 72 after c-section). She notes that the relinquishing parents may have a choice in whether the baby goes straight to the adopters or whether the baby goes to a foster home until the revocation period is over. She had that choice but every state has different laws. In her case, her son actually left the hospital with her (and the social worker was following them in her car). They went to a nearby chapel, where she had a ceremony with the adopters and handed him over to them. This happened 48 hours after birth and she had 7 days to change her mind, after the day she signed the paperwork (which happened 24 hours after birth). She says, “I think you are trying to make sense of what is happening, so I’m sharing my story to try to give you some mental pictures. But the truth is, with every state having different laws and with adoption being such a BUSINESS, the situation with your grand babies might be completely different than what I’ve described.”

Someone notes – Family should always be first. The grandmother admits there are times when children need to be adopted because they are in bad situations but our family is good, and we offered to help but were turned down. And then goes on to share – My son and girlfriend thought they would have a better chance with a family that could love and care for them. Someone that couldn’t have kids and wanted to adopt. Me and my husband told them we would help them care for them, but they wanted to do it! They have other children, I guess they didn’t want to start over again! I wanted them and now I’m so hurt, I didn’t have a granddaughter, now she’s gone.

Someone else shares – I think adoptees need to shout about their experiences. Everyone thinks adoption is the perfect solution but even the adopters are human beings, so they have problems: divorce, addiction, anger, depression, family secrets… it’s just that they don’t share them with social services when they are getting assessed. So everyone thinks they’re perfect and I know they aren’t. In the UK, social workers don’t want to get blamed for missing signs of abuse within the birth family, so they would rather just take babies – just in case. But then, that would mean they need to take everyone’s babies, just in case the woman is with a total idiot who in the future might be abusive. That’s why the system in the UK is overwhelmed and they are crying out for more and more foster carers because they have too many children in the system. I’ve been to 3 court cases now, I got custody of the first child (my granddaughter), the second child was a twin and was a boy (my first grandson) and he was adopted. Then the third and fourth children were both boys and they remain with my daughter with no involvement from the state. I don’t understand why they wanted my first grandson. Nobody was told the day of the adoption hearing. It was kept secret, so nobody could go in and try and revoke it. In the UK, it is impossible to get your babies back when they have been granted adoption, as they take the birth mother’s rights away, in court, immediately.

A grandparent shares – My twin grandbabies are in the system too. I have their older brother. The middle boy got adopted. So unfair. Another asks – Why on earth are all these babies being traumatised??? You would have to get my grandkids adopted over my dead body. Don’t you people realize adoption destroys babies well-being? Traumatizes them??

Someone notes – It is beyond me at this point to understand that people are still willing to destroy families and adopt a child like this. The social narrative about adoption MUST change. These parents were severely misinformed and will regret this the rest of their lives. Another says – Grandparents are left out of the equation. Another noted – Adoption affects the whole family. Yet another says, It happened to me. My 3 grandbabies were adopted. I have not hugged them for 9 years now. And this one is angry – My granddaughters were adopted out too. I hate Child Protective Services. They care more about money than the kids. The adoption agencies are evil too. It’s legalized human trafficking.

What Really Matters

Family Matters

A question today for adoptive parents – do you set aside your own desires to meet the needs of your adopted child ? After adoption is finalized, too often promises made are not kept. Examples – [1] a first mother with an open adoption promise. The adoptive parents moved to another continent (Europe, mom is in U.S.) when child was about four. They promised at least annual visits but regularly find excuses to cancel. [2] an adoptive dad, even though he sees how desperate his son is for his siblings, he simply never prioritizes visits to maternal grandma and sisters. He chooses to believe it isn’t *that* important to him (son) – simply because it isn’t that important to him (dad).

