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‘Three Identical Strangers’: The Disturbing True Story of Triplets Separated at Birth Bobby, David, and Eddy’s reunion 19 years after being separated by an adoption agency takes a dark twist when secret psychological experiments are revealed in a new Sundance documentary. By: Kevin Fallon
Three Identical Strangers, which premiered Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, is a wild documentary, tickling at our obsession with twins and triplets, the nature vs. nurture debate, and the idea of being separated at birth. But it infuses its story with a dark reality, too, sending a frigid chill up the spine of anyone who thought they were in for a jaunty documentary version of The Parent Trap.
There is only a fleeting can-you-believe-it charm along the lines of Lindsay Lohan with a British accent discovering Lindsay Lohan with an American accent. Instead, Three Identical Strangers chronicles the unlikely reunion of estranged triplets and a harrowing series of events involving secret psychological experiments, nefarious cover-ups, crippling mental illness, and even death.
Listen, I’m a twin. I’ve lived my entire life in a spotlight of fascination because of it. Second only to, “How are you?” the question I’ve been asked most in my life is, “What is it like being a twin?”—as if I know any different and can compare. It’s as much an intrinsic part of my identity as having blue eyes and brown hair, which can be strange: your identity becomes a category—“the twins!”—instead of a marker of individuality. (Though there’s also security and comfort in that intimate camaraderie.)
But triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland didn’t always have that camaraderie. And they’re among the rare multiples who actually do know different, and can compare. It’s their incredible story at the center of Three Identical Strangers.
In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby hopped into his burgundy Volvo, lovingly dubbed “the Old Bitch,” and drove to his first day as a student at Sullivan County Community College in the Catskills. When he arrived on campus, students were absurdly friendly. Seemingly everyone waved an enthusiastic “hello.” Some raved about how glad they were that he was back, which was strange because he had never been on that campus before. Girls even kissed him on the lips, they were so happy.
Finally, someone started calling him Eddy. “Eddy’s back! Everyone thought he wasn’t going to come back!” Then someone started to put things together. “Are you adopted?” a student asked Bobby. He was. “Is your birthday July 12, 1961?” It was. Bobby, it seems you have a long-lost twin named Eddy.
Eddy Galland, like Bobby Shafran, was adopted from the Louise Wise Adoption Agency in New York City. When they finally meet, 19 years after their birth and without ever knowing the other existed, the physical similarities are uncanny: broad builds, megawatt smiles, a mop of Cabbage Patch curls, and distinctive baseball mitts for hands.
The local newspapers had a field day with the heartwarming human interest story, and soon straphangers in New York City had Eddy and Bobby’s faces and story in their hands. Those morning commuters included friends of David Kellman who, my god, they swore, was the spitting image of the reunited twins in the paper.
When David, who was also adopted from the Louise Wise agency and born on that July day, discovered the saga and called Eddy’s mother suggesting that he might actually be a third long-lost brother, she reportedly joked, “Oh my god, they’re coming out of the woodwork!”
There’s an eerie lightheartedness to this part of the documentary—jovial recollections about the shock, gratitude, and joy when the triplets finally meet—that suggests this reunion bliss will be short-lived. But damn if it isn’t fun while it lasts.
Like we said, people are freaking obsessed with multiples, be it twins, triplets, or more. And these guys, whatta story! They were media darlings, with a carousel of TV hosts stunned into silence when they saw how, despite not having grown up together, they shared the same exact mannerisms, even sitting the same way. They were all wrestlers, liked the same colors, had the same taste in older women, and even bought the same brand of cigarettes. Each also had an adopted sister, and all three sisters were the same age.
Their upbringings, though all three raised in Jewish families in the suburbs of New York City, were completely different, with different economic comforts. Yet they grew up to be so similar, a nature vs. nurture marvel if there was ever was one.
But bubbling beneath this bliss were angering questions. Why were these triplets separated by the adoption agency? Why weren’t their adoptive parents told about their child’s siblings?
This is a Sundance documentary produced by CNN Films, not a Parade magazine article, after all. Darkness was bound to shroud this love affair.
Soon it is uncovered that the triplets were part of a secret study in which newborn identical siblings put up for adoption were separated for the purpose of psychological and behavioral experimentation. The babies all came from the Louise Wise agency, and were monitored for years. The adoptive parents were simply told their children were being followed for a study about the development of adopted children. In reality, it was to determine how much of a person’s behavior is hereditary and how much is shaped by their environment (nature vs. nurture), using identical siblings raised in different households as the control group.
As Bobby says, “This is, like, Nazi shit.”
The triplets weren’t the only multiples in the study, the results of which were never published, its full roster of participants never named, and its express purpose never fully elucidated. As Three Identical Strangers digs into the study’s ramifications—and the fact that these men were denied access to information about their biological parents and siblings that could have been life-saving in regards to their mental health (a plot point we won't spoil)—a sweet story becomes a disturbing cautionary tale about the seedy underbelly of science which operates at the expense of humanity.
When you’re a multiple, you can sometimes feel like lab rats. You’d be shocked how many times in my life people have thought it perfectly acceptable to suggest, “I want to study you!”—be it former teachers and professors or garish casual acquaintances. Is there something to be learned about human behavior through the study of identical siblings? Undoubtedly. Dignity would be nice, too.
Three Identical Strangers is more than a spotlight on a particularly curious case. As we incorporate science into reproduction and diversify the ways in which children are raised, questions about nature and nurture are more valuable than ever.
As the film’s triplets—and my own life—can certainly attest, you can share the same DNA and still have lives that turn out dramatically different. It’s astounding how similar Bobby, David, and Eddy were despite growing up apart. But the focus on that once they discovered each other was reductive, aided and abetted by a media looking for a human interest hook.
That my twin brother and I developed similar interests, behaviors, and personality traits should be no surprise. Our bedrooms were on different floors of our house growing up, yet we’d routinely show up at the breakfast table wearing exactly the same outfit. Now 30-years-old, we haven’t lived together in over a decade, yet show up at nearly every holiday get-together wearing similar outfits that we bought for ourselves independently. And that’s just one silly example.
But then there are things about my brother and I that are, like we said before, dramatically different, the least of which is that he is straight and I am gay, and I have survived a major illness that he did not have. (I mean, I never said we shouldn’t be studied.)
The case for nature over nurture isn’t as compelling as you might think. Are you looking for similarities because they’re triplets or twins or what have you, and jumping to conclusions because of that? And are you ignoring or at least not acknowledging their differences?
There are resonant, bordering on existential questions raised here, but so are ones about ethics and morality. Bobby, Eddy, and David were denied information that would have dramatically impacted their lives, the least of which concerned their health. The optics of why they were denied that information also carries a dark implication: Because they were put up for adoption and because they were adopted by Jewish families in the Sixties, their lives were deemed less valuable.
When these brothers were reunited at age 19, the media commoditized them to sell papers and boost ratings. But their agency was taken from them long before that. More, no one knows how many identical siblings out there may be just like them, and don’t even know it yet.
There is only a fleeting can-you-believe-it charm along the lines of Lindsay Lohan with a British accent discovering Lindsay Lohan with an American accent. Instead, Three Identical Strangers chronicles the unlikely reunion of estranged triplets and a harrowing series of events involving secret psychological experiments, nefarious cover-ups, crippling mental illness, and even death.
Listen, I’m a twin. I’ve lived my entire life in a spotlight of fascination because of it. Second only to, “How are you?” the question I’ve been asked most in my life is, “What is it like being a twin?”—as if I know any different and can compare. It’s as much an intrinsic part of my identity as having blue eyes and brown hair, which can be strange: your identity becomes a category—“the twins!”—instead of a marker of individuality. (Though there’s also security and comfort in that intimate camaraderie.)
But triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland didn’t always have that camaraderie. And they’re among the rare multiples who actually do know different, and can compare. It’s their incredible story at the center of Three Identical Strangers.
In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby hopped into his burgundy Volvo, lovingly dubbed “the Old Bitch,” and drove to his first day as a student at Sullivan County Community College in the Catskills. When he arrived on campus, students were absurdly friendly. Seemingly everyone waved an enthusiastic “hello.” Some raved about how glad they were that he was back, which was strange because he had never been on that campus before. Girls even kissed him on the lips, they were so happy.
Finally, someone started calling him Eddy. “Eddy’s back! Everyone thought he wasn’t going to come back!” Then someone started to put things together. “Are you adopted?” a student asked Bobby. He was. “Is your birthday July 12, 1961?” It was. Bobby, it seems you have a long-lost twin named Eddy.
Eddy Galland, like Bobby Shafran, was adopted from the Louise Wise Adoption Agency in New York City. When they finally meet, 19 years after their birth and without ever knowing the other existed, the physical similarities are uncanny: broad builds, megawatt smiles, a mop of Cabbage Patch curls, and distinctive baseball mitts for hands.
The local newspapers had a field day with the heartwarming human interest story, and soon straphangers in New York City had Eddy and Bobby’s faces and story in their hands. Those morning commuters included friends of David Kellman who, my god, they swore, was the spitting image of the reunited twins in the paper.
When David, who was also adopted from the Louise Wise agency and born on that July day, discovered the saga and called Eddy’s mother suggesting that he might actually be a third long-lost brother, she reportedly joked, “Oh my god, they’re coming out of the woodwork!”
There’s an eerie lightheartedness to this part of the documentary—jovial recollections about the shock, gratitude, and joy when the triplets finally meet—that suggests this reunion bliss will be short-lived. But damn if it isn’t fun while it lasts.
Like we said, people are freaking obsessed with multiples, be it twins, triplets, or more. And these guys, whatta story! They were media darlings, with a carousel of TV hosts stunned into silence when they saw how, despite not having grown up together, they shared the same exact mannerisms, even sitting the same way. They were all wrestlers, liked the same colors, had the same taste in older women, and even bought the same brand of cigarettes. Each also had an adopted sister, and all three sisters were the same age.
Their upbringings, though all three raised in Jewish families in the suburbs of New York City, were completely different, with different economic comforts. Yet they grew up to be so similar, a nature vs. nurture marvel if there was ever was one.
But bubbling beneath this bliss were angering questions. Why were these triplets separated by the adoption agency? Why weren’t their adoptive parents told about their child’s siblings?
This is a Sundance documentary produced by CNN Films, not a Parade magazine article, after all. Darkness was bound to shroud this love affair.
Soon it is uncovered that the triplets were part of a secret study in which newborn identical siblings put up for adoption were separated for the purpose of psychological and behavioral experimentation. The babies all came from the Louise Wise agency, and were monitored for years. The adoptive parents were simply told their children were being followed for a study about the development of adopted children. In reality, it was to determine how much of a person’s behavior is hereditary and how much is shaped by their environment (nature vs. nurture), using identical siblings raised in different households as the control group.
As Bobby says, “This is, like, Nazi shit.”
The triplets weren’t the only multiples in the study, the results of which were never published, its full roster of participants never named, and its express purpose never fully elucidated. As Three Identical Strangers digs into the study’s ramifications—and the fact that these men were denied access to information about their biological parents and siblings that could have been life-saving in regards to their mental health (a plot point we won't spoil)—a sweet story becomes a disturbing cautionary tale about the seedy underbelly of science which operates at the expense of humanity.
When you’re a multiple, you can sometimes feel like lab rats. You’d be shocked how many times in my life people have thought it perfectly acceptable to suggest, “I want to study you!”—be it former teachers and professors or garish casual acquaintances. Is there something to be learned about human behavior through the study of identical siblings? Undoubtedly. Dignity would be nice, too.
Three Identical Strangers is more than a spotlight on a particularly curious case. As we incorporate science into reproduction and diversify the ways in which children are raised, questions about nature and nurture are more valuable than ever.
As the film’s triplets—and my own life—can certainly attest, you can share the same DNA and still have lives that turn out dramatically different. It’s astounding how similar Bobby, David, and Eddy were despite growing up apart. But the focus on that once they discovered each other was reductive, aided and abetted by a media looking for a human interest hook.
That my twin brother and I developed similar interests, behaviors, and personality traits should be no surprise. Our bedrooms were on different floors of our house growing up, yet we’d routinely show up at the breakfast table wearing exactly the same outfit. Now 30-years-old, we haven’t lived together in over a decade, yet show up at nearly every holiday get-together wearing similar outfits that we bought for ourselves independently. And that’s just one silly example.
But then there are things about my brother and I that are, like we said before, dramatically different, the least of which is that he is straight and I am gay, and I have survived a major illness that he did not have. (I mean, I never said we shouldn’t be studied.)
The case for nature over nurture isn’t as compelling as you might think. Are you looking for similarities because they’re triplets or twins or what have you, and jumping to conclusions because of that? And are you ignoring or at least not acknowledging their differences?
There are resonant, bordering on existential questions raised here, but so are ones about ethics and morality. Bobby, Eddy, and David were denied information that would have dramatically impacted their lives, the least of which concerned their health. The optics of why they were denied that information also carries a dark implication: Because they were put up for adoption and because they were adopted by Jewish families in the Sixties, their lives were deemed less valuable.
When these brothers were reunited at age 19, the media commoditized them to sell papers and boost ratings. But their agency was taken from them long before that. More, no one knows how many identical siblings out there may be just like them, and don’t even know it yet.
Chinese Adoptee Reunited
Chinese girl adopted by American family miraculously reunited with her birth parents on Hangzhou’s Broken Bridge
‘Let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years’, read the note her parents left with the baby who would grow up as Kati Pohler in Michigan. Thanks to a lucky encounter, eventually they did
By: Enid Tsui
Twenty-two years ago, a heavily pregnant Qian Fenxiang hid herself and her three-year-old daughter on a houseboat on a secluded Suzhou canal, 120km away from her home in Hangzhou, and waited.
Six weeks later, she gave birth on the boat to a second daughter, a child who should have been aborted under China’s draconian one-child policy, introduced in 1979 as a means to reduce poverty.
Xu Lida, her husband, had cut the cord with a pair of scissors he had sterilised with boiling water and, for a do-it-yourself delivery, all seemed to be going well – until the placenta wouldn’t drop. It was a dangerous complication, but hospital care was out of the question. Fortunately for the couple, there was a small clinic near where they were moored, and a doctor who agreed to help without alerting the authorities.
Five days later, the then 24-year-old Xu got up at dawn and took the baby to a covered vegetable market in Suzhou. There, he left the girl with a note written in brush and ink: “Our daughter, Jingzhi, was born at 10am on the 24th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, 1995. We have been forced by poverty and affairs of the world to abandon her. Oh, pity the hearts of fathers and mothers far and near! Thank you for saving our little daughter and taking her into your care. If the heavens have feelings, if we are brought together by fate, then let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years from now.”
Dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar and marks the day when the mythical cowherd and his lover, the weaving maiden, are allowed to see each other on a bridge formed by magpies in flight.
The Broken Bridge – which is not actually broken – is no less evocative. The short span between the shore of Hangzhou’s West Lake and the scenic Bai Causeway was mentioned in an eighth-century Tang dynasty poem. In the traditional story White Snake, it is here that the White Lady and her lover, Xu Xian, first meet.
It wasn’t exactly 10 or 20 years later, but on the eve of the Qixi Festival this year, Qian and Xu finally laid eyes on Jingzhi – their healthy, intelligent college student daughter who is known as Catherine Su Pohler by her American adoptive parents.
That first sighting was the stuff of reality television. Indeed, a television crew was on hand at the Broken Bridge to capture the scene as Qian and Xu ran to Kati, as she is called by everyone who knows her. The story of how they were reunited is the subject of a BBC documentary that will air this week.
Three months after the meeting, however, it is unclear whether this story of improbable coincidences will have a fairy-tale ending.
“We still feel so much guilt. If we hadn’t abandoned her, she wouldn’t have to suffer so,” says an emotional Qian, when Post Magazine visits the couple at their home in Hangzhou. She is using the Mandarin term chiku, to describe Kati’s life in America. It literally means “eating bitterness”.
Considering the bitterness that the couple have swallowed over the years, it is surprising to find that the stout, kind-looking Qian doesn’t feel more relieved that Kati has grown up in a comfortably middle-class suburban American home.
Baby Jingzhi and the note were delivered to Suzhou city’s children’s welfare institute. Around the same time, Ken and Ruth Pohler of Hudsonville, Michigan, decided to adopt.
“We didn’t really think it mattered which country we adopted from but we have a brother-in-law who is Chinese and Ruth’s sister adopted from China, too, which was neat,” says Ken, from the house where Kati grew up, about 30km from Lake Michigan. He and his wife are evangelical Christians with two boys of their own, but they wanted a third child.
In the summer of 1996, 10 American couples were taken by Bethany Christian Services, one of the biggest international adoption agencies for Americans, to the Suzhou orphanage. There, they picked up their new daughters – they were all daughters because of the traditional Chinese preference for sons. As they boarded the tour bus with Jingzhi, the Pohlers showed a translator the note that had come from the baby’s birth parents.
“She was so moved by it, she was in tears while she read it out to us. It was such a heartfelt message,” Ken says. But the couple had no intention of telling Kati about it until she was at least 18, and only then if she showed interest in finding out about her past life.
Kati was brought up as most of the other children were in the town of about 7,000 people. Close-knit Hudsonville is predominantly Caucasian, as is Calvin College, the liberal arts university affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church where Ken is a campus safety supervisor and where Kati is now studying public health and music.
“I had a solid, good childhood,” Kati says. “Everyone knew I was adopted, obviously, so I was never asked about it.”
She describes her family as “very religious” and close.
“My two brothers are quite a bit older. I guess if I felt different, it was because I was the youngest and I was a girl,” she says.
The family albums are filled with photographs of young Kati winning sports tournaments, practising the viola and piano, travelling across America on family and school trips, and generally looking healthy and outdoorsy, wearing a smile that shows off her perfect American teeth.
However, like many college students in America, she works the odd shift to earn extra cash, in Kati’s case, in a greenhouse. To Qian, that is awful.
“My Xiaochen [her first daughter] here has never had to wash a single bowl,” she says.
Qian finds it unbelievable that working part time can be part of growing up in a wealthy country like America.
Equally, Qian and Xu’s experience as migrant workers would seem unbelievably hard to an average American, as would the enormous sacrifices that millions like them have made during their country’s march towards prosperity.
Qian and Xu grew up in Baoying county, near Yangzhou in Jiangsu province – birthplace of the world’s most famous rice dish. Xu, wiry, weather-beaten, with an irrepressible good humour, was born in 1971. He finished junior high school and moved in 1987 to Hangzhou, a five-hour drive away. He was joining millions of others who turned their backs on their ancestors’ farms to seek better-paid work in China’s fast-growing cities.
The only work the 16-year-old could find was collecting household scraps. But he worked hard and saved enough money to return home a few years later and marry Qian, a fellow villager. The two set up home in a rented room in one of many rudimentary cottages on the outskirts of Hangzhou housing migrant workers. They were so far removed from public services that when Qian went into labour with Xiaochen, Xu had to put her in the back of a delivery tricycle and pedal for miles to the hospital.
Still, the couple made the best of things and dreamed of having a better life some day. It was a good time to be in the scrap trade-in one of China’s wealthiest cities; national gross domestic product in the years before the 1997 Asian financial crisis was growing at a staggering 13 per cent.
With their optimism came the idea of giving Xiaochen a sibling.
“We thought we could get away with it since we lived so far away from the family planning cadres in our village,” Xu says. “We thought the sheer size of the city would give us cover.”
But they soon learned just how brutal the regime could be. The one-child policy led to more than 300 million abortions, many of which were forced, an unknown number of female infanticides, a terrifyingly efficient spying system and the heavy fines and extortion that served as punishment for those who exceeded their quota.
