In Defense Of

I do believe in all the reforms I have previously written about – retaining identity and family history information, not changing names or birth dates and not listing adoptive parents as the original parent. Beyond that is a consideration for guardianship rather than permanent adoption.

All that said, from direct experience, adoptive parents have been a part of my own family’s life in positive ways. First of all – my grandparents by adopting each of my parents. On each side, they were a positive influence on my life and the lives of my siblings as well as on my parent’s lives. They were good people who meant well. What we now know about the wounds suffered by adoptees was not known at the time they took possession of my parents.

My mom’s adoptive parents modeled financial security for us and affirmed the value of advanced education. My dad’s adoptive parents modeled faith and uncompromising personal values for us. My dad’s adoptive parents may even have been responsible for keeping my parents together by getting married and preventing me from being given up when my teenage mother found herself pregnant. I am grateful for that much.

Each of my sisters gave up a baby to adoption and these two children are fine adults. In one case, my niece is showing us what a good and consistent mother she can be. Even though she has been reunited with my family, she has remained steadfast in her appreciation for the people who raised her.

My nephew could not be a higher quality person. His adoptive mother has gone the extra mile to answer the identity questions that evolved as he matured. It appears that even my sister either didn’t know who his actual father was or chose to name the person who had the financial resources to help her make what has proven to be a quality choice as a substitute mother. Given my sister’s very evident mental illness, it is for the best that she didn’t try to raise him.

All that to say, while I remain firmly of the opinion that there are better ways to provide for the welfare of children than adoption, it is not that the adoptive parents in my own family’s life were to blame. It was naive ignorance and the intention to do good – which all of them have.

Guardianship vs Adoption

Within adoption reform movements, guardianship is seen as a better alternative for the potential adoptee than the formal process of adoption as it has been practiced over decades.

Guardianship preserves the identity of the child and gives the parents an opportunity to make changes and get any help they might need to be in a better position to parent the child.

What is needed is a complete restructuring of the system (and of the public’s understanding of the system) to get people thinking in a new way. For many years, the public has been encouraged to think of foster care=temporary and adoption=permanent.

It has been difficult to get couples to accept guardianship. This alternative means the child doesn’t feel like it’s fully theirs. So many prospective adopters want an “all in” method and to them adoption finalizes the transfer of a child from one parent set to another, making that child “theirs”.

Guardianship may feel as though it puts the hopeful adoptive couple in a worrisome space of fulfilling a “temporary” role. Not what many of them are seeking when they chose to adopt.

Who Am I ?

“Whose tummy did I grow in ?”

Consider this. Most of us take for granted that we grew inside our mother’s womb. A child that has always been told they were adopted will eventually reach a point where this question will arise in their own mind. In closed adoptions, the child will never be given an answer. In fact, great care has been taken to erase every fact related to their beginning in life.

Georgia Tann often falsified birth certificates and original parental data so that even after records were allowed to be opened for “qualified” persons (the adoptee or their direct descendants) one had to view the information skeptically. I am fortunate that for the most part, the information in my mom’s adoption file seems to have been accurate.

But there was fudging about the nature of her parents who were presented to my adoptive grandmother (who thought very highly of advanced education) as two unfortunate college students who were caught by pregnancy. That was hardly the truth. My grandmother never went to college and my grandfather was a widower 20 years older than her who had already fathered 5 children.

Adoptees in a closed adoption will have their birth certificates falsified (as both of my parents did) to appear that their adoptive parents gave birth to them when they did not. They will have their original name changed to something the adoptive parents want. In my dad’s case, it happened twice, because my Granny divorced the husband she was married to when she adopted my dad. The second husband objected to my dad carrying the vanquished man’s name and so at an age of already 8 years, my dad was given a new name.

Is it any wonder that adoptees often struggle with an identity crisis ? Many adult adoptees believe that adoption should be ended. The children should be given guardians and keep all of their original identity information. Much like in the case of slavery, a child is not something one owns but a human being we are privileged to protect and provide for.

Reform

Late last night I waded into a lengthy thread in a private group here at Facebook related to adoption. More specifically, they are on a mission to mostly, if not completely, end adoption. The most compelling and highlighted “voices” are those of adoptees with the mothers who lost a child to adoption given the next highest priority. Adoptive Parents (or those who hope to) can find themselves under heavy fire and not all of them can cope with that.