An adoptive parent answers – I can’t speak to this because my daughter has zero birth family connections but in general I’ve done what is necessary to put my daughter’s need for connection outside of me ahead of my own needs. The closest adult to her moved very suddenly across the state and we followed without hesitation because the loss would have ruined her. I fly her to see the people who mean the most to her all the time. These days that often means she’s in my home state but I don’t get to see her and I’m careful to never say anything that could be construed as guilting or pressuring. And I’m sending her for a month this summer to the other side of the country to study under a mentor who is definitely the most influential female to ever be in her life because she’s seeking out that connection. We’ve put all of our financial resources into supporting these needs because I feel like she is owed ways to continue connecting with mirrors and people who aren’t just us. If she had genetic connections, I would break the bank to make that happen. I do not understand how AT VERY LEAST adoptive parents can’t stop and wonder how their selfish need for approval will play out in the long term. There are tons of days I miss my kid so much I can barely function but it isn’t her job to make me feel better or fill my voids. It’s my one and only job to make sure she has the opportunities and resources to become her best and most whole self.

From a foster parent – I never travel to see my own biological family because I am not in contact with them at all. With that being said, if a child in my care (adopted, permanent guardianship etc) wanted to travel to see their biological family… how could I deny that ? True, I’ve never traveled to see my own biological family. It’s not something we think about at all, so I appreciate this post for bringing it up in this context. I now will make a point to consider this perspective and allow any non-biological kids to travel to see their biological family… just because I don’t do it with my own biological family doesn’t mean a non-biological child in my care can’t see their own biological family.

A mother who lost her child to adoption notes – I feel this so much. I felt like I was never part of the adoptive parent’s family, even with an “open” adoption and the adoptive parent’s extended family is almost always seen as more important and has more frequent contact with the adoptee than birth parents/family. This shouldn’t be the case.

Another adoptive parent writes – I always wondered how openness works for out-of-state adoptions, particularly when the child is young and needs to be accompanied on flights (a lot of domestic infant adoptions seem to be out-of-state, which seems odd to me). While my husband and I see our families way less than the kids’ (2x in the last 3 years vs 2-4x a month) that’s not a sacrifice, that’s geography. Except for special occasions a few times a year, I reserve friend time / date ‘night’ for when the kids are in school, so that I am always available when they are not (this is a huge privilege I am afforded by not working outside the home and because my husband has a flexible schedule.)

Yet – how I fall short?

Youngest (age 11, adopted at 8) doesn’t like sleepovers. Sleepovers are a big part of her family culture. I also don’t like sleepovers (for myself.) I could probably get her to sleep over with relatives, if I came too, but in my opinion, that’s weird for a grown-ass adult to invite themselves to a sleepover at someone else’s house. I’ve “compromised” by driving her to visit early in the morning and picking her up right before bed, but the right thing to do would likely be to invite myself along to her sleepover invitations, so that she goes.

Eldest (age16, adopted at 14) spends way less time with family than she did prior to my home. She’s straight up told me it’s because she’s now allowed to have friends and because I taught her about boundaries and that if she were in her prior placement, she would spend way more time with family. While to me boundaries and friends are important for teen development, I still did, indirectly, cause her to withdraw from family and I do feel guilty about that.

An interesting point of view emerges – I have seen my mom go out of her way to keep the family connected but the biological family could care less. I believe the costs to see the kid should be on the biological parents, not the adopted parents and the adopted parents (and family) shouldn’t be inconvenienced for the visit… so I do feel like the biological mom should be able to get to Europe on her own to see the child.

The reply from the one who initially asked the questions was – In most domestic infant adoptions, moms are relinquishing because of lack of resources and support. Most adoptive parents have financial resources (or they fundraised to buy the baby). So, you’re saying that the mom (who already felt so choiceless that she relinquished her son) should find a way to travel to Europe with her daughter as often as she wants to see her son – because….. it’s her own fault she relinquished??? They didn’t live in Europe before adopting. She didn’t know they were going to move there. I don’t think they knew but if they did, they didn’t tell her and moved four years later. They are the ones who committed to openness and visits.