‘I could hear the baby cry. They killed my baby … yet I couldn’t do a thing’: The countless tragedies of China’s one-child policy
The decision to give up Jingzhi had nothing to do with the fact that she was a girl, her birth parents say. In fact, they wouldn’t have known her gender when they decided that, given the horror stories they had heard, they wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. By then, Qian was five or six months pregnant and it was too late for an abortion.
The couple now own a business selling second-hand white goods as well as a comfortable, two-bedroom flat. But theirs is still a hard life. Xiaochenhas a full-time job but her parents still start work every day at 7am and never take a day off, except over Lunar New Year. They have never even been to Yangzhou, let alone outside Jiangsu province.
Qian runs the shop – a sectioned-off area in a vast, open-air electrical appliances wholesale market that is bitterly cold in the winter. She waits for business as she shuffles between rows of washing machines, flat-screen televisions and refrigerators her husband has acquired and upcycled. It all came as a bit of a shock for the humble couple to find themselves on national television in 2005.
Kati turned 10 in 2005, and Qian and Xu went to the Broken Bridge on the Qixi Festival, as planned.
“We got there early, and we carried a big sign with our daughter’s name and words similar to those we used in the original note. We felt like running up to every girl we saw on the bridge,” Xu says. “It was awful.”
Nobody met them, and they left just before 4pm, hungry, thirsty and drained by disappointment.
China’s one-child policy has a legacy of bereaved parents facing humiliation and despair
The Pohlers, meanwhile, had asked a friend of a friend to visit the bridge that day.
“We remembered the 10th-year promise in the note,” Ken says. “We prayed about it and talked to a friend who often travelled to China for business. He said he could ask a friend called Annie Wu to try and find the birth parents on the bridge. We didn’t want to involve Kati in something as vague as this. But it was important to us that the birth parents knew their daughter was adopted by a family who love her very much and provide her with a good home.”
Wu arrived at the bridge just after 4pm, missing Qian and Xu by minutes. Having checked there were no distressed parents to be seen, she was getting ready to leave when she noticed a television crew filming on the bridge. She asked if they could check their footage to see if anyone who looked like Kati’s birth parents had been there. By sheer luck, Xu had been caught on camera, holding up his sign showing the name Jingzhi clearly.
This was television gold. The station immediately broadcast the story, which the national CCTV network and newspapers picked up.
A friend in Hangzhou saw one of the TV reports and told the birth parents there was news of Jingzhi. The elated couple met Wu through the TV station, and were handed a typed letter from the Pohlers (their names withheld) and some photographs. They were assured there would be further news.
Unfortunately for Qian and Xu, it was to be a long time before they saw their lost daughter in the flesh. Once they were told of developments, the Pohlers asked Wu to cease contact with Qian and Xu immediately.
“We took what we could from Annie, and saw no more need for contact,” Ruth says. “We thought that we should wait for Kati to grow and see if she wanted more information. She’s our daughter. Yes, she has her birth parents but a deeper relationship with them would really complicate matters.”
Wu changed her phone number and couldn’t be reached by Qian and Xu or the media again.
The couple had no doubt Kati was their Jingzhi. She has her mother’s eyes. Just as an astronomer might scan the skies ceaselessly in search of a signal he picked up once from another galaxy, the couple returned to the Broken Bridge every Qixi Festival.
This is where documentary maker Chang Changfu enters the picture.
“I had made a film about international adoptees from China before and a friend told me about this couple who went to the Broken Bridge to find their daughter,” the Chinese-American says. “It’s an irresistible story.”
Chang met Qian and Xu and decided to try to track down the American parents using the little evidence he had: the typed letter from the Pohlers mentioned that Kati had been adopted in Suzhou, that she had rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and that they lived in Michigan.
The internet gods must have been smiling on him, for he chanced upon an online message board on which American parents who had adopted from Suzhou’s only orphanage shared their experiences. One message was from a Ken Pohler, who mentioned his daughter had a knee problem as a youngster. Chang found a photograph of Pohler online that matched the image of the man in one of the pictures Qian and Xu had been given.
Chang made contact but it took him a few years to convince the Pohlers he had no ulterior motive other than to help with any further communication. The Pohlers explained to him why they had resisted stirring up the past, and why they would not make contact with the birth parents the year Kati turned 20.
Last year, when Kati was 21, she was preparing for a semester as an exchange student in Spain when, she says, “I thought people there would have questions about me being Chinese and American. So I asked my mother to tell me about my past again, and she said, ‘Well, we should tell you that we actually know who your biological parents are.’ I was so shocked.”
Kati knew immediately that she wanted to meet them, but she was also terrified by the prospect, and it took time for her to get over the anger she felt towards her adoptive parents. She felt betrayed for having been kept in the dark.
She got in touch with Chang after telling the Pohlers of her intentions, and agreed to become the subject of a documentary about her search for her birth parents. The filmmaker had the heart-warming climax already planned: Qixi Festival 2017; Kati surprising her birth parents on the Broken Bridge. Kati and Chang would meet a few days earlier in Suzhou, to film in the vegetable market where she was abandoned.
Withholding this information from Qian and Xu would have been less cruel had the filming had gone according to plan. Unfortunately, Wu – back in the picture after Kati decided to visit China – had tipped off the birth parents. Qian and Xu took themselves to Suzhou to find Kati, only to be told that, for the sake of dramatic effect, the first meeting had to take place on the Broken Bridge. Deeply hurt, the couple had, in fact, been turned away because Kati was feeling overwhelmed by the experience, she tells me.
When they finally met on the bridge, Qian broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as the many years of yearning cracked open her battle-hardened shell. This was her daughter’s homecoming.
Kati stayed in her birth parents’ flat for two days and shared a room with her sister, who speaks only limited English.
“It was really nice to see them. I was surprised by how emotional my Chinese mom was,” she says.
Kati was bemused too by the typical Chinese admonition that she received. “The first thing they said was, ‘You are skinny, you’ve got to eat more.’ If I didn’t eat they would feed me. I guess they were just super-excited and missed looking after me for all these years,” she says.
The couple took her back to their hometown, and there, Kati met Xu’s ailing mother. She hasn’t spoken since she had a stroke several years ago but she let her lost granddaughter hold her hand. Kati’s grandmother had been there on the houseboat all those years ago to help with the delivery.
Kati admits she hasn’t begun to process the experience.
“I want some sort of relationship. I want to see them again. But the big question is, what are they to me? I don’t even know what to call them,” she says.
Before her trip, the Asian side of her was purely physical. “Now, it’s deeper than that. It’s good that I am more in touch with where I came from, but it is also confusing. I am a product of where I grew up and that is not Asian in any sense of the word,” she says.
For Qian and Xu, seeing Kati doing well was a huge relief and helped to ease the remorse they have been carrying for more than 20 years. But the reunion has also left them hungering for more – and it seems unlikely they will get what they want.
“We were disappointed that she wouldn’t call us mama and baba. We asked her to, but she said they didn’t do that in America, that they called their parents by their first names. Is that right?” Xu asks.
“We couldn’t communicate meaningfully since we don’t speak English and she doesn’t speak Mandarin, but we could tell she’s a really nice girl. But now that we have met her, we miss her even more than before,” Qian says.
“I guess we can only tell ourselves she is like a daughter who has been married off.”
‘Let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years’, read the note her parents left with the baby who would grow up as Kati Pohler in Michigan. Thanks to a lucky encounter, eventually they did
By: Enid Tsui
Twenty-two years ago, a heavily pregnant Qian Fenxiang hid herself and her three-year-old daughter on a houseboat on a secluded Suzhou canal, 120km away from her home in Hangzhou, and waited.
Six weeks later, she gave birth on the boat to a second daughter, a child who should have been aborted under China’s draconian one-child policy, introduced in 1979 as a means to reduce poverty.
Xu Lida, her husband, had cut the cord with a pair of scissors he had sterilised with boiling water and, for a do-it-yourself delivery, all seemed to be going well – until the placenta wouldn’t drop. It was a dangerous complication, but hospital care was out of the question. Fortunately for the couple, there was a small clinic near where they were moored, and a doctor who agreed to help without alerting the authorities.
Five days later, the then 24-year-old Xu got up at dawn and took the baby to a covered vegetable market in Suzhou. There, he left the girl with a note written in brush and ink: “Our daughter, Jingzhi, was born at 10am on the 24th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, 1995. We have been forced by poverty and affairs of the world to abandon her. Oh, pity the hearts of fathers and mothers far and near! Thank you for saving our little daughter and taking her into your care. If the heavens have feelings, if we are brought together by fate, then let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years from now.”
Dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar and marks the day when the mythical cowherd and his lover, the weaving maiden, are allowed to see each other on a bridge formed by magpies in flight.
The Broken Bridge – which is not actually broken – is no less evocative. The short span between the shore of Hangzhou’s West Lake and the scenic Bai Causeway was mentioned in an eighth-century Tang dynasty poem. In the traditional story White Snake, it is here that the White Lady and her lover, Xu Xian, first meet.
It wasn’t exactly 10 or 20 years later, but on the eve of the Qixi Festival this year, Qian and Xu finally laid eyes on Jingzhi – their healthy, intelligent college student daughter who is known as Catherine Su Pohler by her American adoptive parents.
That first sighting was the stuff of reality television. Indeed, a television crew was on hand at the Broken Bridge to capture the scene as Qian and Xu ran to Kati, as she is called by everyone who knows her. The story of how they were reunited is the subject of a BBC documentary that will air this week.
Three months after the meeting, however, it is unclear whether this story of improbable coincidences will have a fairy-tale ending.
“We still feel so much guilt. If we hadn’t abandoned her, she wouldn’t have to suffer so,” says an emotional Qian, when Post Magazine visits the couple at their home in Hangzhou. She is using the Mandarin term chiku, to describe Kati’s life in America. It literally means “eating bitterness”.
Considering the bitterness that the couple have swallowed over the years, it is surprising to find that the stout, kind-looking Qian doesn’t feel more relieved that Kati has grown up in a comfortably middle-class suburban American home.
Baby Jingzhi and the note were delivered to Suzhou city’s children’s welfare institute. Around the same time, Ken and Ruth Pohler of Hudsonville, Michigan, decided to adopt.
“We didn’t really think it mattered which country we adopted from but we have a brother-in-law who is Chinese and Ruth’s sister adopted from China, too, which was neat,” says Ken, from the house where Kati grew up, about 30km from Lake Michigan. He and his wife are evangelical Christians with two boys of their own, but they wanted a third child.
In the summer of 1996, 10 American couples were taken by Bethany Christian Services, one of the biggest international adoption agencies for Americans, to the Suzhou orphanage. There, they picked up their new daughters – they were all daughters because of the traditional Chinese preference for sons. As they boarded the tour bus with Jingzhi, the Pohlers showed a translator the note that had come from the baby’s birth parents.
“She was so moved by it, she was in tears while she read it out to us. It was such a heartfelt message,” Ken says. But the couple had no intention of telling Kati about it until she was at least 18, and only then if she showed interest in finding out about her past life.
Kati was brought up as most of the other children were in the town of about 7,000 people. Close-knit Hudsonville is predominantly Caucasian, as is Calvin College, the liberal arts university affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church where Ken is a campus safety supervisor and where Kati is now studying public health and music.
“I had a solid, good childhood,” Kati says. “Everyone knew I was adopted, obviously, so I was never asked about it.”
She describes her family as “very religious” and close.
“My two brothers are quite a bit older. I guess if I felt different, it was because I was the youngest and I was a girl,” she says.
The family albums are filled with photographs of young Kati winning sports tournaments, practising the viola and piano, travelling across America on family and school trips, and generally looking healthy and outdoorsy, wearing a smile that shows off her perfect American teeth.
However, like many college students in America, she works the odd shift to earn extra cash, in Kati’s case, in a greenhouse. To Qian, that is awful.
“My Xiaochen [her first daughter] here has never had to wash a single bowl,” she says.
Qian finds it unbelievable that working part time can be part of growing up in a wealthy country like America.
Equally, Qian and Xu’s experience as migrant workers would seem unbelievably hard to an average American, as would the enormous sacrifices that millions like them have made during their country’s march towards prosperity.
Qian and Xu grew up in Baoying county, near Yangzhou in Jiangsu province – birthplace of the world’s most famous rice dish. Xu, wiry, weather-beaten, with an irrepressible good humour, was born in 1971. He finished junior high school and moved in 1987 to Hangzhou, a five-hour drive away. He was joining millions of others who turned their backs on their ancestors’ farms to seek better-paid work in China’s fast-growing cities.
The only work the 16-year-old could find was collecting household scraps. But he worked hard and saved enough money to return home a few years later and marry Qian, a fellow villager. The two set up home in a rented room in one of many rudimentary cottages on the outskirts of Hangzhou housing migrant workers. They were so far removed from public services that when Qian went into labour with Xiaochen, Xu had to put her in the back of a delivery tricycle and pedal for miles to the hospital.
Still, the couple made the best of things and dreamed of having a better life some day. It was a good time to be in the scrap trade-in one of China’s wealthiest cities; national gross domestic product in the years before the 1997 Asian financial crisis was growing at a staggering 13 per cent.
With their optimism came the idea of giving Xiaochen a sibling.
“We thought we could get away with it since we lived so far away from the family planning cadres in our village,” Xu says. “We thought the sheer size of the city would give us cover.”
But they soon learned just how brutal the regime could be. The one-child policy led to more than 300 million abortions, many of which were forced, an unknown number of female infanticides, a terrifyingly efficient spying system and the heavy fines and extortion that served as punishment for those who exceeded their quota.
‘I could hear the baby cry. They killed my baby … yet I couldn’t do a thing’: The countless tragedies of China’s one-child policy
The decision to give up Jingzhi had nothing to do with the fact that she was a girl, her birth parents say. In fact, they wouldn’t have known her gender when they decided that, given the horror stories they had heard, they wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. By then, Qian was five or six months pregnant and it was too late for an abortion.
The couple now own a business selling second-hand white goods as well as a comfortable, two-bedroom flat. But theirs is still a hard life. Xiaochenhas a full-time job but her parents still start work every day at 7am and never take a day off, except over Lunar New Year. They have never even been to Yangzhou, let alone outside Jiangsu province.
Qian runs the shop – a sectioned-off area in a vast, open-air electrical appliances wholesale market that is bitterly cold in the winter. She waits for business as she shuffles between rows of washing machines, flat-screen televisions and refrigerators her husband has acquired and upcycled. It all came as a bit of a shock for the humble couple to find themselves on national television in 2005.
Kati turned 10 in 2005, and Qian and Xu went to the Broken Bridge on the Qixi Festival, as planned.
“We got there early, and we carried a big sign with our daughter’s name and words similar to those we used in the original note. We felt like running up to every girl we saw on the bridge,” Xu says. “It was awful.”
Nobody met them, and they left just before 4pm, hungry, thirsty and drained by disappointment.
China’s one-child policy has a legacy of bereaved parents facing humiliation and despair
The Pohlers, meanwhile, had asked a friend of a friend to visit the bridge that day.
“We remembered the 10th-year promise in the note,” Ken says. “We prayed about it and talked to a friend who often travelled to China for business. He said he could ask a friend called Annie Wu to try and find the birth parents on the bridge. We didn’t want to involve Kati in something as vague as this. But it was important to us that the birth parents knew their daughter was adopted by a family who love her very much and provide her with a good home.”
Wu arrived at the bridge just after 4pm, missing Qian and Xu by minutes. Having checked there were no distressed parents to be seen, she was getting ready to leave when she noticed a television crew filming on the bridge. She asked if they could check their footage to see if anyone who looked like Kati’s birth parents had been there. By sheer luck, Xu had been caught on camera, holding up his sign showing the name Jingzhi clearly.
This was television gold. The station immediately broadcast the story, which the national CCTV network and newspapers picked up.
A friend in Hangzhou saw one of the TV reports and told the birth parents there was news of Jingzhi. The elated couple met Wu through the TV station, and were handed a typed letter from the Pohlers (their names withheld) and some photographs. They were assured there would be further news.
Unfortunately for Qian and Xu, it was to be a long time before they saw their lost daughter in the flesh. Once they were told of developments, the Pohlers asked Wu to cease contact with Qian and Xu immediately.
“We took what we could from Annie, and saw no more need for contact,” Ruth says. “We thought that we should wait for Kati to grow and see if she wanted more information. She’s our daughter. Yes, she has her birth parents but a deeper relationship with them would really complicate matters.”
Wu changed her phone number and couldn’t be reached by Qian and Xu or the media again.
The couple had no doubt Kati was their Jingzhi. She has her mother’s eyes. Just as an astronomer might scan the skies ceaselessly in search of a signal he picked up once from another galaxy, the couple returned to the Broken Bridge every Qixi Festival.
This is where documentary maker Chang Changfu enters the picture.
“I had made a film about international adoptees from China before and a friend told me about this couple who went to the Broken Bridge to find their daughter,” the Chinese-American says. “It’s an irresistible story.”
Chang met Qian and Xu and decided to try to track down the American parents using the little evidence he had: the typed letter from the Pohlers mentioned that Kati had been adopted in Suzhou, that she had rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and that they lived in Michigan.
The internet gods must have been smiling on him, for he chanced upon an online message board on which American parents who had adopted from Suzhou’s only orphanage shared their experiences. One message was from a Ken Pohler, who mentioned his daughter had a knee problem as a youngster. Chang found a photograph of Pohler online that matched the image of the man in one of the pictures Qian and Xu had been given.
Chang made contact but it took him a few years to convince the Pohlers he had no ulterior motive other than to help with any further communication. The Pohlers explained to him why they had resisted stirring up the past, and why they would not make contact with the birth parents the year Kati turned 20.
Last year, when Kati was 21, she was preparing for a semester as an exchange student in Spain when, she says, “I thought people there would have questions about me being Chinese and American. So I asked my mother to tell me about my past again, and she said, ‘Well, we should tell you that we actually know who your biological parents are.’ I was so shocked.”
Kati knew immediately that she wanted to meet them, but she was also terrified by the prospect, and it took time for her to get over the anger she felt towards her adoptive parents. She felt betrayed for having been kept in the dark.
She got in touch with Chang after telling the Pohlers of her intentions, and agreed to become the subject of a documentary about her search for her birth parents. The filmmaker had the heart-warming climax already planned: Qixi Festival 2017; Kati surprising her birth parents on the Broken Bridge. Kati and Chang would meet a few days earlier in Suzhou, to film in the vegetable market where she was abandoned.
Withholding this information from Qian and Xu would have been less cruel had the filming had gone according to plan. Unfortunately, Wu – back in the picture after Kati decided to visit China – had tipped off the birth parents. Qian and Xu took themselves to Suzhou to find Kati, only to be told that, for the sake of dramatic effect, the first meeting had to take place on the Broken Bridge. Deeply hurt, the couple had, in fact, been turned away because Kati was feeling overwhelmed by the experience, she tells me.
When they finally met on the bridge, Qian broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as the many years of yearning cracked open her battle-hardened shell. This was her daughter’s homecoming.
Kati stayed in her birth parents’ flat for two days and shared a room with her sister, who speaks only limited English.
“It was really nice to see them. I was surprised by how emotional my Chinese mom was,” she says.
Kati was bemused too by the typical Chinese admonition that she received. “The first thing they said was, ‘You are skinny, you’ve got to eat more.’ If I didn’t eat they would feed me. I guess they were just super-excited and missed looking after me for all these years,” she says.
