It’s A Fundamental Human Right

I certainly understand the need to know. I believe one of the purposes that I came into this lifetime was to heal some missing family history. I believe because I was aligned with my dharma, doors opened and answers revealed themselves. That black hole void beyond my parents became whole with ancestors stretching way back and into Denmark and Scotland as well as the English and Irish.

I believe in the principle that it’s a fundamental human right to know one’s genetic identity. I remember once talking to a woman who was trying to understand why it mattered that both of my parents were adopted if they had a good life. As I tried to explain it to her, she suddenly understood. She took her own genetic ancestry for granted because she knew that if she had any reason to want to know, she could discover all the details.

Not so for many adoptees with sealed and closed records (which was the case with my parents adoptions) and not so for donor conceived people whose egg or sperm donors chose to remain anonymous – many doing it for the money – and walking away from the fact that a real living and breathing human being exists because of a choice they made. Today, inexpensive DNA testing has unlocked the truth behind many family secrets. Some learn one (or both) of the parents who raised them are not their genetic parent from a DNA test. A family friend might tell a person mourning the death of their dad at his funeral, that their father suffered from infertility and their parents used a sperm donor to conceive them.

These types of revelations can be earth shattering for some people. I’ve know of someone recently who was thrown that kind of loop. The process of coping with such a revelation is daunting and life-changing regardless. Even for my own self, learning my grandparents stories has changed my perspectives in ways I didn’t expect, when I first began the search into my own cultural and genetic origins.

There is a term for this – misattributed parentage experience (MPE). It has to do with the fact that you did not grow up knowing your genetic parent. That word – experience – best describes the long-term effects. It is not an “event,” a one-time occurrence. The ramifications of MPE last a lifetime to some degree. I know how it feels, trying to get to know people, who have decades of life experience that I was not present for or even aware of. It is not possible to recover that loss. One can only go forward with trying to develop a forward relationship and whatever gems of the past make themselves known are a gift.

There are 3 primary communities with MPE in their personal histories.

[1] Non-paternity event (NPE): those conceived from an extramarital affair, tryst, rape or assault, or other circumstance

[2] Assisted conception: those conceived from donor conception (DC), sperm donation, egg donation, embryo donation, or surrogacy

[3] Adoption: those whose adoption was hidden, orphans, individuals who’ve been in foster care or are late discovery adoptees (LDA), etc.

There are also 3 primary topics for raising awareness and developing reform efforts – education, mental health and legislation. Right To Know is an organization active on all of these fronts and issues. They are advocates for people whose genetic parent(s) is not their supportive or legal parent(s). They work to promote a better understanding of the complex intersection of genetic information, identity, and family dynamics in society at large.

Married Men !!

A woman asked for advice regarding this situation –

Advice needed for revealing an unplanned pregnancy with a married man at the worst time in your life, and facing judgment and disappointment from others. Is it better to get it over with or hide as long as possible? I know it was wrong, and I deserve the judgment thrown my way.

The good news is that this woman is determined to parent her child.

I responded with this –

I would never say you “deserve” any ill effects. I do not know the entire story. My parents were both adopted. My dad’s mother was unwed. She had an affair with a much older man who was an immigrant, not yet naturalized though he did become a citizen later on. I doubt she knew he was married when she first started seeing him. In my younger days the same situation (though not a pregnancy) happened to me. His disloyalty to his marriage was entirely 100% his issue as far as I am concerned in EVERY case of this.

I do NOT recommend my self-sufficient grandmother’s solution to you. She went to a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers. She never told my dad’s father. I do share this with you because since I discovered who that man was (something I never thought was going to be possible since he was un-named but my wonderful grandmother left me breadcrumbs in her photo album which a cousin I discovered happily shared with me) – my dad was so very much like him – in appearance and interests. What good friends they might have been. It is a sadness for my own self that they never had the chance.

I wish you good resolutions. My heart’s mind will hold you gently for the best outcome. HUGS !!

Another person responded – People are going to judge no matter what. So do whatever gives you less stress and more peace. I would encourage you to tell him so you at least figure out where he’s at and don’t have to guess or wonder.

Someone else added – The father should know about his child, but I don’t see why anybody else has to know who the father is.

And another reminded her – He deserves to know. But you have the ultimate decision. Don’t let him talk you out of keeping the baby or into adoption. He can chose not to parent the child.

Someone else added – I would recommend disclosing it to those who need to know (in this case, the father). The fear of all the possible reactions can be debilitating. Better to just be upfront and tell him. It isn’t really other people’s business to know who the father is unless you wish to disclose it. I don’t see why you need to volunteer his marital status to your friends and family. Your child has a right to know who his/her father is. Acquaintances do not.