As a mother who relinquished because of threats, coercion and lack of support (and ultimately, a belief that I was not good enough), I’m having a hard time with your perspective. Maybe you can explain to me why you feel the adoptive family “shouldn’t be inconvenienced” for the sake of a child they chose to parent who needs to see their family? Do you think you’re drawing directly from the situation closest to you and this is based on feelings you have about your adopted sibling’s biological family ?

The explanation – the biological family has done no shows or come when they feel like it… especially concerning the kids we have fostered. (I note that we have successfully reunited about 30 kids with their families). I’m no longer stopping my day or the other children’s day for a visit that may never actually take place….the social worker can come get them or the biological parents can meet and join us where we are…this is purely based on years of experience…. And I don’t inform small children about potential visits because often times they are let down and the biological parents are no shows…none of my adopted siblings biological parents willingly gave up rights. The rights were terminated after YEARS. We tried to assist them in every way including allowing the biological mom to live with us – she just didn’t care to get it together…. We fought and advocated hard for their parents to get it together because we did NOT want to adopt them. We believe kids belong with family first.

That satisfied her question – therefore, your perspective regarding my general post to adoptive parents about the kids in their care is based entirely on your very limited personal experience (and a kind of obvious bias against the biological family). Thank you for explaining. I’ll ignore your opinion that my friend ought to be able to find her own way to Europe, if she wants to see her son.

From another adoptive parent – This is a hard one right now because every post in here talks about prioritizing the adoptee’s wants, but it is the natural mother who is always asking for more. We can spend a week with her and then, the adoptees choose not to do a video chat the next week and she will say that they are pushing her away and hate her. I have often wondered, if we stopped constantly offering contact, how often the adoptees would ask for contact. Right now, if we go to the state she lives in for any reason – we see her, we have 3 of our own family members in the same state and we only see one or two of them each time but ALWAYS prioritize seeing the natural mother. But we don’t ASK the adoptees WHEN they want to see the natural mother, we say, “we are going on a trip to her state, you want to see her, right?” And they shrug and say sure. The one area that I have definitely not made any effort is the other natural family members. One time a natural uncle reached out and that time I asked the adoptees and both said, nah. Not a NO, but a nah. I told the natural uncle that the adoptees didn’t want to meet with him on that particular trip. He hasn’t asked since and the adoptees have not asked either.

Another person offers this perspective – it seems, at least to me, that it’s very much obviously the job of adoptive parent to positively facilitate and maintain those first family relationships without being asked, rather than passively wait for child(ren) to ask for it to be facilitated and maintained. In the same way that we don’t generally wait for children to ask to be enrolled in education, have medical checkups or do any of the other “boring” stuff that’s good for them in the long term but not necessarily stimulating or enjoyable every time they do it. In my experience of talking and listening to foster and adoptive parents I’ve noticed an unmissable pattern, wherein the weight put on the opinions and feelings of children varies wildly from situation to situation in a way that seems arbitrary – until you notice that it correlates with the typically desired outcomes of the average foster or adoptive parent. Children being ambivalent about their first families is usually accepted at face value – embraced and validated, even. There is something incredibly permissive about that. A permissiveness that, on closer inspection, almost never extends to other areas of their parenting. It gets framed as giving children agency and there’s very little introspection on whether or not it amounts to the foster or adoptive parent neglecting their responsibility to make reasonable decisions, on behalf of the children, to set up the opportunity for them to form and maintain a relationship, a parent-child or other familial bond.

Truth No Longer Matters ?

When there is no agreed criterion to distinguish science from pseudoscience or just plain ordinary BS, it is post-empirical science, where truth no longer matters and it IS potentially very dangerous.

Case in point – Diane Baird – who labeled her method for assessing families the “Kempe Protocol” after the renowned University of Colorado institute where she worked for decades. From a ProPublica expose – LINK>An Expert Admits Her Evaluations Are Unscientific.