The couple took her back to their hometown, and there, Kati met Xu’s ailing mother. She hasn’t spoken since she had a stroke several years ago but she let her lost granddaughter hold her hand. Kati’s grandmother had been there on the houseboat all those years ago to help with the delivery.
Kati admits she hasn’t begun to process the experience.
“I want some sort of relationship. I want to see them again. But the big question is, what are they to me? I don’t even know what to call them,” she says.
Before her trip, the Asian side of her was purely physical. “Now, it’s deeper than that. It’s good that I am more in touch with where I came from, but it is also confusing. I am a product of where I grew up and that is not Asian in any sense of the word,” she says.
For Qian and Xu, seeing Kati doing well was a huge relief and helped to ease the remorse they have been carrying for more than 20 years. But the reunion has also left them hungering for more – and it seems unlikely they will get what they want.
“We were disappointed that she wouldn’t call us mama and baba. We asked her to, but she said they didn’t do that in America, that they called their parents by their first names. Is that right?” Xu asks.
“We couldn’t communicate meaningfully since we don’t speak English and she doesn’t speak Mandarin, but we could tell she’s a really nice girl. But now that we have met her, we miss her even more than before,” Qian says.
“I guess we can only tell ourselves she is like a daughter who has been married off.”
Loss and Disenfranchised Grief: Adopted Children Can Feel Loss and Disenfranchised Grief Publish date: November 26, 2010. By Mitchel L. Zoler
NEW YORK – Adoption is founded on loss, and a child’s reaction to being adopted can often be best understood with a grief model.
The unresolved, uncommunicated, and unvalidated grief that some adopted children may feel often goes unrecognized as an overlay that accompanies more typical psychiatric disorders in adopted children, David Brodzinsky, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. David Brodzinsky
In other cases, adopted children may act up and present what looks like a serious psychiatric problem, but closer examination shows it is an adjustment reaction or other low-level problem that occurs as an adopted child struggles to understand the meaning and implications of adoption, said Dr. Brodzinsky, research and project director at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Oakland, Calif.
"I see two kinds of cases. In children with clinically relevant problems, such as depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the grief model is secondary to understanding and dealing with the psychopathology they have. But there is an overlay that often gets missed, a sense of loss that often is not treated because what you see is depression or anxiety and that has to be dealt with first. But we need to be sure not to miss the underlying sense of grief and loss. It’s not always present, but we need to look for it, and when it’s present, it needs to be dealt with," Dr. Brodzinsky said in an interview.
The second type of case involves children who have what might appear to be depression or anxiety but rather are symptoms that result exclusively from adoption-related grief that has not been appropriately validated.
However, the vast majority of adopted kids do not experience unvalidated grief and are "well within the normal range and do quite well," he said. "Adopted individuals are highly variable in the way they experience adoption-related loss."
If a sense of loss occurs among children who were adopted as infants, it usually appears before age 5-7 years. Children can begin to have a feeling of separation from someone about whom they don’t know much, which can lead to anxiety, sadness, and anger. In some children, "the experience of loss may be quite subtle and not easily observed by others."
Children who were adopted at an older age are more likely to have a more traumatic reaction, but again their understanding of adoption and their reaction to it varies over time as they age. "As children begin to understand the implications of their adoptive status, they become increasingly sensitized to adoption-related loss," Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The sense of loss that some adopted children develop can stem from several different factors and realizations, including loss of birth parents and loss of their entire birth family; loss of their biological, ethnic, racial, and cultural origins; loss of prior nonbiological caregivers; loss of status among their peers; loss of their emotional stability; loss of their feeling of fitting in with their adoptive family; loss of privacy; and loss of their self-identify.
Perhaps the most important consequence of an emerging sense of loss occurs when it leads to disenfranchised grief: The loss goes unrecognized by others or is minimized or trivialized. "Too often, the focus in adoption is on what the child gained" without an acknowledgement of what was lost, he said. "Too often adoptees and birth parents have not had their sense of loss validated by people around them."
Adopted children face the risk that their blocked, disenfranchised grief could become clinical depression. Viewing the loss in a grief model normalizes the child’s reactions rather than casting them as pathological.
Four interventions have shown efficacy for resolving grief and a sense of loss in adopted children. Two approaches especially suited to younger children are "life books" and bibliotherapy. Therapeutic rituals can potentially help at any age. Written role play is a good intervention for older teens and adults.
Many therapists use life books for interventions. Dr. Brodzinsky prefers books created by the patient, often as loose-leaf pages in a binder, rather than commercially available versions. The book is like a photo album of the child’s past, but can also contain drawings and text. The child constructs the book, which helps bring order to what can feel like an otherwise chaotic life story, giving the child a sense of where she comes from and where she is going. What goes into the book depends on the child’s age, willingness to deal with various adoption issues, and the information available. When used in treatment, the child and therapist review the contents of the book repeatedly, as well as adding to it when appropriate. Use of a book opens communication, gives the child a more realistic understanding of his adoption, and gives the child a more positive view of self. Life books usually work best for those aged 4 years to about 11, Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The unresolved, uncommunicated, and unvalidated grief that some adopted children may feel often goes unrecognized as an overlay that accompanies more typical psychiatric disorders in adopted children, David Brodzinsky, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. David Brodzinsky
In other cases, adopted children may act up and present what looks like a serious psychiatric problem, but closer examination shows it is an adjustment reaction or other low-level problem that occurs as an adopted child struggles to understand the meaning and implications of adoption, said Dr. Brodzinsky, research and project director at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Oakland, Calif.
"I see two kinds of cases. In children with clinically relevant problems, such as depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the grief model is secondary to understanding and dealing with the psychopathology they have. But there is an overlay that often gets missed, a sense of loss that often is not treated because what you see is depression or anxiety and that has to be dealt with first. But we need to be sure not to miss the underlying sense of grief and loss. It’s not always present, but we need to look for it, and when it’s present, it needs to be dealt with," Dr. Brodzinsky said in an interview.
The second type of case involves children who have what might appear to be depression or anxiety but rather are symptoms that result exclusively from adoption-related grief that has not been appropriately validated.
However, the vast majority of adopted kids do not experience unvalidated grief and are "well within the normal range and do quite well," he said. "Adopted individuals are highly variable in the way they experience adoption-related loss."
If a sense of loss occurs among children who were adopted as infants, it usually appears before age 5-7 years. Children can begin to have a feeling of separation from someone about whom they don’t know much, which can lead to anxiety, sadness, and anger. In some children, "the experience of loss may be quite subtle and not easily observed by others."
Children who were adopted at an older age are more likely to have a more traumatic reaction, but again their understanding of adoption and their reaction to it varies over time as they age. "As children begin to understand the implications of their adoptive status, they become increasingly sensitized to adoption-related loss," Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The sense of loss that some adopted children develop can stem from several different factors and realizations, including loss of birth parents and loss of their entire birth family; loss of their biological, ethnic, racial, and cultural origins; loss of prior nonbiological caregivers; loss of status among their peers; loss of their emotional stability; loss of their feeling of fitting in with their adoptive family; loss of privacy; and loss of their self-identify.
Perhaps the most important consequence of an emerging sense of loss occurs when it leads to disenfranchised grief: The loss goes unrecognized by others or is minimized or trivialized. "Too often, the focus in adoption is on what the child gained" without an acknowledgement of what was lost, he said. "Too often adoptees and birth parents have not had their sense of loss validated by people around them."
Adopted children face the risk that their blocked, disenfranchised grief could become clinical depression. Viewing the loss in a grief model normalizes the child’s reactions rather than casting them as pathological.
Four interventions have shown efficacy for resolving grief and a sense of loss in adopted children. Two approaches especially suited to younger children are "life books" and bibliotherapy. Therapeutic rituals can potentially help at any age. Written role play is a good intervention for older teens and adults.
Many therapists use life books for interventions. Dr. Brodzinsky prefers books created by the patient, often as loose-leaf pages in a binder, rather than commercially available versions. The book is like a photo album of the child’s past, but can also contain drawings and text. The child constructs the book, which helps bring order to what can feel like an otherwise chaotic life story, giving the child a sense of where she comes from and where she is going. What goes into the book depends on the child’s age, willingness to deal with various adoption issues, and the information available. When used in treatment, the child and therapist review the contents of the book repeatedly, as well as adding to it when appropriate. Use of a book opens communication, gives the child a more realistic understanding of his adoption, and gives the child a more positive view of self. Life books usually work best for those aged 4 years to about 11, Dr. Brodzinsky said.
Childhood Emotional Neglect: The 10 Rules Emotions Follow That Everyone Should Know By Jonice Webb PhD
Do you sometimes feel mystified by your own feelings? Of course, you do!
Believe me when I say that everybody does.
It’s not always obvious why you’ve felt sad all day, for example. In fact, you may go through an entire day feeling sad without even realizing it until the evening. Then once you recognize how you’ve been feeling, you may still be confused about the reasons.
An experience like this is not at all unusual. You would be hard-pressed to find a single human being who hasn’t been there. And if you find someone who says he has never had that experience, it’s probably because he is not sufficiently aware of his feelings to realize that he is having them.
It is true that feelings are unbelievably complicated. Yet they are an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, it’s truly incredible how much we are actually influenced by what we feel, whether we realize it or not. Our feelings drive our decisions and our actions. They cause us to get into conflicts and to work out problems. They help us choose our mates, our careers, and everything else in our lives.
So think of your emotions as a strong current that carries you through your life. The better you understand that current and work with it, the better you can harness its energy and use it, and the easier your life will be.
Although emotions are complex, they do follow certain rules. Once you know the rules you have a huge leg up on managing and using your feelings in a healthy way.
The 10 Rules Your Emotions Follow
1) Your feelings do not originate from the part of your brain that is under your control. You cannot choose your feelings.
2) Feelings are not subject to any moral code. They’re neither good nor bad, right or wrong. They just are what they are.
3) Even though you can’t choose your feelings, you are responsible for them.
4) Emotions can be “walled off” but they cannot be extinguished. If you wall off an emotion, it does not disappear. It just goes and lives on the other side of the wall.
5) Feelings can lead you down the right path or they can lead you astray. It all depends on what you do with them.
6) When you disregard an emotion, you are actually empowering it. Ignoring, pushing away, or walling off a feeling may seem to make it go away but it’s the feelings you’re the least aware of that can affect you without your knowledge.
7) There is only one way to make an uncomfortable feeling go away, and that is to let yourself feel it.
8) Your feelings drive your thoughts, but you can also use your thoughts to manage your feelings.
9) Sitting with a powerful emotion and letting yourself feel it while thinking about it to understand why you’re having it, what it means, and what it’s telling you, is called “processing it.”
10) Your feelings are valuable messages from your deepest self. When you follow Rule 9, you are listening to the messages, honoring yourself, and making use of this valuable resource from within.
Since everyone has feelings, literally everyone should know these rules. It would prevent many emotional mistakes and misunderstandings that virtually everyone commonly makes.
Now I’m going to give you a Bonus Emotion Rule. This rule is not included in the first ten because it is special. It may be harder to accept, yet once you do, it can change your life.
Without further ado, here it is:
11. The way your parents treated your feelings as they raised you is probably the way you treat your own feelings now.
What exactly does this mean? Simply this: Childhood is actually Emotion Training For Life. Few people realize it but it is true!
If your parents noticed what you were feeling as they raised you, helped you name your feelings, and walked you through Rule 9 often enough, they taught you the 10 Rules that emotions follow. And they also taught you vital emotion skills that you still enjoy now, whether you realize it or not.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. If your parents failed to notice your feelings, help you name them, and figure out how to process them, then you likely grew up without learning those skills. Now you likely fail to notice your own feelings, and have a difficult time naming or processing the ones that you do notice.
After many years of watching this exact problem impact person, after person, after person, holding them back in their lives, and damaging their relationships, I finally realized that this is important. It must be talked about. People need to know.
So I named the problem Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), and I have made it my mission to educate as many as I can about it. The amazing thing about CEN is that it gives you answers. It explains why the 10 Rules Of Emotions are such a mystery to you.
It’s so straightforward, and yet so hard to see: you simply didn’t have a way to learn them as a child.
The very best thing about realizing that you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect is that it is a very curable problem. Now that you know what is wrong, you can fill in the gaps.
You can learn the 10 Rules, and you will see that it will make a tremendous difference in your life when you follow them.
Believe me when I say that everybody does.
It’s not always obvious why you’ve felt sad all day, for example. In fact, you may go through an entire day feeling sad without even realizing it until the evening. Then once you recognize how you’ve been feeling, you may still be confused about the reasons.
An experience like this is not at all unusual. You would be hard-pressed to find a single human being who hasn’t been there. And if you find someone who says he has never had that experience, it’s probably because he is not sufficiently aware of his feelings to realize that he is having them.
It is true that feelings are unbelievably complicated. Yet they are an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, it’s truly incredible how much we are actually influenced by what we feel, whether we realize it or not. Our feelings drive our decisions and our actions. They cause us to get into conflicts and to work out problems. They help us choose our mates, our careers, and everything else in our lives.
So think of your emotions as a strong current that carries you through your life. The better you understand that current and work with it, the better you can harness its energy and use it, and the easier your life will be.
Although emotions are complex, they do follow certain rules. Once you know the rules you have a huge leg up on managing and using your feelings in a healthy way.
The 10 Rules Your Emotions Follow
1) Your feelings do not originate from the part of your brain that is under your control. You cannot choose your feelings.
2) Feelings are not subject to any moral code. They’re neither good nor bad, right or wrong. They just are what they are.
3) Even though you can’t choose your feelings, you are responsible for them.
4) Emotions can be “walled off” but they cannot be extinguished. If you wall off an emotion, it does not disappear. It just goes and lives on the other side of the wall.
5) Feelings can lead you down the right path or they can lead you astray. It all depends on what you do with them.
6) When you disregard an emotion, you are actually empowering it. Ignoring, pushing away, or walling off a feeling may seem to make it go away but it’s the feelings you’re the least aware of that can affect you without your knowledge.
7) There is only one way to make an uncomfortable feeling go away, and that is to let yourself feel it.
8) Your feelings drive your thoughts, but you can also use your thoughts to manage your feelings.
9) Sitting with a powerful emotion and letting yourself feel it while thinking about it to understand why you’re having it, what it means, and what it’s telling you, is called “processing it.”
10) Your feelings are valuable messages from your deepest self. When you follow Rule 9, you are listening to the messages, honoring yourself, and making use of this valuable resource from within.
Since everyone has feelings, literally everyone should know these rules. It would prevent many emotional mistakes and misunderstandings that virtually everyone commonly makes.
Now I’m going to give you a Bonus Emotion Rule. This rule is not included in the first ten because it is special. It may be harder to accept, yet once you do, it can change your life.
Without further ado, here it is:
11. The way your parents treated your feelings as they raised you is probably the way you treat your own feelings now.
What exactly does this mean? Simply this: Childhood is actually Emotion Training For Life. Few people realize it but it is true!
If your parents noticed what you were feeling as they raised you, helped you name your feelings, and walked you through Rule 9 often enough, they taught you the 10 Rules that emotions follow. And they also taught you vital emotion skills that you still enjoy now, whether you realize it or not.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. If your parents failed to notice your feelings, help you name them, and figure out how to process them, then you likely grew up without learning those skills. Now you likely fail to notice your own feelings, and have a difficult time naming or processing the ones that you do notice.
After many years of watching this exact problem impact person, after person, after person, holding them back in their lives, and damaging their relationships, I finally realized that this is important. It must be talked about. People need to know.
So I named the problem Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), and I have made it my mission to educate as many as I can about it. The amazing thing about CEN is that it gives you answers. It explains why the 10 Rules Of Emotions are such a mystery to you.
It’s so straightforward, and yet so hard to see: you simply didn’t have a way to learn them as a child.
The very best thing about realizing that you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect is that it is a very curable problem. Now that you know what is wrong, you can fill in the gaps.
You can learn the 10 Rules, and you will see that it will make a tremendous difference in your life when you follow them.
Unsealed adoption records renew adoptee's hope of discovering her past
Medical history is the main reason Lorraine Thompson wants her information released.
Adoptee Lorraine Thompson is seeking the release of her adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick. (Catherine Harrop/CBC News)
Lorraine Thompson awoke Easter Sunday with the hope her almost 10-year-long quest to discover her past will soon come to an end.
April 1 was the first day adoptees could apply to receive freshly unsealed adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick, and Thompson is anxious to learn more about herself and receive important information, like medical histories.
Thompson was part of a coalition that lobbied the provincial government to open adoption records. Now that time has come, she said it's both exciting and emotional.
Thompson says she's not looking for a family, just information. (CBC News)
"Nobody understands what it's like to not know who you are and where you came from," said Thompson, who grew up in Dipper Harbour and lives nearby.
"It's fitting the pieces of your life together."
Finding those pieces has been a struggle, however.
'I'm not looking for a family'
Thompson, 65, began seeking information about her birth family in 2009 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She contacted Post Adoption Disclosure Services for her non-identifying information and a medical search.
But she's only gathered bits of information in the following years.
She knows she was born Dec. 31, 1952, in Saint John and spent time in a protestant orphanage. She was conceived during a brief extra-marital affair, and she was put up for adoption at the request of her birth mother's husband.
She has at least six half siblings, and she learned her first two names: Cheryl Lynn.
But there was little else. Her birth mother refused to acknowledge she had given birth to Thompson, and a half sibling, who was unaware of her existence, provided only two pieces of information in a medical history — her birth father died of a heart attack and another relative died of cancer.
"I'm not looking for a family. I'm looking for information," said Thompson, who has been frustrated with the red tape shrouding her past.
"It's a human right to know your roots and your history, and every Canadian should be treated equally and adoptees are not treated equally."
Potential roadblock
Thompson is hopeful the unsealed records will answer her many questions.
But there could be another roadblock.
For adoptions that happened before April 1, 2018, an adult adoptee or a birth parent will be able to apply for information about the other person, but the other person can veto its release.
For adoptions after April 1, 2018, birth parents will be told that information may someday be released to the adoptee, but they can choose not to be contacted.
"This is about me, so I'm asking when I sent this off for a copy of my file in its original form and not with somebody going through it and picking and choosing what they think I should know."
The post-April 1, 2018, birth parents would be able to select what kind of contact they have with the adoptees, if any. The same would apply to adopted children once they reach 19.
The pre-April 1, 2018, birth parents and adoptees would each have one year to invoke a veto. If they don't respond or can't be reached, the information will be released.
The adoptee has to be 19 years old to request information.
Adoptee Lorraine Thompson is seeking the release of her adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick. (Catherine Harrop/CBC News)
Lorraine Thompson awoke Easter Sunday with the hope her almost 10-year-long quest to discover her past will soon come to an end.
April 1 was the first day adoptees could apply to receive freshly unsealed adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick, and Thompson is anxious to learn more about herself and receive important information, like medical histories.
Thompson was part of a coalition that lobbied the provincial government to open adoption records. Now that time has come, she said it's both exciting and emotional.
Thompson says she's not looking for a family, just information. (CBC News)
"Nobody understands what it's like to not know who you are and where you came from," said Thompson, who grew up in Dipper Harbour and lives nearby.
"It's fitting the pieces of your life together."
Finding those pieces has been a struggle, however.
'I'm not looking for a family'
Thompson, 65, began seeking information about her birth family in 2009 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She contacted Post Adoption Disclosure Services for her non-identifying information and a medical search.
But she's only gathered bits of information in the following years.
She knows she was born Dec. 31, 1952, in Saint John and spent time in a protestant orphanage. She was conceived during a brief extra-marital affair, and she was put up for adoption at the request of her birth mother's husband.