I do believe the voices in this group speak honestly a perspective that really needs to be seriously considered.

Other than financial inheritance questions which primarily affect wealthy adoptive parents and the children they adopt (I am familiar with that from my own family’s dynamics), there really is NO good argument for ever adopting a child.

There are alternatives – taking in a foster care child who really needs a home and providing for it (not adopting it and accordingly to my understanding, foster care is generally considered temporary and reunification with the natural family is the goal). Another alternative is guardianship and NOT changing the child’s identity at all (no name change, falsified identity, birth certificate tampering). When the child (who generally has no say in the adoption process) becomes an adult, then they can decide what kind of formal or informal relationships they want going forward.

One other suggestion would be for a couple who believes they want to adopt to basically become a kind of loving aunt and uncle to a mother and her child. Provide the support that the mother’s own family and society may not be willing to give to her.

Though not all adoptees admit to being harmed by having been adopted, the majority have wounds, may be in therapy or commit suicide at a higher rate than the general population.

ALL adoptions require the separation of a child from its natural mother and all children would chose the natural mother if financial support and mental health requirements could be met to allow them to stay together.

Entitlement

It has been a long process for me of wrapping my mind around the issues of what is bad about adoption and needs reform. Forgive me a little rant and hopefully a bit of educating for those who care but really don’t know what the issues are. Thanks to an outspoken group of women who are adoptees, or have been in the institutional trenches, I am beginning to understand there are problems in adoptionland.

I’ll share a few as starters.

Going all the way back to the 1930s, and my own grandmothers – up through my own sisters, I believe they would have ALL kept their children – IF they had had the support they needed.

In adoption propaganda, it is often said that the original parents made the “most selfless decision” by giving up the raising of their own child. It is not selfish to want to keep your child, even when you are struggling to do so. It is not a selfless decision to give your child to someone else, it is an act of desperation.

The determining factor should always be what matters most for the well-being of the child. The dominant narrative in the adoption community has been stories of “selfless birth parents” who simply wanted a “better life” for their child. Of course, they wanted a “better life” and they would have preferred to have been the ones providing it.

There are alternatives to adoption for infertile couples – kinship care, legal guardianship without lying on birth certificates or choosing the charity of giving whatever kind of assistance the original Mom or Dad need to help them parent successfully.

I seriously question the agenda of Christians who push adoption. I suspect they are wanting to create more Christians by taking children who would not have been raised according to their own belief system, knowing that their way is the superior one of course, and indoctrinating these children into “the way” of their own religion.

And I am seriously concerned by crowd funding for adoption costs without any qualms on the parts of those donating money – while not once considering crowd funding to help a Mom or Dad keep their baby. Our values are misplaced people.

So are adoptive parents fears that the child will NOT be theirs PERMANENTLY supposed to outweigh what is now known to be better for the children?

What is known ?

Separation should be the last resort. We KNOW there is trauma from the separation, even if it happens at birth. We KNOW children need genetic mirrors. We KNOW people have a right to know the truth about themselves. We know so much that points to a practice where, based on the best interest of the CHILD, we should avoid the permanent legal and physical severing of a child from their genetic parentage and family through adoption.

Guardianship provides all the emotional support any child needs and as much safe permanency.

And another thought – if people are really so dead set on parenting, and they can’t reproduce (are infertile), they can still act as guardians and caregivers to older kids who really do need someone. In today’s society – unfortunately – there are a lot of kids that could use that kind of help.

Those who wish to provide a home for a child should be OK with not getting an infant and fake papers saying they gave birth to that child. This is denial and self-delusion on the part of infertile, adoptive parents – and it IS harmful to the child.

Every baby brought into this world and then given to someone else to raise is aware and does care about what happened to separate them from their original parents.

Please realize that there’s always a situation that makes the original parents feel they have no other choice but to give up their precious child. Whether it be finances, homelessness, the mother’s relationship with the baby’s father, or a lack of support during and after the pregnancy.

None of those “reasons” should be the determining factor leading to separation from their baby. They are all temporary circumstances which time may heal given resources when they are most needed.