From that story – Diane Baird had spent four decades evaluating the relationships of poor families with their children. But last May, in a downtown Denver conference room, with lawyers surrounding her and a court reporter transcribing, she was the one under the microscope. Baird is a social worker and professional expert witness. She has routinely advocated in juvenile court cases across Colorado that foster children be adopted by or remain in the custody of their foster parents rather than being reunified with their typically lower-income birth parents or other family members.

Was Baird’s method for evaluating these foster and birth families empirically tested? No, Baird answered: Her method is unpublished and unstandardized, and has remained “pretty much unchanged” since the 1980s. It doesn’t have those “standard validity and reliability things,” she admitted. “It’s not a scientific instrument.” Who hired and was paying her in the case that she was being deposed about? The foster parents, she answered. They wanted to adopt, she said, and had heard about her from other foster parents.

Had she considered or was she even aware of the cultural background of the birth family and child whom she was recommending permanently separating? (The case involved a baby girl of multiracial heritage.) Baird answered that babies have “never possessed” a cultural identity, and therefore are “not losing anything,” at their age, by being adopted. Although when such children grow up, she acknowledged, they might say to their now-adoptive parents, “Oh, I didn’t know we were related to the, you know, Pima tribe in northern California, or whatever the circumstances are.” (Actually, the Pima tribe is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area.)

A fundamental goal of foster care, under federal law, is for it to be temporary: to reunify children with their birth parents if it is safe to do so or, second best, to place them with other kin. Extensive social science research has found that kids who grow up with their own families experience less long-term separation trauma, fewer mental health and behavioral problems as adolescents and more of an ultimate sense of belonging to their culture of origin.

But a ProPublica investigation co-published with The New Yorker in October revealed that there is a growing national trend of foster parents undermining the foster system’s premise by “intervening” in family court cases as a way to adopt children. As intervenors, they can file motions and call witnesses to argue that they’ve become too attached to a child for the child to be reunited with their birth family, even if officials have identified a biological family member who is suitable for a safe placement.

A key element of the intervenor strategy, ProPublica found, is hiring an attachment expert like Baird to argue that rupturing the child’s current attachment with his or her foster parents could cause lifelong psychological damage — even though Baird admitted in her deposition that attachment is a nearly inevitable aspect of the foster care model. (Transitions of children back to their birth families are not just possible, they happen every day in the child welfare system.)

In the Huerfano County case, Baird filed a report saying that the baby girl’s life with her foster parents was “predictable, safe, and filled with love”; that removing her from them and placing her with her biological grandma — with whom the girl had been having regular, joyful visits — would “derail her healthy development and create lifelong risk”; and that her “healthy development and mental health will be best protected if her current caregiving environment does not change.”

Baird, in an interview with ProPublica, admitted that “I do sometimes use the same verbiage in one report as I did in others.” But, she added in an email, “My consistency is not a boiler-plate approach, but rather reflects developmental science which applies to all children.” She emphasized, “In all cases I advocate for what I am convinced is the child’s best interest.”

Baird also noted that in many cases she is hired by county officials, rather than directly by foster parents, although ProPublica’s interviews and review of records show that this typically happens when officials are in agreement with the foster parents that they should get continuing or permanent custody. Baird, despite not being a child psychologist, achieves credibility with these officials — and with judges — in part via the impressive label that she uses for her methodology: the Kempe Protocol.

Founded in the 1970s, the Kempe Center is best known for getting laws passed across the country requiring “mandated reporters” like teachers and police officers to call in any suspicion of child abuse or neglect to a state hotline — after which kids were to be removed from their families, into foster care, if there was evidence of maltreatment. “No organization,” said Marty Guggenheim, the founder of the nation’s indigent family defense movement, “played a more direct role in shaping the modern system of surveillance, over-reporting, and under-emphasizing of the harms associated with state intervention.”