She has at least six half siblings, and she learned her first two names: Cheryl Lynn.
But there was little else. Her birth mother refused to acknowledge she had given birth to Thompson, and a half sibling, who was unaware of her existence, provided only two pieces of information in a medical history — her birth father died of a heart attack and another relative died of cancer.
"I'm not looking for a family. I'm looking for information," said Thompson, who has been frustrated with the red tape shrouding her past.
"It's a human right to know your roots and your history, and every Canadian should be treated equally and adoptees are not treated equally."
Potential roadblock
Thompson is hopeful the unsealed records will answer her many questions.
But there could be another roadblock.
For adoptions that happened before April 1, 2018, an adult adoptee or a birth parent will be able to apply for information about the other person, but the other person can veto its release.
For adoptions after April 1, 2018, birth parents will be told that information may someday be released to the adoptee, but they can choose not to be contacted.
"This is about me, so I'm asking when I sent this off for a copy of my file in its original form and not with somebody going through it and picking and choosing what they think I should know."
The post-April 1, 2018, birth parents would be able to select what kind of contact they have with the adoptees, if any. The same would apply to adopted children once they reach 19.
The pre-April 1, 2018, birth parents and adoptees would each have one year to invoke a veto. If they don't respond or can't be reached, the information will be released.
The adoptee has to be 19 years old to request information.
Adoption Is My Nationality Michelle Madrid-Branch
As a former foster child, as well as an international adoptee, I’m often asked about my nationality. In other words, people are curious as to where I originated, what my heritage is and to whom I once belonged.
Believe me, I have been — in my lifetime — ultra curious about these things, as well. In fact, the journey of discovery has taken me along paths to unknown destinations, and to unknown parts of myself.
The experience of seeking out adoption truth is like putting together a puzzle with vital pieces missing. Empty holes. Empty spaces. Those hollow places in the heart; caverns created by loss.
How much are we willing to sacrifice in an effort to put back the pieces of a shattered-self? What are we willing to risk? How can we revive the dormant parts of who we once were, as adoptees, prior to being removed from our first lives?
As for me, I’ve risked everything. I have put it all on the line in the quest to know who I am. I’ve faced my deepest fear: rejection. And, along the way, I’ve met with the sweetest redemption, all in the name of adoption.
I’ve learned the names of relatives, both past and present, and I speak their names out loud. Although I was a secret to many of them, they are no longer a secret to me. Cecilia, Julian, Maria, Eva, Rosa, Andre … and the list goes on and on. I have longed to speak their names and, in the longing, I have grieved what was lost; and what never was.
I’ve discovered that, as an adoptee, it is my birthright to be given the chance to know my history and my heritage. It is my right to have access to this information and to uncover as much of the mystery of me that I can. It is my right to know that I am a product of what is Spanish and English. It is my right to know of my Saudi Arabian and Pakistani roots. It is pure gift to know these parts of who I am. For, in the knowing is birthed the beginnings of healing.
Yet, beyond the bounds of birth heritage and birth history, I have come to learn a deeper sense of identity. One that has been, on many levels, unexpected: my nationality — over and above all else — is adoption.
What does this mean?
For me, it means that there are no people on this planet of whom I feel more akin to than those who live within the skin of adoption. No people of whom I could be more proud to say I’m related to. Adoption is a proud heritage, even though the history often comes with pain and sorrow.
Adoption says that I have survived the unthinkable experience of being severed from the life I was born into. Adoption speaks of the gratitude I feel for being able to forgive and even bless those who walked away. Adoption expresses my ability to love beyond the borders of bloodline. It exemplifies my ability to see the events of my life as happening for me and not to me. In other words, I am not a victim. I am a victor, and I choose to thrive.
And, when I stand with others who share this nationality called adoption, I am able to share my story and know that I am safe because I’m understood. They understand because they live a similar journey. Within our differences, we are one. We are tapestry. There is room for all voices within this nation, there is room for diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective.
As an adoption community, may we see ourselves as the founders of a unique nation that speaks the language of inclusion and a love that knows no borders.
As you, dear sisters and brothers of adoption and foster care, go out into your lives and seek truth, fact, and possibly reunion … know that — even though you may not understand this now — your adoption nationality could be the purest part of what makes you resilient, strong, and unbreakable.
Adoption is my nationality: I don’t fight this truth. Not anymore. In fact, I embrace this identity and I’m pliable to the lessons it has taught me; the lessons it continues to teach me. These lessons have taken root and blossomed into my individual offering; my calling.
I once believed that adoption was my weakness. I no longer think this true. Adoption has become my strength. I stand proud and able to continue the work of ensuring that this adoption nation is heard, seen, valued, respected, and understood.
May we be risk takers for truth; may we find the courage to revive the lost parts of ourselves. May we discover the inner-power to fuel us forward in sharing our stories; may we do so with grace and with dignity.
Within the loss that accompanies adoption, may we find life — beautiful life — and may this life be our anthem to the world.
Believe me, I have been — in my lifetime — ultra curious about these things, as well. In fact, the journey of discovery has taken me along paths to unknown destinations, and to unknown parts of myself.
The experience of seeking out adoption truth is like putting together a puzzle with vital pieces missing. Empty holes. Empty spaces. Those hollow places in the heart; caverns created by loss.
How much are we willing to sacrifice in an effort to put back the pieces of a shattered-self? What are we willing to risk? How can we revive the dormant parts of who we once were, as adoptees, prior to being removed from our first lives?
As for me, I’ve risked everything. I have put it all on the line in the quest to know who I am. I’ve faced my deepest fear: rejection. And, along the way, I’ve met with the sweetest redemption, all in the name of adoption.
I’ve learned the names of relatives, both past and present, and I speak their names out loud. Although I was a secret to many of them, they are no longer a secret to me. Cecilia, Julian, Maria, Eva, Rosa, Andre … and the list goes on and on. I have longed to speak their names and, in the longing, I have grieved what was lost; and what never was.
I’ve discovered that, as an adoptee, it is my birthright to be given the chance to know my history and my heritage. It is my right to have access to this information and to uncover as much of the mystery of me that I can. It is my right to know that I am a product of what is Spanish and English. It is my right to know of my Saudi Arabian and Pakistani roots. It is pure gift to know these parts of who I am. For, in the knowing is birthed the beginnings of healing.
Yet, beyond the bounds of birth heritage and birth history, I have come to learn a deeper sense of identity. One that has been, on many levels, unexpected: my nationality — over and above all else — is adoption.
What does this mean?
For me, it means that there are no people on this planet of whom I feel more akin to than those who live within the skin of adoption. No people of whom I could be more proud to say I’m related to. Adoption is a proud heritage, even though the history often comes with pain and sorrow.
Adoption says that I have survived the unthinkable experience of being severed from the life I was born into. Adoption speaks of the gratitude I feel for being able to forgive and even bless those who walked away. Adoption expresses my ability to love beyond the borders of bloodline. It exemplifies my ability to see the events of my life as happening for me and not to me. In other words, I am not a victim. I am a victor, and I choose to thrive.
And, when I stand with others who share this nationality called adoption, I am able to share my story and know that I am safe because I’m understood. They understand because they live a similar journey. Within our differences, we are one. We are tapestry. There is room for all voices within this nation, there is room for diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective.
As an adoption community, may we see ourselves as the founders of a unique nation that speaks the language of inclusion and a love that knows no borders.
As you, dear sisters and brothers of adoption and foster care, go out into your lives and seek truth, fact, and possibly reunion … know that — even though you may not understand this now — your adoption nationality could be the purest part of what makes you resilient, strong, and unbreakable.
Adoption is my nationality: I don’t fight this truth. Not anymore. In fact, I embrace this identity and I’m pliable to the lessons it has taught me; the lessons it continues to teach me. These lessons have taken root and blossomed into my individual offering; my calling.
I once believed that adoption was my weakness. I no longer think this true. Adoption has become my strength. I stand proud and able to continue the work of ensuring that this adoption nation is heard, seen, valued, respected, and understood.
May we be risk takers for truth; may we find the courage to revive the lost parts of ourselves. May we discover the inner-power to fuel us forward in sharing our stories; may we do so with grace and with dignity.
Within the loss that accompanies adoption, may we find life — beautiful life — and may this life be our anthem to the world.
To change a child’s Identity is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Whilst state governments argue the need to regress to past forced adoption practices to solve the problem in child protection, with out of home care other states and countries forge a forward thinking approach to caring for vulnerable children.They are seeing the light, finally coming to the reality of trauma created by a draconian adoption model that they have endorsed in the past and we are currently introducing again.
In all the following alternatives to Adoption they all have the same fundamental difference to adoption and that is that they do not change the child’s Identity or sever the child’s legal ties to its siblings, heritage, extended family and bloodline.
1) The UK has introduced a special guardianship model.
2) South Australia Places guardianship as the preferred model for child protection instead of adoption.
3) Queensland is piloting the following program Permanent care for children and young people
4)Victoria already has a viable alternative in the Victorian Permanent care model along with a viable alternative in the stewardship model that has been and is being proposed
Background to special guardianship UK.
1.The Prime Minister’s Review of Adoption identified that, while there was no clear difference in disruption rates between adoption and long-term fostering when age was taken into account, there were indications that children generally preferred the sense of security that adoption gives them over long-term foster placements. However, research indicated that there was a significant group of children, mainly older, who did not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption.
2.The report identified the need for an alternative legal status for children that offered greater security than long-term fostering but without the absolute legal severance from the birth family that stems from an adoption order. The report recommended that the Government consult on the details of a new legislative option for providing permanence short of adoption. This was strongly supported in the consultation on the report that followed.
3. The White Paper Adoption: a new approach 2 set out a number of routes to permanence for looked after children. One of these proposed routes was a new legal status to be known as special guardianship. The White Paper committed the Government to legislating to create special guardianship to provide legal permanence for those children for whom adoption is not appropriate. It stated that special guardianship would:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503547/special_guardianship_guidance.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/337568/iro_statutory_guidance_iros_and_las_march_2010_tagged.pdf
ADOPTION AND OTHER PERSON GUARDIANSHIP SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Stability of care relationships for children is an important precondition to their development. Adoption is one way of securing that stability. Some members of the community hold the view that adoption of children from care solves the problem of the shortage of suitable home-based placements.
However, the Commission is not persuaded that an increased emphasis on making children in care available for adoption is necessarily appropriate, when fundamental considerations of the child’s best interests are brought into account. That is not to exclude the possibility of adoption of children in care when it is genuinely in their best interests.
However, children can gain additional feelings of security within a loving family through Other Person Guardianship where guardianship responsibilities and powers are shifted in certain circumstances from the Minister to the carer of the child under the Children’s Protection Act. It can bring a greater sense of stability, certainty and normalcy to a child’s life, including placing important decision-making in the hands of the adults who know the child best.
Other Person Guardianship has been under-used in South Australia. The Agency has retained decision-making powers over many children in situations in which, for all intents and purposes, they are a settled part of a new family. In 2014/15 South Australia had the lowest rate of Other Person Guardianship carers of any state in Australia.
The focus on Other Person Guardianship should be renewed. The Commission recommends a new procedure to facilitate such applications being made by foster parents—an independent expert panel established to enable foster parents and relative carers to apply for an official assessment of their suitability and timely consideration of such applications.
The Children’s Protection Act should be amended to limit the ability of a child’s parents to oppose the making of an Other Person Guardianship order if the court is satisfied that such an order is in the best interests of the child.”
QUEENSLAND PERMANENT CARE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
All children and young people deserve to live in a safe and supportive home where they are valued and cared for.
In building a new child protection and family support system in Queensland, the department is working to reduce the number of children and young people in the tertiary system.
My Home is a new care option for children who need long-term out-of-home care and where reunification with family is no longer possible.
Couples who have been assessed by the department as suitable adoptive parents, or who have committed to an adoption assessment, can become permanent foster carers and provide a loving, nurturing and stable home where the child is considered as a member of their family.
Children under six years of age and subject to Child Protection Orders until they are 18 years old (or a decision has been made to apply for a Child Protection Order until they are 18 years old) will be placed with suitable permanent foster carers.
My Home also enables the department to consider whether the permanent foster cares will be the child’s legal guardians under a Long-Term Guardianship Order to the carers. This allows the child to have the security and stability of living permanently with a family, without ongoing intensive involvement from the department.
Providing a permanent, stable home life allows children to form trusting and secure attachments to their carers, and feel a sense of belonging with family and community.
THE STEWARDSHIP MODEL:
Why a stewardship model and not adoption for children in child protection?
Adoption should not be included as a child protection strategy in any form of legislation, policy or practice. We believe that overall decision-making authorities in relation to adoption need to take care to ensure that dialogue and policy is not driven by the desire of adoptive “parents to have “ownership” of such children, rather than to create safe and supportive care environments that maintains their identity, connection to their family and community” Changing a child’s identity in the name of care is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Having families THAT DON’T discontinue their relationship just because the court order discontinue at 18 years of age can radically change outcomes for these kids.
We know these families exist when we hear that there are 100s of people who want to adopt, it poses the Question. Why can’t these people care for children in need and offer support for the duration of the child’s life time without the need to change the child’s Identity and cut legal ties to its brothers, sisters, grandparent’s and the rest of its extended family, heritage and blood line.
By the introduction of a post adoption Birth Certificate that states a legal lie that they are now the natural parents “As If Born To”?
Why it is that Adopters must own a child before they will commit to a lifelong caring relationship with a child in need?
Is it the child’s needs that they are truly wanting to fulfil or is it the needs of the person/s that seeks to adopt that they want fulfilled instead?
Understandably for many people it’s a profound commitment, but it doesn’t have to be based on ownership here’s how a Stewardship model works: The approach is tailored to the Child’s needs first and is the paramount consideration. The overarching principle which is meant to govern adoption is that the ‘welfare and interests of the child’ are the ‘paramount consideration’.
This puts the child’s welfare and interests above the interests of the, people wanting to adopt adoptive parents and the child’s natural parents This overarching principle is the focus of the Alternative care Stewardship model to ‘ensure that the best interests and rights of the child are the foremost consideration in any decision made
Adoption changes the child’s identity and the child is legally severed from its family heritage and blood line it is not only a replacement family but also an ownership transaction that denies the child’s human right to its true identity but allows the child knowledge of who they use to be.
On the other hand a stewardship model has the role of the life long relationship between the child and adult clear the family is not a replacement family because the child already has one but a lifelong support family that take the role as an uncle and aunt type characters who include the child in their family but do not try to replace the child’s family and respect’s the child’s identity and loves the child as any relative should.
The Stewardship model is preferred as a last resort instead of adoption
After all efforts have been exhausted for family reunification and have exhausted all efforts to place the child with appropriate kin then it only is logical that a model is chosen that takes on a kinship type roll such as stewardship rather than a replacement family as the child already has a family and heritage. In a position to care for them or not they are still the child’s flesh and blood. In a stewardship model The child maintains its rights to its true identity and has a lifelong support family grows up to become an adult with no confusion, no divided loyalties no living a lie and growing up with the truth about its family circumstances and is supported to come to terms with its truth within an honest ,transparent and supportive family with a warm and loving safe environment to grow up in and not be expected to be anyone else but the child’s true self and as the child becomes an adult it will still be supported through to independence and beyond without having to trade its identity for care and will always have some where to come home for Xmas.
“Stewardship is the responsible overseeing and protection of somebody special considered worth caring for and preserving”.
*The Court issues a guardianship Care Order granting custody to a nominated family
*Retain original birth certificates and the truth of the family of origin
*Issue a subsequent document which states care and guardianship without legally severing biological ties
Only sever the ties that give care and control for a child whilst a minor.
*Add a clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age therefore reality and truth is retained, consequently identity is protected.
We agree that some children can’t be raised with their parents for many reasons and that they might feel positive about the experiences they’ve had in the care of others – even in some cases building relationships with these people who are ongoing, strong and positive. The way to get it right is to fundamentally rethink how to provide safe homes to all children.” NOT permanent removal by means of adoption by people fulfilling their need for a child and governments looking to save money. Adoption is a past option for today’s children who need care. However severing ties and creating a false birth certificate isn’t a necessary part of that. It doesn’t logically follow that to protect and care for a child their identity must be changed or invented. Basing care of a child on changing the child’s identity and denying a previous existence and origins (whether known or not) is not a sound basis for child protection and child development.
Definitely, there will always be a need to remove children in some cases, however family preservation should always be the first port of call but changing the child’s birth certificate (adoption) is not about what the child needs at all. In adoption, child protection becomes inextricably linked with child ownership and becomes – disturbingly often – about those who ‘need’ a child.
Wherever an adoption has ‘worked’, what should be examined is whether great caring with well-balanced, good people lucky enough to have the means to offer care has ‘worked’ instead. (Sharyn White)
Wherever an adoption has occurred, what should be examined is whether it was necessary to change the child’s identity, and disconnect the child from its family, heritage and blood line. ·
Stewardship is a model just like kinship Care is a Model and both are placed and monitored under a guardianship order by the courts. After it has been determined that there has been no coercion, family reunification is not possible and all efforts have failed to place the child with kin a guardianship order is legally established. In the case of siblings, a stewardship family is chosen that can keep them together. The guardians are responsible for all day-to-day care of the child and for decisions about matters such as education, employment, health and wellbeing.
The guardianship order expires when the child reaches age 18/21 and it is assumed that by adding the clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age along with the close relationship established between the guardians/family and the child who becomes an adult would last a lifetime. The child is able to be involved in both the guardians/family and their own parents/family lives by choice. Without the added pressure from a replacement family that wants the child to be “As if Born To” them that often exists in adoption. .
“In a natural family the parents no longer have the legal responsibilities for their child when the child reaches age 18/21 the child becomes legally responsible for themselves, however the relationship between the child and its family does not finish, and this is the same with a stewardship model”
Contact
The court’s involvement is to construct a contact regime for each particular child with immediate family, siblings, grandparents and extended family depending on his or her needs and circumstances, (you can’t say ‘one size fits all) that is legally binding and the guardians are legally bound to support its implementation through until the child reaches the end of the guardianship order. If this is not appropriate the court shall set out and monitor what is appropriate. Contact is a difficult issue, relying on, in practice, the goodwill of the parties involved however we believe that a contact regime can only be legally protected and enforceable if the Court has made the contact regime part of the guardianship order. In adoption current practice and section 59A of the adoption act 1984 (Vic) permits mothers/parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact in the form of face-to-face meetings and information exchange, which, with the agreement of the adoptive parents, is written into the adoption order by the Court. Contact is generally set at between one to four times per year but this is usually a minimum frequency with contact beyond the nominated frequency at the discretion of the adopting parents. Open adoption in the Adoption Act 1984 2.46 The Adoption Act establishes open adoption. Openness is built into the adoption process. The Act allows natural parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact which, with agreement from the adoptive parents, becomes a condition of the adoption order
‘However while contact arrangements agreed to in an adoption order are legally enforceable, in practice they rely on the goodwill of the parties involved. If family of origin members do not keep their commitments, there is little that children or adoptive parents can do to enforce them. Likewise, adoptive parents can also ‘make it difficult or uncomfortable for families of origin to stay in contact, with the result that contact may cease or greatly diminish over time’. Review of the Adoption Act 1984: Consultation Paper/ Victorian Law Reform Commission
How contact is to be conducted is not prescribed beyond the requirement that the adoption service manage the arrangements for the year between the placement of the baby and the order being ratified in the Court. After the adoption order is made, there is no professional support for the ongoing contact ordered by the Court.