My favorite was what this woman shared – This is me! I told my baby daddy. I have a wonderful 16 year old whose father decided he would be involved about 7 years ago. I have been open and honest about his beginnings and have no shame. People will think what they will and I can’t control that. My son is an honor student, lettered in lacrosse in 9th grade and plays high school hockey. I’m bursting with pride about this kid! Have your baby and celebrate your child loud and proud!

A New Way – Adoption

If I could, this is the “new way” I’d like to see adoption, going forward.

No secrets.

No change to the original birth certificate.

Prospective adoptive parents really should adopt out of the foster care system
and not take young woman’s infant from them.

Always family preservation should be the primary goal. Mothers should be encouraged to keep and raise their babies.

Any adoption that does occur should be centered on the child’s needs.

Lifetime counseling for adoptees should be part of any licensed agency’s business model. Post-adoption issues are real and prevalent.

No intermediaries at reunions.

Do away from the concept of “non-identifying” information. Adoptees have the
right to know the specific details of their origins.

Demeaned, Diminished, Dismissed

I signed a petition related to an effort in New York state – even though my issues are with Virginia, Arizona and California. Please consider signing the petition at http://nyadopteerights.org/no-more/ since changing laws in any state may have the effect of encouraging other states to do so.

It seems that sealed records related to adoption are ETERNAL, even when the adoptees are dead, the adoptive parents are dead and the original parents are dead.

It makes no sense to me that the descendants of adoptees should be denied the honest information related to their parents and those adoptions. I can only believe it is simply laziness on the part of the bureaucracies that would have to hunt down the information. The laws intend to prevent the flood of requests that would follow a Right to Know access. Tennessee experienced that in the 1990s. Eventually, they instituted a fee to cover the costs of the staff and the work involved. I’ve paid such fees (including to the Salvation Army who delivered something meaningful, even though it wasn’t much – it did help).

It’s time to throw open the prisons into which these records have been relegated.

Azaleas

Bernice Dittmer 1989

It was my maternal adoptive grandmother who first made a big fuss over our Azaelas when she visited me in Missouri in 1989. She wanted her picture taken with some. She grew up in this state a bit further to the west. When my oldest son was born, I began a tradition of Mother’s Day photos with my sons among the Wild Azaelas. Yesterday, I saw my first blooming bush so there should be some still in bloom come Mother’s Day later this month.

As you can see, even in old age, my grandmother was a stylish woman. She adopted my mom and her brother from Georgia Tann, who became embroiled in a state investigation shortly before her death. Initially, it was simply that she was overcharging adoptive families and pocketing the extra money but as time went on, it became clear there were much worse accusations of exploitation of the adoptees original parents.

I received my mom’s adoption file from the state of Tennessee in October of 2017. My mom had tried and was denied in the early 1990s before the laws changed but no one told her when that happened and so she died knowing nothing about her origins. She had said to me that as a mother herself, she would have wanted to know what happened to her child but when she was trying to get her file, she was told that her mother had already died. The end of her hopes for a reunion were the reality.

Georgia Tann lied to my adoptive grandmother about my mother’s origins. That is plain in the record (which thankfully is mostly accurate except for some fudging about my mom’s original parents that was decidedly not true). It also seems that my adoptive grandmother got her children according to her exact specifications and I think it is likely that she paid for them in some manner.

Like many adoptive parents, she was very happy to have children and become a family. When she visited me in 1989, the story she told me was still not accurate. My mom was already 52 years old by that time.

Links in the Chain of Life

What about women who do NOT want to know the children they gave up for adoption, do they have the right to not have their identities revealed ?

I’ve not met one yet who would not want to know what became of their child, though everything that can be thought of does exist. I would also wonder if it is a denial of pain long suppressed. I do know I have felt a bit “unwanted” by one genetic relative when I turned up. “Oh yes, I do remember hearing she had a daughter . . . ” an inconvenient truth, I suppose.

When a woman has a child, even if for whatever reason she gave that child up for adoption, it is my belief that child is still owed an identity, you owe them at least this.

Each of us wants to understand our place in the chain of life. Closed adoptions with sealed records are like the lock up there in the middle of the links of a chain.

Does such a mother have a right to be free of the trauma of confrontation ? How about the denial of joy in knowing where they come from for the child ?

In most cases, I do not believe a confrontation with one’s now grown child would be traumatic, unless the outcome of that child is one that causes a deep regret and sense of responsibility in the original mother.

I don’t believe that anyone who conceives a child has any right to privacy from that reality. A woman who insists on such a “right” is at the same time infringing upon the right of an adoptee.