In recent years, Kempe has taken a more critical look at its past, accepting some institutional responsibility for what it has called the “myth of benevolence”: the idea that certain kids should be redistributed from their families to (often better-off) foster and adoptive parents. The center recently released a statement saying that it had participated in ignoring poverty by placing sole responsibility for poor children’s health and well-being on their families’ alleged maltreatment of them. The statement acknowledged the center’s “complicity” in its “generation-spanning impacts.”

Some of Kempe’s staff have called Baird’s method a “bogus Kempe protocol” and “junk science” used “to rip apart families.” She is “leveraging the Kempe name to bolster her opinion.” Drawing from the foster parents’ version of events, Baird routinely reports to the county or testifies in court that visits with the birth family have been detrimental to the child, and, accordingly, she recommends that the foster parents keep the child indefinitely or permanently, on the basis of attachment theory. She has called just this amount of evaluation “the Kempe Protocol” in several cases we reviewed.

Sadly, there appears to be no clear recourse for all of the birth families who’ve lost their children in the past because of Baird’s work.

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.

Back Together Again

Image is not the people in today’s story from my all things adoption group –

When I was 6 weeks old, my biological mother abandoned me. My grandparents got guardianship of me and ended up adopting me when I was 6. My biological mother, that same year, gave birth to my brother. She and his father end up abusing him, so my grandparents become his legal guardians. Unfortunately, my grandparents chose not keep us together and so adopted him out. The family he was adopted into could not have kids at the time he was adopted but then, later on they ended up actually having 4 biological kids of their own.

The adoptive family were racist people ! They abused him mentally, financially, and physically. They had cut all ties with me, claiming I was a bad influence because I would call him my brother, which was confusing their other kids. Fast forward, when he was 13-14 years old, they locked him out of the house due to a physical altercation. His adoptive mother claimed he was the cause it happened but the only person that was beaten up was him. He was told to “go find a new family, that he was not wanted anymore”.

The first person he called was me ! My grandma and I drove for 10 hours overnight. We contacted a lawyer and went to see him (he was at a friend’s). That started a long, hard, 3 year battle in court to get him away from them.

This situation really shined a light for me on how messed up the system is ! I’m happy to say my grandparents won ! We all won !! Today marks the 2 year anniversary of us becoming brother and sister legally again !! I am happy to say he is thriving since getting away from those people. Our bond throughout the years never wavered !

Ignorant Questions

Yesterday, at the Missouri History Museum, a couple of men that work there were relaxing. I was sitting down because when I have to stand without moving much my legs give me a lot of trouble now. Looking at my sons, taking in some exhibits along a hallway in view of these men, one asked me if they were my sons. Because I had them at an advanced age, I’ve often been asked if I was their grandmother. To one young girl at Chuck E Cheese years ago, who didn’t believe I was their mom, I could honestly tell her, she wasn’t totally wrong because I was a grandmother to two grandchildren. When my husband caught up with me yesterday, these men remarked on him being a “good dad”, which he is. I always knew he would be and so, when he admitted to me after 10 years of marriage that he actually did want to have children after all, I quickly agreed to carry his children.

While not everyone will agree with the advice I was given long ago, but I have lived by it. Never ask a question that might be overly personal, uncomfortable, intrusive or embarrassing. Even so, I do get asked and will always answer, even the most ignorant of questions.

Today’s story is about that kind of situation. A woman who is a kinship caregiver shares – Our nephew has been placed with us since he was 2 months, and is now 2 years old, so will be starting to understand soon. People in public obviously just assume I’m mom, and say stuff like “are these your kids?” Or “how old are your kids?” (I also get a lot of “dang girl, don’t you know what causes that?”) My nephew and my daughter are less than 9 months apart. I’m not sure what is best in that situation. Is it necessary to point out I’m not mom? Will that hurt is feelings and make him feel out of place? He knows his mom, and we refer to her as mom, but I don’t think he has quite grasped yet what that means. I’m not sure how to get him to develop more of a relationship with her. She can only make it to see him about once a month, and I am a stay at home mom, so we are together 24/7. He runs to me when he is hurt or scared, and cries when she first takes him out of my arms. I know it hurts her feelings. He does cuddle her and play well with her once he warms up. Should I even be pushing, or let him go at his own pace?