A stewardship model would introduce a body to assist the court with an Independent/Ethics Committee not connected to the NGO or DoHHS is to be established to report to the court. This body would oversee, monitor, and report to the court on all aspects of the process, including the contact regime and regular welfare checks
Welfare checks must be carried out on all cared for children in private homes not like adoption which has no welfare checks or follow-up at present the government and NGOs have no duty of care once a child is adopted which possibly leaves the child at risk
Contact agreements should be set based on each individual case recognising one size does not fit all, along with the ongoing monitoring, implementation of those agreements with the full weight of the law for the execution of such until the child comes of age.
Contact agreements should be decided upon between the independent ethics committee, parents/relatives, the guardians and the child when the child is of an age to contribute overtime. Recommendations should be put to the court for including in the guardianship order. If the family of origin do not keep their commitments, it would be part of the role of an ethics committee to consult and counsel all parties, if the ethics committee’s efforts fail, then it goes to the court to be determined
Natural parents must have the option to re-establish contact at a later date pending their circumstances.
Whilst Britain continues to try, not terribly successfully, to modernise its child welfare system, we continue to look to countries like Australia, who are always ahead of the curve in this field.
Former judge of the Family Court of Australia, Professor the Honourable Nahum Mushin on ‘permanency and adoption’:
“I think the concept of permanency is contrary to what I regard as being in the best interests of children. We shouldn’t be talking about permanency, we should be talking about long-term. Once we get to that, really what you got to do is that you have to construct a care regime for each particular child depending on his or her needs, and you can’t say ‘one size fits all’.”
In all the following alternatives to Adoption they all have the same fundamental difference to adoption and that is that they do not change the child’s Identity or sever the child’s legal ties to its siblings, heritage, extended family and bloodline.
1) The UK has introduced a special guardianship model.
2) South Australia Places guardianship as the preferred model for child protection instead of adoption.
3) Queensland is piloting the following program Permanent care for children and young people
4)Victoria already has a viable alternative in the Victorian Permanent care model along with a viable alternative in the stewardship model that has been and is being proposed
Background to special guardianship UK.
1.The Prime Minister’s Review of Adoption identified that, while there was no clear difference in disruption rates between adoption and long-term fostering when age was taken into account, there were indications that children generally preferred the sense of security that adoption gives them over long-term foster placements. However, research indicated that there was a significant group of children, mainly older, who did not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption.
2.The report identified the need for an alternative legal status for children that offered greater security than long-term fostering but without the absolute legal severance from the birth family that stems from an adoption order. The report recommended that the Government consult on the details of a new legislative option for providing permanence short of adoption. This was strongly supported in the consultation on the report that followed.
3. The White Paper Adoption: a new approach 2 set out a number of routes to permanence for looked after children. One of these proposed routes was a new legal status to be known as special guardianship. The White Paper committed the Government to legislating to create special guardianship to provide legal permanence for those children for whom adoption is not appropriate. It stated that special guardianship would:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503547/special_guardianship_guidance.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/337568/iro_statutory_guidance_iros_and_las_march_2010_tagged.pdf
ADOPTION AND OTHER PERSON GUARDIANSHIP SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Stability of care relationships for children is an important precondition to their development. Adoption is one way of securing that stability. Some members of the community hold the view that adoption of children from care solves the problem of the shortage of suitable home-based placements.
However, the Commission is not persuaded that an increased emphasis on making children in care available for adoption is necessarily appropriate, when fundamental considerations of the child’s best interests are brought into account. That is not to exclude the possibility of adoption of children in care when it is genuinely in their best interests.
However, children can gain additional feelings of security within a loving family through Other Person Guardianship where guardianship responsibilities and powers are shifted in certain circumstances from the Minister to the carer of the child under the Children’s Protection Act. It can bring a greater sense of stability, certainty and normalcy to a child’s life, including placing important decision-making in the hands of the adults who know the child best.
Other Person Guardianship has been under-used in South Australia. The Agency has retained decision-making powers over many children in situations in which, for all intents and purposes, they are a settled part of a new family. In 2014/15 South Australia had the lowest rate of Other Person Guardianship carers of any state in Australia.
The focus on Other Person Guardianship should be renewed. The Commission recommends a new procedure to facilitate such applications being made by foster parents—an independent expert panel established to enable foster parents and relative carers to apply for an official assessment of their suitability and timely consideration of such applications.
The Children’s Protection Act should be amended to limit the ability of a child’s parents to oppose the making of an Other Person Guardianship order if the court is satisfied that such an order is in the best interests of the child.”
QUEENSLAND PERMANENT CARE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
All children and young people deserve to live in a safe and supportive home where they are valued and cared for.
In building a new child protection and family support system in Queensland, the department is working to reduce the number of children and young people in the tertiary system.
My Home is a new care option for children who need long-term out-of-home care and where reunification with family is no longer possible.
Couples who have been assessed by the department as suitable adoptive parents, or who have committed to an adoption assessment, can become permanent foster carers and provide a loving, nurturing and stable home where the child is considered as a member of their family.
Children under six years of age and subject to Child Protection Orders until they are 18 years old (or a decision has been made to apply for a Child Protection Order until they are 18 years old) will be placed with suitable permanent foster carers.
My Home also enables the department to consider whether the permanent foster cares will be the child’s legal guardians under a Long-Term Guardianship Order to the carers. This allows the child to have the security and stability of living permanently with a family, without ongoing intensive involvement from the department.
Providing a permanent, stable home life allows children to form trusting and secure attachments to their carers, and feel a sense of belonging with family and community.
THE STEWARDSHIP MODEL:
Why a stewardship model and not adoption for children in child protection?
Adoption should not be included as a child protection strategy in any form of legislation, policy or practice. We believe that overall decision-making authorities in relation to adoption need to take care to ensure that dialogue and policy is not driven by the desire of adoptive “parents to have “ownership” of such children, rather than to create safe and supportive care environments that maintains their identity, connection to their family and community” Changing a child’s identity in the name of care is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Having families THAT DON’T discontinue their relationship just because the court order discontinue at 18 years of age can radically change outcomes for these kids.
We know these families exist when we hear that there are 100s of people who want to adopt, it poses the Question. Why can’t these people care for children in need and offer support for the duration of the child’s life time without the need to change the child’s Identity and cut legal ties to its brothers, sisters, grandparent’s and the rest of its extended family, heritage and blood line.
By the introduction of a post adoption Birth Certificate that states a legal lie that they are now the natural parents “As If Born To”?
Why it is that Adopters must own a child before they will commit to a lifelong caring relationship with a child in need?
Is it the child’s needs that they are truly wanting to fulfil or is it the needs of the person/s that seeks to adopt that they want fulfilled instead?
Understandably for many people it’s a profound commitment, but it doesn’t have to be based on ownership here’s how a Stewardship model works: The approach is tailored to the Child’s needs first and is the paramount consideration. The overarching principle which is meant to govern adoption is that the ‘welfare and interests of the child’ are the ‘paramount consideration’.
This puts the child’s welfare and interests above the interests of the, people wanting to adopt adoptive parents and the child’s natural parents This overarching principle is the focus of the Alternative care Stewardship model to ‘ensure that the best interests and rights of the child are the foremost consideration in any decision made
Adoption changes the child’s identity and the child is legally severed from its family heritage and blood line it is not only a replacement family but also an ownership transaction that denies the child’s human right to its true identity but allows the child knowledge of who they use to be.
On the other hand a stewardship model has the role of the life long relationship between the child and adult clear the family is not a replacement family because the child already has one but a lifelong support family that take the role as an uncle and aunt type characters who include the child in their family but do not try to replace the child’s family and respect’s the child’s identity and loves the child as any relative should.
The Stewardship model is preferred as a last resort instead of adoption
After all efforts have been exhausted for family reunification and have exhausted all efforts to place the child with appropriate kin then it only is logical that a model is chosen that takes on a kinship type roll such as stewardship rather than a replacement family as the child already has a family and heritage. In a position to care for them or not they are still the child’s flesh and blood. In a stewardship model The child maintains its rights to its true identity and has a lifelong support family grows up to become an adult with no confusion, no divided loyalties no living a lie and growing up with the truth about its family circumstances and is supported to come to terms with its truth within an honest ,transparent and supportive family with a warm and loving safe environment to grow up in and not be expected to be anyone else but the child’s true self and as the child becomes an adult it will still be supported through to independence and beyond without having to trade its identity for care and will always have some where to come home for Xmas.
“Stewardship is the responsible overseeing and protection of somebody special considered worth caring for and preserving”.
*The Court issues a guardianship Care Order granting custody to a nominated family
*Retain original birth certificates and the truth of the family of origin
*Issue a subsequent document which states care and guardianship without legally severing biological ties
Only sever the ties that give care and control for a child whilst a minor.
*Add a clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age therefore reality and truth is retained, consequently identity is protected.
We agree that some children can’t be raised with their parents for many reasons and that they might feel positive about the experiences they’ve had in the care of others – even in some cases building relationships with these people who are ongoing, strong and positive. The way to get it right is to fundamentally rethink how to provide safe homes to all children.” NOT permanent removal by means of adoption by people fulfilling their need for a child and governments looking to save money. Adoption is a past option for today’s children who need care. However severing ties and creating a false birth certificate isn’t a necessary part of that. It doesn’t logically follow that to protect and care for a child their identity must be changed or invented. Basing care of a child on changing the child’s identity and denying a previous existence and origins (whether known or not) is not a sound basis for child protection and child development.
Definitely, there will always be a need to remove children in some cases, however family preservation should always be the first port of call but changing the child’s birth certificate (adoption) is not about what the child needs at all. In adoption, child protection becomes inextricably linked with child ownership and becomes – disturbingly often – about those who ‘need’ a child.
Wherever an adoption has ‘worked’, what should be examined is whether great caring with well-balanced, good people lucky enough to have the means to offer care has ‘worked’ instead. (Sharyn White)
Wherever an adoption has occurred, what should be examined is whether it was necessary to change the child’s identity, and disconnect the child from its family, heritage and blood line. ·
Stewardship is a model just like kinship Care is a Model and both are placed and monitored under a guardianship order by the courts. After it has been determined that there has been no coercion, family reunification is not possible and all efforts have failed to place the child with kin a guardianship order is legally established. In the case of siblings, a stewardship family is chosen that can keep them together. The guardians are responsible for all day-to-day care of the child and for decisions about matters such as education, employment, health and wellbeing.
The guardianship order expires when the child reaches age 18/21 and it is assumed that by adding the clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age along with the close relationship established between the guardians/family and the child who becomes an adult would last a lifetime. The child is able to be involved in both the guardians/family and their own parents/family lives by choice. Without the added pressure from a replacement family that wants the child to be “As if Born To” them that often exists in adoption. .
“In a natural family the parents no longer have the legal responsibilities for their child when the child reaches age 18/21 the child becomes legally responsible for themselves, however the relationship between the child and its family does not finish, and this is the same with a stewardship model”
Contact
The court’s involvement is to construct a contact regime for each particular child with immediate family, siblings, grandparents and extended family depending on his or her needs and circumstances, (you can’t say ‘one size fits all) that is legally binding and the guardians are legally bound to support its implementation through until the child reaches the end of the guardianship order. If this is not appropriate the court shall set out and monitor what is appropriate. Contact is a difficult issue, relying on, in practice, the goodwill of the parties involved however we believe that a contact regime can only be legally protected and enforceable if the Court has made the contact regime part of the guardianship order. In adoption current practice and section 59A of the adoption act 1984 (Vic) permits mothers/parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact in the form of face-to-face meetings and information exchange, which, with the agreement of the adoptive parents, is written into the adoption order by the Court. Contact is generally set at between one to four times per year but this is usually a minimum frequency with contact beyond the nominated frequency at the discretion of the adopting parents. Open adoption in the Adoption Act 1984 2.46 The Adoption Act establishes open adoption. Openness is built into the adoption process. The Act allows natural parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact which, with agreement from the adoptive parents, becomes a condition of the adoption order
‘However while contact arrangements agreed to in an adoption order are legally enforceable, in practice they rely on the goodwill of the parties involved. If family of origin members do not keep their commitments, there is little that children or adoptive parents can do to enforce them. Likewise, adoptive parents can also ‘make it difficult or uncomfortable for families of origin to stay in contact, with the result that contact may cease or greatly diminish over time’. Review of the Adoption Act 1984: Consultation Paper/ Victorian Law Reform Commission
How contact is to be conducted is not prescribed beyond the requirement that the adoption service manage the arrangements for the year between the placement of the baby and the order being ratified in the Court. After the adoption order is made, there is no professional support for the ongoing contact ordered by the Court.
A stewardship model would introduce a body to assist the court with an Independent/Ethics Committee not connected to the NGO or DoHHS is to be established to report to the court. This body would oversee, monitor, and report to the court on all aspects of the process, including the contact regime and regular welfare checks
Welfare checks must be carried out on all cared for children in private homes not like adoption which has no welfare checks or follow-up at present the government and NGOs have no duty of care once a child is adopted which possibly leaves the child at risk
Contact agreements should be set based on each individual case recognising one size does not fit all, along with the ongoing monitoring, implementation of those agreements with the full weight of the law for the execution of such until the child comes of age.
Contact agreements should be decided upon between the independent ethics committee, parents/relatives, the guardians and the child when the child is of an age to contribute overtime. Recommendations should be put to the court for including in the guardianship order. If the family of origin do not keep their commitments, it would be part of the role of an ethics committee to consult and counsel all parties, if the ethics committee’s efforts fail, then it goes to the court to be determined
Natural parents must have the option to re-establish contact at a later date pending their circumstances.
Whilst Britain continues to try, not terribly successfully, to modernise its child welfare system, we continue to look to countries like Australia, who are always ahead of the curve in this field.
Former judge of the Family Court of Australia, Professor the Honourable Nahum Mushin on ‘permanency and adoption’:
“I think the concept of permanency is contrary to what I regard as being in the best interests of children. We shouldn’t be talking about permanency, we should be talking about long-term. Once we get to that, really what you got to do is that you have to construct a care regime for each particular child depending on his or her needs, and you can’t say ‘one size fits all’.”
BP Articles
Articles & Publications for Birth Families
‘Three Identical Strangers’: The Disturbing True Story of Triplets Separated at Birth Bobby, David, and Eddy’s reunion 19 years after being separated by an adoption agency takes a dark twist when secret psychological experiments are revealed in a new Sundance documentary. By: Kevin Fallon
Three Identical Strangers, which premiered Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, is a wild documentary, tickling at our obsession with twins and triplets, the nature vs. nurture debate, and the idea of being separated at birth. But it infuses its story with a dark reality, too, sending a frigid chill up the spine of anyone who thought they were in for a jaunty documentary version of The Parent Trap.
There is only a fleeting can-you-believe-it charm along the lines of Lindsay Lohan with a British accent discovering Lindsay Lohan with an American accent. Instead, Three Identical Strangers chronicles the unlikely reunion of estranged triplets and a harrowing series of events involving secret psychological experiments, nefarious cover-ups, crippling mental illness, and even death.
Listen, I’m a twin. I’ve lived my entire life in a spotlight of fascination because of it. Second only to, “How are you?” the question I’ve been asked most in my life is, “What is it like being a twin?”—as if I know any different and can compare. It’s as much an intrinsic part of my identity as having blue eyes and brown hair, which can be strange: your identity becomes a category—“the twins!”—instead of a marker of individuality. (Though there’s also security and comfort in that intimate camaraderie.)
But triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland didn’t always have that camaraderie. And they’re among the rare multiples who actually do know different, and can compare. It’s their incredible story at the center of Three Identical Strangers.
In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby hopped into his burgundy Volvo, lovingly dubbed “the Old Bitch,” and drove to his first day as a student at Sullivan County Community College in the Catskills. When he arrived on campus, students were absurdly friendly. Seemingly everyone waved an enthusiastic “hello.” Some raved about how glad they were that he was back, which was strange because he had never been on that campus before. Girls even kissed him on the lips, they were so happy.
Finally, someone started calling him Eddy. “Eddy’s back! Everyone thought he wasn’t going to come back!” Then someone started to put things together. “Are you adopted?” a student asked Bobby. He was. “Is your birthday July 12, 1961?” It was. Bobby, it seems you have a long-lost twin named Eddy.
Eddy Galland, like Bobby Shafran, was adopted from the Louise Wise Adoption Agency in New York City. When they finally meet, 19 years after their birth and without ever knowing the other existed, the physical similarities are uncanny: broad builds, megawatt smiles, a mop of Cabbage Patch curls, and distinctive baseball mitts for hands.
The local newspapers had a field day with the heartwarming human interest story, and soon straphangers in New York City had Eddy and Bobby’s faces and story in their hands. Those morning commuters included friends of David Kellman who, my god, they swore, was the spitting image of the reunited twins in the paper.
When David, who was also adopted from the Louise Wise agency and born on that July day, discovered the saga and called Eddy’s mother suggesting that he might actually be a third long-lost brother, she reportedly joked, “Oh my god, they’re coming out of the woodwork!”
There’s an eerie lightheartedness to this part of the documentary—jovial recollections about the shock, gratitude, and joy when the triplets finally meet—that suggests this reunion bliss will be short-lived. But damn if it isn’t fun while it lasts.
Like we said, people are freaking obsessed with multiples, be it twins, triplets, or more. And these guys, whatta story! They were media darlings, with a carousel of TV hosts stunned into silence when they saw how, despite not having grown up together, they shared the same exact mannerisms, even sitting the same way. They were all wrestlers, liked the same colors, had the same taste in older women, and even bought the same brand of cigarettes. Each also had an adopted sister, and all three sisters were the same age.
Their upbringings, though all three raised in Jewish families in the suburbs of New York City, were completely different, with different economic comforts. Yet they grew up to be so similar, a nature vs. nurture marvel if there was ever was one.
But bubbling beneath this bliss were angering questions. Why were these triplets separated by the adoption agency? Why weren’t their adoptive parents told about their child’s siblings?
This is a Sundance documentary produced by CNN Films, not a Parade magazine article, after all. Darkness was bound to shroud this love affair.
Soon it is uncovered that the triplets were part of a secret study in which newborn identical siblings put up for adoption were separated for the purpose of psychological and behavioral experimentation. The babies all came from the Louise Wise agency, and were monitored for years. The adoptive parents were simply told their children were being followed for a study about the development of adopted children. In reality, it was to determine how much of a person’s behavior is hereditary and how much is shaped by their environment (nature vs. nurture), using identical siblings raised in different households as the control group.
As Bobby says, “This is, like, Nazi shit.”
The triplets weren’t the only multiples in the study, the results of which were never published, its full roster of participants never named, and its express purpose never fully elucidated. As Three Identical Strangers digs into the study’s ramifications—and the fact that these men were denied access to information about their biological parents and siblings that could have been life-saving in regards to their mental health (a plot point we won't spoil)—a sweet story becomes a disturbing cautionary tale about the seedy underbelly of science which operates at the expense of humanity.
When you’re a multiple, you can sometimes feel like lab rats. You’d be shocked how many times in my life people have thought it perfectly acceptable to suggest, “I want to study you!”—be it former teachers and professors or garish casual acquaintances. Is there something to be learned about human behavior through the study of identical siblings? Undoubtedly. Dignity would be nice, too.
Three Identical Strangers is more than a spotlight on a particularly curious case. As we incorporate science into reproduction and diversify the ways in which children are raised, questions about nature and nurture are more valuable than ever.
As the film’s triplets—and my own life—can certainly attest, you can share the same DNA and still have lives that turn out dramatically different. It’s astounding how similar Bobby, David, and Eddy were despite growing up apart. But the focus on that once they discovered each other was reductive, aided and abetted by a media looking for a human interest hook.
That my twin brother and I developed similar interests, behaviors, and personality traits should be no surprise. Our bedrooms were on different floors of our house growing up, yet we’d routinely show up at the breakfast table wearing exactly the same outfit. Now 30-years-old, we haven’t lived together in over a decade, yet show up at nearly every holiday get-together wearing similar outfits that we bought for ourselves independently. And that’s just one silly example.
But then there are things about my brother and I that are, like we said before, dramatically different, the least of which is that he is straight and I am gay, and I have survived a major illness that he did not have. (I mean, I never said we shouldn’t be studied.)
The case for nature over nurture isn’t as compelling as you might think. Are you looking for similarities because they’re triplets or twins or what have you, and jumping to conclusions because of that? And are you ignoring or at least not acknowledging their differences?
There are resonant, bordering on existential questions raised here, but so are ones about ethics and morality. Bobby, Eddy, and David were denied information that would have dramatically impacted their lives, the least of which concerned their health. The optics of why they were denied that information also carries a dark implication: Because they were put up for adoption and because they were adopted by Jewish families in the Sixties, their lives were deemed less valuable.
When these brothers were reunited at age 19, the media commoditized them to sell papers and boost ratings. But their agency was taken from them long before that. More, no one knows how many identical siblings out there may be just like them, and don’t even know it yet.
There is only a fleeting can-you-believe-it charm along the lines of Lindsay Lohan with a British accent discovering Lindsay Lohan with an American accent. Instead, Three Identical Strangers chronicles the unlikely reunion of estranged triplets and a harrowing series of events involving secret psychological experiments, nefarious cover-ups, crippling mental illness, and even death.
Listen, I’m a twin. I’ve lived my entire life in a spotlight of fascination because of it. Second only to, “How are you?” the question I’ve been asked most in my life is, “What is it like being a twin?”—as if I know any different and can compare. It’s as much an intrinsic part of my identity as having blue eyes and brown hair, which can be strange: your identity becomes a category—“the twins!”—instead of a marker of individuality. (Though there’s also security and comfort in that intimate camaraderie.)
But triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland didn’t always have that camaraderie. And they’re among the rare multiples who actually do know different, and can compare. It’s their incredible story at the center of Three Identical Strangers.
In 1980, 19-year-old Bobby hopped into his burgundy Volvo, lovingly dubbed “the Old Bitch,” and drove to his first day as a student at Sullivan County Community College in the Catskills. When he arrived on campus, students were absurdly friendly. Seemingly everyone waved an enthusiastic “hello.” Some raved about how glad they were that he was back, which was strange because he had never been on that campus before. Girls even kissed him on the lips, they were so happy.
Finally, someone started calling him Eddy. “Eddy’s back! Everyone thought he wasn’t going to come back!” Then someone started to put things together. “Are you adopted?” a student asked Bobby. He was. “Is your birthday July 12, 1961?” It was. Bobby, it seems you have a long-lost twin named Eddy.
Eddy Galland, like Bobby Shafran, was adopted from the Louise Wise Adoption Agency in New York City. When they finally meet, 19 years after their birth and without ever knowing the other existed, the physical similarities are uncanny: broad builds, megawatt smiles, a mop of Cabbage Patch curls, and distinctive baseball mitts for hands.
The local newspapers had a field day with the heartwarming human interest story, and soon straphangers in New York City had Eddy and Bobby’s faces and story in their hands. Those morning commuters included friends of David Kellman who, my god, they swore, was the spitting image of the reunited twins in the paper.
When David, who was also adopted from the Louise Wise agency and born on that July day, discovered the saga and called Eddy’s mother suggesting that he might actually be a third long-lost brother, she reportedly joked, “Oh my god, they’re coming out of the woodwork!”
There’s an eerie lightheartedness to this part of the documentary—jovial recollections about the shock, gratitude, and joy when the triplets finally meet—that suggests this reunion bliss will be short-lived. But damn if it isn’t fun while it lasts.
Like we said, people are freaking obsessed with multiples, be it twins, triplets, or more. And these guys, whatta story! They were media darlings, with a carousel of TV hosts stunned into silence when they saw how, despite not having grown up together, they shared the same exact mannerisms, even sitting the same way. They were all wrestlers, liked the same colors, had the same taste in older women, and even bought the same brand of cigarettes. Each also had an adopted sister, and all three sisters were the same age.
Their upbringings, though all three raised in Jewish families in the suburbs of New York City, were completely different, with different economic comforts. Yet they grew up to be so similar, a nature vs. nurture marvel if there was ever was one.
But bubbling beneath this bliss were angering questions. Why were these triplets separated by the adoption agency? Why weren’t their adoptive parents told about their child’s siblings?
This is a Sundance documentary produced by CNN Films, not a Parade magazine article, after all. Darkness was bound to shroud this love affair.
Soon it is uncovered that the triplets were part of a secret study in which newborn identical siblings put up for adoption were separated for the purpose of psychological and behavioral experimentation. The babies all came from the Louise Wise agency, and were monitored for years. The adoptive parents were simply told their children were being followed for a study about the development of adopted children. In reality, it was to determine how much of a person’s behavior is hereditary and how much is shaped by their environment (nature vs. nurture), using identical siblings raised in different households as the control group.
As Bobby says, “This is, like, Nazi shit.”
The triplets weren’t the only multiples in the study, the results of which were never published, its full roster of participants never named, and its express purpose never fully elucidated. As Three Identical Strangers digs into the study’s ramifications—and the fact that these men were denied access to information about their biological parents and siblings that could have been life-saving in regards to their mental health (a plot point we won't spoil)—a sweet story becomes a disturbing cautionary tale about the seedy underbelly of science which operates at the expense of humanity.
When you’re a multiple, you can sometimes feel like lab rats. You’d be shocked how many times in my life people have thought it perfectly acceptable to suggest, “I want to study you!”—be it former teachers and professors or garish casual acquaintances. Is there something to be learned about human behavior through the study of identical siblings? Undoubtedly. Dignity would be nice, too.
Three Identical Strangers is more than a spotlight on a particularly curious case. As we incorporate science into reproduction and diversify the ways in which children are raised, questions about nature and nurture are more valuable than ever.
As the film’s triplets—and my own life—can certainly attest, you can share the same DNA and still have lives that turn out dramatically different. It’s astounding how similar Bobby, David, and Eddy were despite growing up apart. But the focus on that once they discovered each other was reductive, aided and abetted by a media looking for a human interest hook.
That my twin brother and I developed similar interests, behaviors, and personality traits should be no surprise. Our bedrooms were on different floors of our house growing up, yet we’d routinely show up at the breakfast table wearing exactly the same outfit. Now 30-years-old, we haven’t lived together in over a decade, yet show up at nearly every holiday get-together wearing similar outfits that we bought for ourselves independently. And that’s just one silly example.
But then there are things about my brother and I that are, like we said before, dramatically different, the least of which is that he is straight and I am gay, and I have survived a major illness that he did not have. (I mean, I never said we shouldn’t be studied.)
The case for nature over nurture isn’t as compelling as you might think. Are you looking for similarities because they’re triplets or twins or what have you, and jumping to conclusions because of that? And are you ignoring or at least not acknowledging their differences?
There are resonant, bordering on existential questions raised here, but so are ones about ethics and morality. Bobby, Eddy, and David were denied information that would have dramatically impacted their lives, the least of which concerned their health. The optics of why they were denied that information also carries a dark implication: Because they were put up for adoption and because they were adopted by Jewish families in the Sixties, their lives were deemed less valuable.
When these brothers were reunited at age 19, the media commoditized them to sell papers and boost ratings. But their agency was taken from them long before that. More, no one knows how many identical siblings out there may be just like them, and don’t even know it yet.
Chinese Adoptee Reunited
Chinese girl adopted by American family miraculously reunited with her birth parents on Hangzhou’s Broken Bridge
‘Let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years’, read the note her parents left with the baby who would grow up as Kati Pohler in Michigan. Thanks to a lucky encounter, eventually they did
By: Enid Tsui
Twenty-two years ago, a heavily pregnant Qian Fenxiang hid herself and her three-year-old daughter on a houseboat on a secluded Suzhou canal, 120km away from her home in Hangzhou, and waited.
Six weeks later, she gave birth on the boat to a second daughter, a child who should have been aborted under China’s draconian one-child policy, introduced in 1979 as a means to reduce poverty.
Xu Lida, her husband, had cut the cord with a pair of scissors he had sterilised with boiling water and, for a do-it-yourself delivery, all seemed to be going well – until the placenta wouldn’t drop. It was a dangerous complication, but hospital care was out of the question. Fortunately for the couple, there was a small clinic near where they were moored, and a doctor who agreed to help without alerting the authorities.
Five days later, the then 24-year-old Xu got up at dawn and took the baby to a covered vegetable market in Suzhou. There, he left the girl with a note written in brush and ink: “Our daughter, Jingzhi, was born at 10am on the 24th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, 1995. We have been forced by poverty and affairs of the world to abandon her. Oh, pity the hearts of fathers and mothers far and near! Thank you for saving our little daughter and taking her into your care. If the heavens have feelings, if we are brought together by fate, then let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years from now.”
Dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar and marks the day when the mythical cowherd and his lover, the weaving maiden, are allowed to see each other on a bridge formed by magpies in flight.
The Broken Bridge – which is not actually broken – is no less evocative. The short span between the shore of Hangzhou’s West Lake and the scenic Bai Causeway was mentioned in an eighth-century Tang dynasty poem. In the traditional story White Snake, it is here that the White Lady and her lover, Xu Xian, first meet.
It wasn’t exactly 10 or 20 years later, but on the eve of the Qixi Festival this year, Qian and Xu finally laid eyes on Jingzhi – their healthy, intelligent college student daughter who is known as Catherine Su Pohler by her American adoptive parents.
That first sighting was the stuff of reality television. Indeed, a television crew was on hand at the Broken Bridge to capture the scene as Qian and Xu ran to Kati, as she is called by everyone who knows her. The story of how they were reunited is the subject of a BBC documentary that will air this week.
Three months after the meeting, however, it is unclear whether this story of improbable coincidences will have a fairy-tale ending.
“We still feel so much guilt. If we hadn’t abandoned her, she wouldn’t have to suffer so,” says an emotional Qian, when Post Magazine visits the couple at their home in Hangzhou. She is using the Mandarin term chiku, to describe Kati’s life in America. It literally means “eating bitterness”.
Considering the bitterness that the couple have swallowed over the years, it is surprising to find that the stout, kind-looking Qian doesn’t feel more relieved that Kati has grown up in a comfortably middle-class suburban American home.
Baby Jingzhi and the note were delivered to Suzhou city’s children’s welfare institute. Around the same time, Ken and Ruth Pohler of Hudsonville, Michigan, decided to adopt.
“We didn’t really think it mattered which country we adopted from but we have a brother-in-law who is Chinese and Ruth’s sister adopted from China, too, which was neat,” says Ken, from the house where Kati grew up, about 30km from Lake Michigan. He and his wife are evangelical Christians with two boys of their own, but they wanted a third child.
In the summer of 1996, 10 American couples were taken by Bethany Christian Services, one of the biggest international adoption agencies for Americans, to the Suzhou orphanage. There, they picked up their new daughters – they were all daughters because of the traditional Chinese preference for sons. As they boarded the tour bus with Jingzhi, the Pohlers showed a translator the note that had come from the baby’s birth parents.
“She was so moved by it, she was in tears while she read it out to us. It was such a heartfelt message,” Ken says. But the couple had no intention of telling Kati about it until she was at least 18, and only then if she showed interest in finding out about her past life.
Kati was brought up as most of the other children were in the town of about 7,000 people. Close-knit Hudsonville is predominantly Caucasian, as is Calvin College, the liberal arts university affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church where Ken is a campus safety supervisor and where Kati is now studying public health and music.
“I had a solid, good childhood,” Kati says. “Everyone knew I was adopted, obviously, so I was never asked about it.”
She describes her family as “very religious” and close.
“My two brothers are quite a bit older. I guess if I felt different, it was because I was the youngest and I was a girl,” she says.
The family albums are filled with photographs of young Kati winning sports tournaments, practising the viola and piano, travelling across America on family and school trips, and generally looking healthy and outdoorsy, wearing a smile that shows off her perfect American teeth.
However, like many college students in America, she works the odd shift to earn extra cash, in Kati’s case, in a greenhouse. To Qian, that is awful.
“My Xiaochen [her first daughter] here has never had to wash a single bowl,” she says.
Qian finds it unbelievable that working part time can be part of growing up in a wealthy country like America.
Equally, Qian and Xu’s experience as migrant workers would seem unbelievably hard to an average American, as would the enormous sacrifices that millions like them have made during their country’s march towards prosperity.
Qian and Xu grew up in Baoying county, near Yangzhou in Jiangsu province – birthplace of the world’s most famous rice dish. Xu, wiry, weather-beaten, with an irrepressible good humour, was born in 1971. He finished junior high school and moved in 1987 to Hangzhou, a five-hour drive away. He was joining millions of others who turned their backs on their ancestors’ farms to seek better-paid work in China’s fast-growing cities.
The only work the 16-year-old could find was collecting household scraps. But he worked hard and saved enough money to return home a few years later and marry Qian, a fellow villager. The two set up home in a rented room in one of many rudimentary cottages on the outskirts of Hangzhou housing migrant workers. They were so far removed from public services that when Qian went into labour with Xiaochen, Xu had to put her in the back of a delivery tricycle and pedal for miles to the hospital.
Still, the couple made the best of things and dreamed of having a better life some day. It was a good time to be in the scrap trade-in one of China’s wealthiest cities; national gross domestic product in the years before the 1997 Asian financial crisis was growing at a staggering 13 per cent.
With their optimism came the idea of giving Xiaochen a sibling.
“We thought we could get away with it since we lived so far away from the family planning cadres in our village,” Xu says. “We thought the sheer size of the city would give us cover.”
But they soon learned just how brutal the regime could be. The one-child policy led to more than 300 million abortions, many of which were forced, an unknown number of female infanticides, a terrifyingly efficient spying system and the heavy fines and extortion that served as punishment for those who exceeded their quota.
‘I could hear the baby cry. They killed my baby … yet I couldn’t do a thing’: The countless tragedies of China’s one-child policy
The decision to give up Jingzhi had nothing to do with the fact that she was a girl, her birth parents say. In fact, they wouldn’t have known her gender when they decided that, given the horror stories they had heard, they wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. By then, Qian was five or six months pregnant and it was too late for an abortion.
The couple now own a business selling second-hand white goods as well as a comfortable, two-bedroom flat. But theirs is still a hard life. Xiaochenhas a full-time job but her parents still start work every day at 7am and never take a day off, except over Lunar New Year. They have never even been to Yangzhou, let alone outside Jiangsu province.
Qian runs the shop – a sectioned-off area in a vast, open-air electrical appliances wholesale market that is bitterly cold in the winter. She waits for business as she shuffles between rows of washing machines, flat-screen televisions and refrigerators her husband has acquired and upcycled. It all came as a bit of a shock for the humble couple to find themselves on national television in 2005.
Kati turned 10 in 2005, and Qian and Xu went to the Broken Bridge on the Qixi Festival, as planned.
“We got there early, and we carried a big sign with our daughter’s name and words similar to those we used in the original note. We felt like running up to every girl we saw on the bridge,” Xu says. “It was awful.”
Nobody met them, and they left just before 4pm, hungry, thirsty and drained by disappointment.
China’s one-child policy has a legacy of bereaved parents facing humiliation and despair
The Pohlers, meanwhile, had asked a friend of a friend to visit the bridge that day.
“We remembered the 10th-year promise in the note,” Ken says. “We prayed about it and talked to a friend who often travelled to China for business. He said he could ask a friend called Annie Wu to try and find the birth parents on the bridge. We didn’t want to involve Kati in something as vague as this. But it was important to us that the birth parents knew their daughter was adopted by a family who love her very much and provide her with a good home.”
Wu arrived at the bridge just after 4pm, missing Qian and Xu by minutes. Having checked there were no distressed parents to be seen, she was getting ready to leave when she noticed a television crew filming on the bridge. She asked if they could check their footage to see if anyone who looked like Kati’s birth parents had been there. By sheer luck, Xu had been caught on camera, holding up his sign showing the name Jingzhi clearly.
This was television gold. The station immediately broadcast the story, which the national CCTV network and newspapers picked up.
A friend in Hangzhou saw one of the TV reports and told the birth parents there was news of Jingzhi. The elated couple met Wu through the TV station, and were handed a typed letter from the Pohlers (their names withheld) and some photographs. They were assured there would be further news.
Unfortunately for Qian and Xu, it was to be a long time before they saw their lost daughter in the flesh. Once they were told of developments, the Pohlers asked Wu to cease contact with Qian and Xu immediately.
“We took what we could from Annie, and saw no more need for contact,” Ruth says. “We thought that we should wait for Kati to grow and see if she wanted more information. She’s our daughter. Yes, she has her birth parents but a deeper relationship with them would really complicate matters.”
Wu changed her phone number and couldn’t be reached by Qian and Xu or the media again.
The couple had no doubt Kati was their Jingzhi. She has her mother’s eyes. Just as an astronomer might scan the skies ceaselessly in search of a signal he picked up once from another galaxy, the couple returned to the Broken Bridge every Qixi Festival.
This is where documentary maker Chang Changfu enters the picture.
“I had made a film about international adoptees from China before and a friend told me about this couple who went to the Broken Bridge to find their daughter,” the Chinese-American says. “It’s an irresistible story.”
Chang met Qian and Xu and decided to try to track down the American parents using the little evidence he had: the typed letter from the Pohlers mentioned that Kati had been adopted in Suzhou, that she had rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and that they lived in Michigan.
The internet gods must have been smiling on him, for he chanced upon an online message board on which American parents who had adopted from Suzhou’s only orphanage shared their experiences. One message was from a Ken Pohler, who mentioned his daughter had a knee problem as a youngster. Chang found a photograph of Pohler online that matched the image of the man in one of the pictures Qian and Xu had been given.
Chang made contact but it took him a few years to convince the Pohlers he had no ulterior motive other than to help with any further communication. The Pohlers explained to him why they had resisted stirring up the past, and why they would not make contact with the birth parents the year Kati turned 20.
Last year, when Kati was 21, she was preparing for a semester as an exchange student in Spain when, she says, “I thought people there would have questions about me being Chinese and American. So I asked my mother to tell me about my past again, and she said, ‘Well, we should tell you that we actually know who your biological parents are.’ I was so shocked.”
Kati knew immediately that she wanted to meet them, but she was also terrified by the prospect, and it took time for her to get over the anger she felt towards her adoptive parents. She felt betrayed for having been kept in the dark.
She got in touch with Chang after telling the Pohlers of her intentions, and agreed to become the subject of a documentary about her search for her birth parents. The filmmaker had the heart-warming climax already planned: Qixi Festival 2017; Kati surprising her birth parents on the Broken Bridge. Kati and Chang would meet a few days earlier in Suzhou, to film in the vegetable market where she was abandoned.
Withholding this information from Qian and Xu would have been less cruel had the filming had gone according to plan. Unfortunately, Wu – back in the picture after Kati decided to visit China – had tipped off the birth parents. Qian and Xu took themselves to Suzhou to find Kati, only to be told that, for the sake of dramatic effect, the first meeting had to take place on the Broken Bridge. Deeply hurt, the couple had, in fact, been turned away because Kati was feeling overwhelmed by the experience, she tells me.