One suggested – You don’t owe a whole explanation to strangers but it’s easy enough to say “he’s my nephew” and change the subject.

Another shared – Regardless of whether the kids with me are being fostered, are my forever kids, bonus kids, kids friends, nieces/nephews, when asked if they’re all mine or something similar I say something along the lines of “they’re all with me” “why do you ask?” Or “Does it matter?” Depending on the tone of the asker. If someone says something like “don’t you know what causes that” or “wow you started young”, I’ll say “don’t you know when to mind your business?” Or “wow you’re too old to not know better than to ask such personal questions.” I’m not playing with people that can’t mind their business, and I’m not explaining myself to strangers. As for the bonding, it will happen.

Another admits – I typically come back with a smart ass comment when people ask if they’re my kids! Why the hell do they need to know that, it’s none of their business!! (blogger’s note – I suspect I am just too nice with strangers. LOL I probably assume they don’t know better.)

I did like this straight forward response – Just say he is your nephew. The truth.

This one made me chuckle – If they are not close enough to you to know who he is, they deserve ZERO explanation. It’s absolutely no one’s business but his and yours. I have 3 kids who are within 5 months of each other. Not twins or biological to me or each other. They aren’t even the same ethnic background as me or each other and we get the same “don’t you know what causes that?!?” Remarks. My response is “oh my god! no!! i have no idea!! please educate me!!!!” then stare at them. Makes them so uncomfortable.

Another kinship caregiver explains – I never wanted to take that title away from any child’s parent, even if I was doing the things a parent would do. I agreed to take on those responsibilities. I don’t need to have the title. To which the original woman explains – a lot of adopted people I know tell me they would have felt “othered,” if they had been discouraged from calling their “parents” mom and dad. I don’t care about the title, I just don’t want to hurt his feelings. He’s not adopted, but they have told us this will be a permanent placement. Everyone is telling me to not let him call me mom, but I can’t look at a two year old and basically say, “no, MY kids can call me that, but you can’t.” When I play the same role in all of their lives, and have since he was a newborn. A former foster care/adoptee explains – I hate that even now I am the “other.” I hated having to explain to my peers why I didn’t call the people in my home mom or dad. Now I hate when I have to explain that the people my kids call grandma and grandpa aren’t my parents. (Or my husbands either) I struggle so much with that.

One foster parent notes – I think we all have to agree that there can’t be any one “right” way to parent, because every child/person is different. But I think there’s a common goal of putting the child’s needs first, while also preserving the relationship with his birth mother.

Someone else pretty much shares my own perspective – I think more people should mind their own business and not feel enabled to ask such personal questions as freely as they do. There have been some great cordial smackdowns in some of the other comments. I would use those liberally.

Another adds – I say he is my nephew. If they push anymore after that, I will tell people to not assume or ask. If it’s someone you’re going to see repeatedly, then it may be worth a response, but for random fly-by interactions, they aren’t owed anything. This was a good reply – When asked if all were my kids, I always smiled and said yep, its my hobby to collect ’em. Another replies – “That’s an incredibly inappropriate question to ask a stranger.” Or “Didn’t your grown ups teach you, if you didn’t have something kind to say, you shouldn’t say it?”

Child Removal

A point was made in my all things adoption group that “Child removal is a separate issue from adoption.” My image comes from a post at Generocity by Steve Volk titled LINK>Black families confront a child welfare system that seems intent on separating children from parents. I already had encountered information about that before.

In my group, an adoptee admits – It was 100% right for me to be removed from my biological mother, it was 100% wrong for me to be adopted when I could’ve aged out of the system. I was 17 when I got adopted. I had less than 8 months til I turned 18.