When they finally met on the bridge, Qian broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as the many years of yearning cracked open her battle-hardened shell. This was her daughter’s homecoming.
Kati stayed in her birth parents’ flat for two days and shared a room with her sister, who speaks only limited English.
“It was really nice to see them. I was surprised by how emotional my Chinese mom was,” she says.
Kati was bemused too by the typical Chinese admonition that she received. “The first thing they said was, ‘You are skinny, you’ve got to eat more.’ If I didn’t eat they would feed me. I guess they were just super-excited and missed looking after me for all these years,” she says.
The couple took her back to their hometown, and there, Kati met Xu’s ailing mother. She hasn’t spoken since she had a stroke several years ago but she let her lost granddaughter hold her hand. Kati’s grandmother had been there on the houseboat all those years ago to help with the delivery.
Kati admits she hasn’t begun to process the experience.
“I want some sort of relationship. I want to see them again. But the big question is, what are they to me? I don’t even know what to call them,” she says.
Before her trip, the Asian side of her was purely physical. “Now, it’s deeper than that. It’s good that I am more in touch with where I came from, but it is also confusing. I am a product of where I grew up and that is not Asian in any sense of the word,” she says.
For Qian and Xu, seeing Kati doing well was a huge relief and helped to ease the remorse they have been carrying for more than 20 years. But the reunion has also left them hungering for more – and it seems unlikely they will get what they want.
“We were disappointed that she wouldn’t call us mama and baba. We asked her to, but she said they didn’t do that in America, that they called their parents by their first names. Is that right?” Xu asks.
“We couldn’t communicate meaningfully since we don’t speak English and she doesn’t speak Mandarin, but we could tell she’s a really nice girl. But now that we have met her, we miss her even more than before,” Qian says.
“I guess we can only tell ourselves she is like a daughter who has been married off.”
‘Let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years’, read the note her parents left with the baby who would grow up as Kati Pohler in Michigan. Thanks to a lucky encounter, eventually they did
By: Enid Tsui
Twenty-two years ago, a heavily pregnant Qian Fenxiang hid herself and her three-year-old daughter on a houseboat on a secluded Suzhou canal, 120km away from her home in Hangzhou, and waited.
Six weeks later, she gave birth on the boat to a second daughter, a child who should have been aborted under China’s draconian one-child policy, introduced in 1979 as a means to reduce poverty.
Xu Lida, her husband, had cut the cord with a pair of scissors he had sterilised with boiling water and, for a do-it-yourself delivery, all seemed to be going well – until the placenta wouldn’t drop. It was a dangerous complication, but hospital care was out of the question. Fortunately for the couple, there was a small clinic near where they were moored, and a doctor who agreed to help without alerting the authorities.
Five days later, the then 24-year-old Xu got up at dawn and took the baby to a covered vegetable market in Suzhou. There, he left the girl with a note written in brush and ink: “Our daughter, Jingzhi, was born at 10am on the 24th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, 1995. We have been forced by poverty and affairs of the world to abandon her. Oh, pity the hearts of fathers and mothers far and near! Thank you for saving our little daughter and taking her into your care. If the heavens have feelings, if we are brought together by fate, then let us meet again on the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the morning of the Qixi Festival in 10 or 20 years from now.”
Dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar and marks the day when the mythical cowherd and his lover, the weaving maiden, are allowed to see each other on a bridge formed by magpies in flight.
The Broken Bridge – which is not actually broken – is no less evocative. The short span between the shore of Hangzhou’s West Lake and the scenic Bai Causeway was mentioned in an eighth-century Tang dynasty poem. In the traditional story White Snake, it is here that the White Lady and her lover, Xu Xian, first meet.
It wasn’t exactly 10 or 20 years later, but on the eve of the Qixi Festival this year, Qian and Xu finally laid eyes on Jingzhi – their healthy, intelligent college student daughter who is known as Catherine Su Pohler by her American adoptive parents.
That first sighting was the stuff of reality television. Indeed, a television crew was on hand at the Broken Bridge to capture the scene as Qian and Xu ran to Kati, as she is called by everyone who knows her. The story of how they were reunited is the subject of a BBC documentary that will air this week.
Three months after the meeting, however, it is unclear whether this story of improbable coincidences will have a fairy-tale ending.
“We still feel so much guilt. If we hadn’t abandoned her, she wouldn’t have to suffer so,” says an emotional Qian, when Post Magazine visits the couple at their home in Hangzhou. She is using the Mandarin term chiku, to describe Kati’s life in America. It literally means “eating bitterness”.
Considering the bitterness that the couple have swallowed over the years, it is surprising to find that the stout, kind-looking Qian doesn’t feel more relieved that Kati has grown up in a comfortably middle-class suburban American home.
Baby Jingzhi and the note were delivered to Suzhou city’s children’s welfare institute. Around the same time, Ken and Ruth Pohler of Hudsonville, Michigan, decided to adopt.
“We didn’t really think it mattered which country we adopted from but we have a brother-in-law who is Chinese and Ruth’s sister adopted from China, too, which was neat,” says Ken, from the house where Kati grew up, about 30km from Lake Michigan. He and his wife are evangelical Christians with two boys of their own, but they wanted a third child.
In the summer of 1996, 10 American couples were taken by Bethany Christian Services, one of the biggest international adoption agencies for Americans, to the Suzhou orphanage. There, they picked up their new daughters – they were all daughters because of the traditional Chinese preference for sons. As they boarded the tour bus with Jingzhi, the Pohlers showed a translator the note that had come from the baby’s birth parents.
“She was so moved by it, she was in tears while she read it out to us. It was such a heartfelt message,” Ken says. But the couple had no intention of telling Kati about it until she was at least 18, and only then if she showed interest in finding out about her past life.
Kati was brought up as most of the other children were in the town of about 7,000 people. Close-knit Hudsonville is predominantly Caucasian, as is Calvin College, the liberal arts university affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church where Ken is a campus safety supervisor and where Kati is now studying public health and music.
“I had a solid, good childhood,” Kati says. “Everyone knew I was adopted, obviously, so I was never asked about it.”
She describes her family as “very religious” and close.
“My two brothers are quite a bit older. I guess if I felt different, it was because I was the youngest and I was a girl,” she says.
The family albums are filled with photographs of young Kati winning sports tournaments, practising the viola and piano, travelling across America on family and school trips, and generally looking healthy and outdoorsy, wearing a smile that shows off her perfect American teeth.
However, like many college students in America, she works the odd shift to earn extra cash, in Kati’s case, in a greenhouse. To Qian, that is awful.
“My Xiaochen [her first daughter] here has never had to wash a single bowl,” she says.
Qian finds it unbelievable that working part time can be part of growing up in a wealthy country like America.
Equally, Qian and Xu’s experience as migrant workers would seem unbelievably hard to an average American, as would the enormous sacrifices that millions like them have made during their country’s march towards prosperity.
Qian and Xu grew up in Baoying county, near Yangzhou in Jiangsu province – birthplace of the world’s most famous rice dish. Xu, wiry, weather-beaten, with an irrepressible good humour, was born in 1971. He finished junior high school and moved in 1987 to Hangzhou, a five-hour drive away. He was joining millions of others who turned their backs on their ancestors’ farms to seek better-paid work in China’s fast-growing cities.
The only work the 16-year-old could find was collecting household scraps. But he worked hard and saved enough money to return home a few years later and marry Qian, a fellow villager. The two set up home in a rented room in one of many rudimentary cottages on the outskirts of Hangzhou housing migrant workers. They were so far removed from public services that when Qian went into labour with Xiaochen, Xu had to put her in the back of a delivery tricycle and pedal for miles to the hospital.
Still, the couple made the best of things and dreamed of having a better life some day. It was a good time to be in the scrap trade-in one of China’s wealthiest cities; national gross domestic product in the years before the 1997 Asian financial crisis was growing at a staggering 13 per cent.
With their optimism came the idea of giving Xiaochen a sibling.
“We thought we could get away with it since we lived so far away from the family planning cadres in our village,” Xu says. “We thought the sheer size of the city would give us cover.”
But they soon learned just how brutal the regime could be. The one-child policy led to more than 300 million abortions, many of which were forced, an unknown number of female infanticides, a terrifyingly efficient spying system and the heavy fines and extortion that served as punishment for those who exceeded their quota.
‘I could hear the baby cry. They killed my baby … yet I couldn’t do a thing’: The countless tragedies of China’s one-child policy
The decision to give up Jingzhi had nothing to do with the fact that she was a girl, her birth parents say. In fact, they wouldn’t have known her gender when they decided that, given the horror stories they had heard, they wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. By then, Qian was five or six months pregnant and it was too late for an abortion.
The couple now own a business selling second-hand white goods as well as a comfortable, two-bedroom flat. But theirs is still a hard life. Xiaochenhas a full-time job but her parents still start work every day at 7am and never take a day off, except over Lunar New Year. They have never even been to Yangzhou, let alone outside Jiangsu province.
Qian runs the shop – a sectioned-off area in a vast, open-air electrical appliances wholesale market that is bitterly cold in the winter. She waits for business as she shuffles between rows of washing machines, flat-screen televisions and refrigerators her husband has acquired and upcycled. It all came as a bit of a shock for the humble couple to find themselves on national television in 2005.
Kati turned 10 in 2005, and Qian and Xu went to the Broken Bridge on the Qixi Festival, as planned.
“We got there early, and we carried a big sign with our daughter’s name and words similar to those we used in the original note. We felt like running up to every girl we saw on the bridge,” Xu says. “It was awful.”
Nobody met them, and they left just before 4pm, hungry, thirsty and drained by disappointment.
China’s one-child policy has a legacy of bereaved parents facing humiliation and despair
The Pohlers, meanwhile, had asked a friend of a friend to visit the bridge that day.
“We remembered the 10th-year promise in the note,” Ken says. “We prayed about it and talked to a friend who often travelled to China for business. He said he could ask a friend called Annie Wu to try and find the birth parents on the bridge. We didn’t want to involve Kati in something as vague as this. But it was important to us that the birth parents knew their daughter was adopted by a family who love her very much and provide her with a good home.”
Wu arrived at the bridge just after 4pm, missing Qian and Xu by minutes. Having checked there were no distressed parents to be seen, she was getting ready to leave when she noticed a television crew filming on the bridge. She asked if they could check their footage to see if anyone who looked like Kati’s birth parents had been there. By sheer luck, Xu had been caught on camera, holding up his sign showing the name Jingzhi clearly.
This was television gold. The station immediately broadcast the story, which the national CCTV network and newspapers picked up.
A friend in Hangzhou saw one of the TV reports and told the birth parents there was news of Jingzhi. The elated couple met Wu through the TV station, and were handed a typed letter from the Pohlers (their names withheld) and some photographs. They were assured there would be further news.
Unfortunately for Qian and Xu, it was to be a long time before they saw their lost daughter in the flesh. Once they were told of developments, the Pohlers asked Wu to cease contact with Qian and Xu immediately.
“We took what we could from Annie, and saw no more need for contact,” Ruth says. “We thought that we should wait for Kati to grow and see if she wanted more information. She’s our daughter. Yes, she has her birth parents but a deeper relationship with them would really complicate matters.”
Wu changed her phone number and couldn’t be reached by Qian and Xu or the media again.
The couple had no doubt Kati was their Jingzhi. She has her mother’s eyes. Just as an astronomer might scan the skies ceaselessly in search of a signal he picked up once from another galaxy, the couple returned to the Broken Bridge every Qixi Festival.
This is where documentary maker Chang Changfu enters the picture.
“I had made a film about international adoptees from China before and a friend told me about this couple who went to the Broken Bridge to find their daughter,” the Chinese-American says. “It’s an irresistible story.”
Chang met Qian and Xu and decided to try to track down the American parents using the little evidence he had: the typed letter from the Pohlers mentioned that Kati had been adopted in Suzhou, that she had rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and that they lived in Michigan.
The internet gods must have been smiling on him, for he chanced upon an online message board on which American parents who had adopted from Suzhou’s only orphanage shared their experiences. One message was from a Ken Pohler, who mentioned his daughter had a knee problem as a youngster. Chang found a photograph of Pohler online that matched the image of the man in one of the pictures Qian and Xu had been given.
Chang made contact but it took him a few years to convince the Pohlers he had no ulterior motive other than to help with any further communication. The Pohlers explained to him why they had resisted stirring up the past, and why they would not make contact with the birth parents the year Kati turned 20.
Last year, when Kati was 21, she was preparing for a semester as an exchange student in Spain when, she says, “I thought people there would have questions about me being Chinese and American. So I asked my mother to tell me about my past again, and she said, ‘Well, we should tell you that we actually know who your biological parents are.’ I was so shocked.”
Kati knew immediately that she wanted to meet them, but she was also terrified by the prospect, and it took time for her to get over the anger she felt towards her adoptive parents. She felt betrayed for having been kept in the dark.
She got in touch with Chang after telling the Pohlers of her intentions, and agreed to become the subject of a documentary about her search for her birth parents. The filmmaker had the heart-warming climax already planned: Qixi Festival 2017; Kati surprising her birth parents on the Broken Bridge. Kati and Chang would meet a few days earlier in Suzhou, to film in the vegetable market where she was abandoned.
Withholding this information from Qian and Xu would have been less cruel had the filming had gone according to plan. Unfortunately, Wu – back in the picture after Kati decided to visit China – had tipped off the birth parents. Qian and Xu took themselves to Suzhou to find Kati, only to be told that, for the sake of dramatic effect, the first meeting had to take place on the Broken Bridge. Deeply hurt, the couple had, in fact, been turned away because Kati was feeling overwhelmed by the experience, she tells me.
When they finally met on the bridge, Qian broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as the many years of yearning cracked open her battle-hardened shell. This was her daughter’s homecoming.
Kati stayed in her birth parents’ flat for two days and shared a room with her sister, who speaks only limited English.
“It was really nice to see them. I was surprised by how emotional my Chinese mom was,” she says.
Kati was bemused too by the typical Chinese admonition that she received. “The first thing they said was, ‘You are skinny, you’ve got to eat more.’ If I didn’t eat they would feed me. I guess they were just super-excited and missed looking after me for all these years,” she says.
The couple took her back to their hometown, and there, Kati met Xu’s ailing mother. She hasn’t spoken since she had a stroke several years ago but she let her lost granddaughter hold her hand. Kati’s grandmother had been there on the houseboat all those years ago to help with the delivery.
Kati admits she hasn’t begun to process the experience.
“I want some sort of relationship. I want to see them again. But the big question is, what are they to me? I don’t even know what to call them,” she says.
Before her trip, the Asian side of her was purely physical. “Now, it’s deeper than that. It’s good that I am more in touch with where I came from, but it is also confusing. I am a product of where I grew up and that is not Asian in any sense of the word,” she says.
For Qian and Xu, seeing Kati doing well was a huge relief and helped to ease the remorse they have been carrying for more than 20 years. But the reunion has also left them hungering for more – and it seems unlikely they will get what they want.
“We were disappointed that she wouldn’t call us mama and baba. We asked her to, but she said they didn’t do that in America, that they called their parents by their first names. Is that right?” Xu asks.
“We couldn’t communicate meaningfully since we don’t speak English and she doesn’t speak Mandarin, but we could tell she’s a really nice girl. But now that we have met her, we miss her even more than before,” Qian says.
“I guess we can only tell ourselves she is like a daughter who has been married off.”
Loss and Disenfranchised Grief: Adopted Children Can Feel Loss and Disenfranchised Grief Publish date: November 26, 2010. By Mitchel L. Zoler
NEW YORK – Adoption is founded on loss, and a child’s reaction to being adopted can often be best understood with a grief model.
The unresolved, uncommunicated, and unvalidated grief that some adopted children may feel often goes unrecognized as an overlay that accompanies more typical psychiatric disorders in adopted children, David Brodzinsky, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. David Brodzinsky
In other cases, adopted children may act up and present what looks like a serious psychiatric problem, but closer examination shows it is an adjustment reaction or other low-level problem that occurs as an adopted child struggles to understand the meaning and implications of adoption, said Dr. Brodzinsky, research and project director at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Oakland, Calif.
"I see two kinds of cases. In children with clinically relevant problems, such as depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the grief model is secondary to understanding and dealing with the psychopathology they have. But there is an overlay that often gets missed, a sense of loss that often is not treated because what you see is depression or anxiety and that has to be dealt with first. But we need to be sure not to miss the underlying sense of grief and loss. It’s not always present, but we need to look for it, and when it’s present, it needs to be dealt with," Dr. Brodzinsky said in an interview.
The second type of case involves children who have what might appear to be depression or anxiety but rather are symptoms that result exclusively from adoption-related grief that has not been appropriately validated.
However, the vast majority of adopted kids do not experience unvalidated grief and are "well within the normal range and do quite well," he said. "Adopted individuals are highly variable in the way they experience adoption-related loss."
If a sense of loss occurs among children who were adopted as infants, it usually appears before age 5-7 years. Children can begin to have a feeling of separation from someone about whom they don’t know much, which can lead to anxiety, sadness, and anger. In some children, "the experience of loss may be quite subtle and not easily observed by others."
Children who were adopted at an older age are more likely to have a more traumatic reaction, but again their understanding of adoption and their reaction to it varies over time as they age. "As children begin to understand the implications of their adoptive status, they become increasingly sensitized to adoption-related loss," Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The sense of loss that some adopted children develop can stem from several different factors and realizations, including loss of birth parents and loss of their entire birth family; loss of their biological, ethnic, racial, and cultural origins; loss of prior nonbiological caregivers; loss of status among their peers; loss of their emotional stability; loss of their feeling of fitting in with their adoptive family; loss of privacy; and loss of their self-identify.
Perhaps the most important consequence of an emerging sense of loss occurs when it leads to disenfranchised grief: The loss goes unrecognized by others or is minimized or trivialized. "Too often, the focus in adoption is on what the child gained" without an acknowledgement of what was lost, he said. "Too often adoptees and birth parents have not had their sense of loss validated by people around them."
Adopted children face the risk that their blocked, disenfranchised grief could become clinical depression. Viewing the loss in a grief model normalizes the child’s reactions rather than casting them as pathological.
Four interventions have shown efficacy for resolving grief and a sense of loss in adopted children. Two approaches especially suited to younger children are "life books" and bibliotherapy. Therapeutic rituals can potentially help at any age. Written role play is a good intervention for older teens and adults.
Many therapists use life books for interventions. Dr. Brodzinsky prefers books created by the patient, often as loose-leaf pages in a binder, rather than commercially available versions. The book is like a photo album of the child’s past, but can also contain drawings and text. The child constructs the book, which helps bring order to what can feel like an otherwise chaotic life story, giving the child a sense of where she comes from and where she is going. What goes into the book depends on the child’s age, willingness to deal with various adoption issues, and the information available. When used in treatment, the child and therapist review the contents of the book repeatedly, as well as adding to it when appropriate. Use of a book opens communication, gives the child a more realistic understanding of his adoption, and gives the child a more positive view of self. Life books usually work best for those aged 4 years to about 11, Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The unresolved, uncommunicated, and unvalidated grief that some adopted children may feel often goes unrecognized as an overlay that accompanies more typical psychiatric disorders in adopted children, David Brodzinsky, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. David Brodzinsky
In other cases, adopted children may act up and present what looks like a serious psychiatric problem, but closer examination shows it is an adjustment reaction or other low-level problem that occurs as an adopted child struggles to understand the meaning and implications of adoption, said Dr. Brodzinsky, research and project director at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Oakland, Calif.