Another adoptee says – there’s a big difference between foster care and infant adoption but the effects on us remain the same. Not one of us, who care about reform, advocate for a child to remain in harm. Those with a lived experience of adoption and foster care know – it often does more harm than good.

One adopted as an infant says – I have to remind people that external care may be necessary but adoption is not. I required external care. I did not required adoption.

One person with experience with the foster care court system has questions – Why is adoption considered to be creating permanency and pushed so heavily? Initially one would think cost of care, but when subsidies are factored in, is this cost really an issue? I guess there could be more governmental cost incurred due to employing caseworkers, etc. Is the current system a “fix” for the broken system where kids remained in long term foster care most of their lives and never have a “family” atmosphere? Where did the Adoption and Safe Families Act come from, that made it a federal law that kicks in at 15 to 22 months after removal?

Some possible answers come – society, on the whole, has specific views about adoption that have been absorbed into the mainstream view. What percentage of people in the whole of society are CONSCIOUSLY AWARE that an adoption can be disrupted by the adoptive parents, that children are rehomed by their adoptive parents, or that adopted children are over-represented in residential treatment centers? Only a small percentage of people who have no experience with adoption know these things. However, there are also people who ARE involved in some part with adoption situations that don’t realize these either.

There are systemic issues. Some stem from sociological issues that could be addressed on a larger scale (and, to an extent, are now being addressed on social media). Because of systemic issues, removals happen that shouldn’t. Those children are sold to couples who can afford to pay, instead of giving their actual parents support.

From another – Honestly. It makes adults feel better that this brings permanency and that it makes the kid feel stable. It only brings that, if you’ve told the kid that’s what brings stability. The local foster group always bashes anyone who says they’re going for guardianship. Telling them how the biological family will be dragging them into court every month. Saying how it’s awful and the kids deserve better.

And yet another perspective and a story from real life – it came out of frustration with children being held in foster care and shifted from home to home with no permanency over many years (5-10 or more) while parents made no progress towards reunification. The United States loves big one-size-fits-all solutions to complex problems. This act created massive incentives for states to get kids out of foster care and into adoptive homes. Arizona is one of the WORST examples. My friend was forced to adopt her granddaughter after just 12 months in care. Had she not been adopted by her grandma, Child Protective Services was going to place her with strangers who would. She was young (about 3), blonde and white appearing (although ~3/4s Hispanic), healthy, etc. Quickly out the door for a kid like her. Did the girl need to be removed from her situation with her mother? 100% but the timeframe for reunification was totally unrealistic. The mother eventually did get sober and stable but it took her 5 years, not 1. They eventually went to court to vacate the adoption and won a huge settlement from the state. After living with her mother for a few years, this girl is now back with my friend as her guardian because the mother could not stay sober, housed etc. But she is safe and loved and with family without being adopted. This time Child Protective Services was not involved. Incidentally, my friend was raised by her aunt because her own mother had many issues and my friend was never adopted. She wanted to do the same for her grandchild (as she is now) but the state forced her to do it their way.

An adoptee wants to clarify – When people just say they’re anti-adoption, it sounds to abused kids like you think they should be left with their abusive birth parents no matter what. When you’ve been abused by your birth parents, some people act like that’s their right – you’re their property. It’s very important to know that’s NOT what you mean.

One transracial adoptee notes – my mother did nothing wrong but my brother and I were taken. He’s still out there somewhere because the Catholic church recommended we didn’t stay together.

One person notes – it should also be possible to support families *before* abuse becomes an issue. Our society isn’t equipped for that right now. Our government would prefer to throw money at foster care, rather than at family preservation.

From an adoptive/foster care parent – There’s a difference between feeding the adoption industry and helping kids whose family has let them down. I’ll always push to help parents get the resources and help they need, but I also believe that kids deserve a safe space to grow up. Some parents/relatives get it together and some don’t. That’s a reality.

blogger’s note – I share what I do in this blog to help others, without a direct familial experience of adoption or foster care, understand the long term effects of decisions that are being made every day that directly affect many children and their families.