"I see two kinds of cases. In children with clinically relevant problems, such as depression, anxiety, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the grief model is secondary to understanding and dealing with the psychopathology they have. But there is an overlay that often gets missed, a sense of loss that often is not treated because what you see is depression or anxiety and that has to be dealt with first. But we need to be sure not to miss the underlying sense of grief and loss. It’s not always present, but we need to look for it, and when it’s present, it needs to be dealt with," Dr. Brodzinsky said in an interview.
The second type of case involves children who have what might appear to be depression or anxiety but rather are symptoms that result exclusively from adoption-related grief that has not been appropriately validated.
However, the vast majority of adopted kids do not experience unvalidated grief and are "well within the normal range and do quite well," he said. "Adopted individuals are highly variable in the way they experience adoption-related loss."
If a sense of loss occurs among children who were adopted as infants, it usually appears before age 5-7 years. Children can begin to have a feeling of separation from someone about whom they don’t know much, which can lead to anxiety, sadness, and anger. In some children, "the experience of loss may be quite subtle and not easily observed by others."
Children who were adopted at an older age are more likely to have a more traumatic reaction, but again their understanding of adoption and their reaction to it varies over time as they age. "As children begin to understand the implications of their adoptive status, they become increasingly sensitized to adoption-related loss," Dr. Brodzinsky said.
The sense of loss that some adopted children develop can stem from several different factors and realizations, including loss of birth parents and loss of their entire birth family; loss of their biological, ethnic, racial, and cultural origins; loss of prior nonbiological caregivers; loss of status among their peers; loss of their emotional stability; loss of their feeling of fitting in with their adoptive family; loss of privacy; and loss of their self-identify.
Perhaps the most important consequence of an emerging sense of loss occurs when it leads to disenfranchised grief: The loss goes unrecognized by others or is minimized or trivialized. "Too often, the focus in adoption is on what the child gained" without an acknowledgement of what was lost, he said. "Too often adoptees and birth parents have not had their sense of loss validated by people around them."
Adopted children face the risk that their blocked, disenfranchised grief could become clinical depression. Viewing the loss in a grief model normalizes the child’s reactions rather than casting them as pathological.
Four interventions have shown efficacy for resolving grief and a sense of loss in adopted children. Two approaches especially suited to younger children are "life books" and bibliotherapy. Therapeutic rituals can potentially help at any age. Written role play is a good intervention for older teens and adults.
Many therapists use life books for interventions. Dr. Brodzinsky prefers books created by the patient, often as loose-leaf pages in a binder, rather than commercially available versions. The book is like a photo album of the child’s past, but can also contain drawings and text. The child constructs the book, which helps bring order to what can feel like an otherwise chaotic life story, giving the child a sense of where she comes from and where she is going. What goes into the book depends on the child’s age, willingness to deal with various adoption issues, and the information available. When used in treatment, the child and therapist review the contents of the book repeatedly, as well as adding to it when appropriate. Use of a book opens communication, gives the child a more realistic understanding of his adoption, and gives the child a more positive view of self. Life books usually work best for those aged 4 years to about 11, Dr. Brodzinsky said.
Childhood Emotional Neglect: The 10 Rules Emotions Follow That Everyone Should Know By Jonice Webb PhD
Do you sometimes feel mystified by your own feelings? Of course, you do!
Believe me when I say that everybody does.
It’s not always obvious why you’ve felt sad all day, for example. In fact, you may go through an entire day feeling sad without even realizing it until the evening. Then once you recognize how you’ve been feeling, you may still be confused about the reasons.
An experience like this is not at all unusual. You would be hard-pressed to find a single human being who hasn’t been there. And if you find someone who says he has never had that experience, it’s probably because he is not sufficiently aware of his feelings to realize that he is having them.
It is true that feelings are unbelievably complicated. Yet they are an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, it’s truly incredible how much we are actually influenced by what we feel, whether we realize it or not. Our feelings drive our decisions and our actions. They cause us to get into conflicts and to work out problems. They help us choose our mates, our careers, and everything else in our lives.
So think of your emotions as a strong current that carries you through your life. The better you understand that current and work with it, the better you can harness its energy and use it, and the easier your life will be.
Although emotions are complex, they do follow certain rules. Once you know the rules you have a huge leg up on managing and using your feelings in a healthy way.
The 10 Rules Your Emotions Follow
1) Your feelings do not originate from the part of your brain that is under your control. You cannot choose your feelings.
2) Feelings are not subject to any moral code. They’re neither good nor bad, right or wrong. They just are what they are.
3) Even though you can’t choose your feelings, you are responsible for them.
4) Emotions can be “walled off” but they cannot be extinguished. If you wall off an emotion, it does not disappear. It just goes and lives on the other side of the wall.
5) Feelings can lead you down the right path or they can lead you astray. It all depends on what you do with them.
6) When you disregard an emotion, you are actually empowering it. Ignoring, pushing away, or walling off a feeling may seem to make it go away but it’s the feelings you’re the least aware of that can affect you without your knowledge.
7) There is only one way to make an uncomfortable feeling go away, and that is to let yourself feel it.
8) Your feelings drive your thoughts, but you can also use your thoughts to manage your feelings.
9) Sitting with a powerful emotion and letting yourself feel it while thinking about it to understand why you’re having it, what it means, and what it’s telling you, is called “processing it.”
10) Your feelings are valuable messages from your deepest self. When you follow Rule 9, you are listening to the messages, honoring yourself, and making use of this valuable resource from within.
Since everyone has feelings, literally everyone should know these rules. It would prevent many emotional mistakes and misunderstandings that virtually everyone commonly makes.
Now I’m going to give you a Bonus Emotion Rule. This rule is not included in the first ten because it is special. It may be harder to accept, yet once you do, it can change your life.
Without further ado, here it is:
11. The way your parents treated your feelings as they raised you is probably the way you treat your own feelings now.
What exactly does this mean? Simply this: Childhood is actually Emotion Training For Life. Few people realize it but it is true!
If your parents noticed what you were feeling as they raised you, helped you name your feelings, and walked you through Rule 9 often enough, they taught you the 10 Rules that emotions follow. And they also taught you vital emotion skills that you still enjoy now, whether you realize it or not.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. If your parents failed to notice your feelings, help you name them, and figure out how to process them, then you likely grew up without learning those skills. Now you likely fail to notice your own feelings, and have a difficult time naming or processing the ones that you do notice.
After many years of watching this exact problem impact person, after person, after person, holding them back in their lives, and damaging their relationships, I finally realized that this is important. It must be talked about. People need to know.
So I named the problem Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), and I have made it my mission to educate as many as I can about it. The amazing thing about CEN is that it gives you answers. It explains why the 10 Rules Of Emotions are such a mystery to you.
It’s so straightforward, and yet so hard to see: you simply didn’t have a way to learn them as a child.
The very best thing about realizing that you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect is that it is a very curable problem. Now that you know what is wrong, you can fill in the gaps.
You can learn the 10 Rules, and you will see that it will make a tremendous difference in your life when you follow them.
Believe me when I say that everybody does.
It’s not always obvious why you’ve felt sad all day, for example. In fact, you may go through an entire day feeling sad without even realizing it until the evening. Then once you recognize how you’ve been feeling, you may still be confused about the reasons.
An experience like this is not at all unusual. You would be hard-pressed to find a single human being who hasn’t been there. And if you find someone who says he has never had that experience, it’s probably because he is not sufficiently aware of his feelings to realize that he is having them.
It is true that feelings are unbelievably complicated. Yet they are an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, it’s truly incredible how much we are actually influenced by what we feel, whether we realize it or not. Our feelings drive our decisions and our actions. They cause us to get into conflicts and to work out problems. They help us choose our mates, our careers, and everything else in our lives.
So think of your emotions as a strong current that carries you through your life. The better you understand that current and work with it, the better you can harness its energy and use it, and the easier your life will be.
Although emotions are complex, they do follow certain rules. Once you know the rules you have a huge leg up on managing and using your feelings in a healthy way.
The 10 Rules Your Emotions Follow
1) Your feelings do not originate from the part of your brain that is under your control. You cannot choose your feelings.
2) Feelings are not subject to any moral code. They’re neither good nor bad, right or wrong. They just are what they are.
3) Even though you can’t choose your feelings, you are responsible for them.
4) Emotions can be “walled off” but they cannot be extinguished. If you wall off an emotion, it does not disappear. It just goes and lives on the other side of the wall.
5) Feelings can lead you down the right path or they can lead you astray. It all depends on what you do with them.
6) When you disregard an emotion, you are actually empowering it. Ignoring, pushing away, or walling off a feeling may seem to make it go away but it’s the feelings you’re the least aware of that can affect you without your knowledge.
7) There is only one way to make an uncomfortable feeling go away, and that is to let yourself feel it.
8) Your feelings drive your thoughts, but you can also use your thoughts to manage your feelings.
9) Sitting with a powerful emotion and letting yourself feel it while thinking about it to understand why you’re having it, what it means, and what it’s telling you, is called “processing it.”
10) Your feelings are valuable messages from your deepest self. When you follow Rule 9, you are listening to the messages, honoring yourself, and making use of this valuable resource from within.
Since everyone has feelings, literally everyone should know these rules. It would prevent many emotional mistakes and misunderstandings that virtually everyone commonly makes.
Now I’m going to give you a Bonus Emotion Rule. This rule is not included in the first ten because it is special. It may be harder to accept, yet once you do, it can change your life.
Without further ado, here it is:
11. The way your parents treated your feelings as they raised you is probably the way you treat your own feelings now.
What exactly does this mean? Simply this: Childhood is actually Emotion Training For Life. Few people realize it but it is true!
If your parents noticed what you were feeling as they raised you, helped you name your feelings, and walked you through Rule 9 often enough, they taught you the 10 Rules that emotions follow. And they also taught you vital emotion skills that you still enjoy now, whether you realize it or not.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. If your parents failed to notice your feelings, help you name them, and figure out how to process them, then you likely grew up without learning those skills. Now you likely fail to notice your own feelings, and have a difficult time naming or processing the ones that you do notice.
After many years of watching this exact problem impact person, after person, after person, holding them back in their lives, and damaging their relationships, I finally realized that this is important. It must be talked about. People need to know.
So I named the problem Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), and I have made it my mission to educate as many as I can about it. The amazing thing about CEN is that it gives you answers. It explains why the 10 Rules Of Emotions are such a mystery to you.
It’s so straightforward, and yet so hard to see: you simply didn’t have a way to learn them as a child.
The very best thing about realizing that you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect is that it is a very curable problem. Now that you know what is wrong, you can fill in the gaps.
You can learn the 10 Rules, and you will see that it will make a tremendous difference in your life when you follow them.
Unsealed adoption records renew adoptee's hope of discovering her past
Medical history is the main reason Lorraine Thompson wants her information released.
Adoptee Lorraine Thompson is seeking the release of her adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick. (Catherine Harrop/CBC News)
Lorraine Thompson awoke Easter Sunday with the hope her almost 10-year-long quest to discover her past will soon come to an end.
April 1 was the first day adoptees could apply to receive freshly unsealed adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick, and Thompson is anxious to learn more about herself and receive important information, like medical histories.
Thompson was part of a coalition that lobbied the provincial government to open adoption records. Now that time has come, she said it's both exciting and emotional.
Thompson says she's not looking for a family, just information. (CBC News)
"Nobody understands what it's like to not know who you are and where you came from," said Thompson, who grew up in Dipper Harbour and lives nearby.
"It's fitting the pieces of your life together."
Finding those pieces has been a struggle, however.
'I'm not looking for a family'
Thompson, 65, began seeking information about her birth family in 2009 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She contacted Post Adoption Disclosure Services for her non-identifying information and a medical search.
But she's only gathered bits of information in the following years.
She knows she was born Dec. 31, 1952, in Saint John and spent time in a protestant orphanage. She was conceived during a brief extra-marital affair, and she was put up for adoption at the request of her birth mother's husband.
She has at least six half siblings, and she learned her first two names: Cheryl Lynn.
But there was little else. Her birth mother refused to acknowledge she had given birth to Thompson, and a half sibling, who was unaware of her existence, provided only two pieces of information in a medical history — her birth father died of a heart attack and another relative died of cancer.
"I'm not looking for a family. I'm looking for information," said Thompson, who has been frustrated with the red tape shrouding her past.
"It's a human right to know your roots and your history, and every Canadian should be treated equally and adoptees are not treated equally."
Potential roadblock
Thompson is hopeful the unsealed records will answer her many questions.
But there could be another roadblock.
For adoptions that happened before April 1, 2018, an adult adoptee or a birth parent will be able to apply for information about the other person, but the other person can veto its release.
For adoptions after April 1, 2018, birth parents will be told that information may someday be released to the adoptee, but they can choose not to be contacted.
"This is about me, so I'm asking when I sent this off for a copy of my file in its original form and not with somebody going through it and picking and choosing what they think I should know."
The post-April 1, 2018, birth parents would be able to select what kind of contact they have with the adoptees, if any. The same would apply to adopted children once they reach 19.
The pre-April 1, 2018, birth parents and adoptees would each have one year to invoke a veto. If they don't respond or can't be reached, the information will be released.
The adoptee has to be 19 years old to request information.
Adoptee Lorraine Thompson is seeking the release of her adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick. (Catherine Harrop/CBC News)
Lorraine Thompson awoke Easter Sunday with the hope her almost 10-year-long quest to discover her past will soon come to an end.
April 1 was the first day adoptees could apply to receive freshly unsealed adoption records under new legislation in New Brunswick, and Thompson is anxious to learn more about herself and receive important information, like medical histories.
Thompson was part of a coalition that lobbied the provincial government to open adoption records. Now that time has come, she said it's both exciting and emotional.
Thompson says she's not looking for a family, just information. (CBC News)
"Nobody understands what it's like to not know who you are and where you came from," said Thompson, who grew up in Dipper Harbour and lives nearby.
"It's fitting the pieces of your life together."
Finding those pieces has been a struggle, however.
'I'm not looking for a family'
Thompson, 65, began seeking information about her birth family in 2009 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She contacted Post Adoption Disclosure Services for her non-identifying information and a medical search.
But she's only gathered bits of information in the following years.
She knows she was born Dec. 31, 1952, in Saint John and spent time in a protestant orphanage. She was conceived during a brief extra-marital affair, and she was put up for adoption at the request of her birth mother's husband.
She has at least six half siblings, and she learned her first two names: Cheryl Lynn.
But there was little else. Her birth mother refused to acknowledge she had given birth to Thompson, and a half sibling, who was unaware of her existence, provided only two pieces of information in a medical history — her birth father died of a heart attack and another relative died of cancer.
"I'm not looking for a family. I'm looking for information," said Thompson, who has been frustrated with the red tape shrouding her past.
"It's a human right to know your roots and your history, and every Canadian should be treated equally and adoptees are not treated equally."
Potential roadblock
Thompson is hopeful the unsealed records will answer her many questions.
But there could be another roadblock.
For adoptions that happened before April 1, 2018, an adult adoptee or a birth parent will be able to apply for information about the other person, but the other person can veto its release.
For adoptions after April 1, 2018, birth parents will be told that information may someday be released to the adoptee, but they can choose not to be contacted.
"This is about me, so I'm asking when I sent this off for a copy of my file in its original form and not with somebody going through it and picking and choosing what they think I should know."
The post-April 1, 2018, birth parents would be able to select what kind of contact they have with the adoptees, if any. The same would apply to adopted children once they reach 19.
The pre-April 1, 2018, birth parents and adoptees would each have one year to invoke a veto. If they don't respond or can't be reached, the information will be released.
The adoptee has to be 19 years old to request information.
Adoption Is My Nationality Michelle Madrid-Branch
As a former foster child, as well as an international adoptee, I’m often asked about my nationality. In other words, people are curious as to where I originated, what my heritage is and to whom I once belonged.
Believe me, I have been — in my lifetime — ultra curious about these things, as well. In fact, the journey of discovery has taken me along paths to unknown destinations, and to unknown parts of myself.
The experience of seeking out adoption truth is like putting together a puzzle with vital pieces missing. Empty holes. Empty spaces. Those hollow places in the heart; caverns created by loss.
How much are we willing to sacrifice in an effort to put back the pieces of a shattered-self? What are we willing to risk? How can we revive the dormant parts of who we once were, as adoptees, prior to being removed from our first lives?
As for me, I’ve risked everything. I have put it all on the line in the quest to know who I am. I’ve faced my deepest fear: rejection. And, along the way, I’ve met with the sweetest redemption, all in the name of adoption.
I’ve learned the names of relatives, both past and present, and I speak their names out loud. Although I was a secret to many of them, they are no longer a secret to me. Cecilia, Julian, Maria, Eva, Rosa, Andre … and the list goes on and on. I have longed to speak their names and, in the longing, I have grieved what was lost; and what never was.
I’ve discovered that, as an adoptee, it is my birthright to be given the chance to know my history and my heritage. It is my right to have access to this information and to uncover as much of the mystery of me that I can. It is my right to know that I am a product of what is Spanish and English. It is my right to know of my Saudi Arabian and Pakistani roots. It is pure gift to know these parts of who I am. For, in the knowing is birthed the beginnings of healing.
Yet, beyond the bounds of birth heritage and birth history, I have come to learn a deeper sense of identity. One that has been, on many levels, unexpected: my nationality — over and above all else — is adoption.
What does this mean?
For me, it means that there are no people on this planet of whom I feel more akin to than those who live within the skin of adoption. No people of whom I could be more proud to say I’m related to. Adoption is a proud heritage, even though the history often comes with pain and sorrow.
Adoption says that I have survived the unthinkable experience of being severed from the life I was born into. Adoption speaks of the gratitude I feel for being able to forgive and even bless those who walked away. Adoption expresses my ability to love beyond the borders of bloodline. It exemplifies my ability to see the events of my life as happening for me and not to me. In other words, I am not a victim. I am a victor, and I choose to thrive.
And, when I stand with others who share this nationality called adoption, I am able to share my story and know that I am safe because I’m understood. They understand because they live a similar journey. Within our differences, we are one. We are tapestry. There is room for all voices within this nation, there is room for diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective.
As an adoption community, may we see ourselves as the founders of a unique nation that speaks the language of inclusion and a love that knows no borders.
As you, dear sisters and brothers of adoption and foster care, go out into your lives and seek truth, fact, and possibly reunion … know that — even though you may not understand this now — your adoption nationality could be the purest part of what makes you resilient, strong, and unbreakable.
Adoption is my nationality: I don’t fight this truth. Not anymore. In fact, I embrace this identity and I’m pliable to the lessons it has taught me; the lessons it continues to teach me. These lessons have taken root and blossomed into my individual offering; my calling.
I once believed that adoption was my weakness. I no longer think this true. Adoption has become my strength. I stand proud and able to continue the work of ensuring that this adoption nation is heard, seen, valued, respected, and understood.
May we be risk takers for truth; may we find the courage to revive the lost parts of ourselves. May we discover the inner-power to fuel us forward in sharing our stories; may we do so with grace and with dignity.
Within the loss that accompanies adoption, may we find life — beautiful life — and may this life be our anthem to the world.
Believe me, I have been — in my lifetime — ultra curious about these things, as well. In fact, the journey of discovery has taken me along paths to unknown destinations, and to unknown parts of myself.
The experience of seeking out adoption truth is like putting together a puzzle with vital pieces missing. Empty holes. Empty spaces. Those hollow places in the heart; caverns created by loss.
How much are we willing to sacrifice in an effort to put back the pieces of a shattered-self? What are we willing to risk? How can we revive the dormant parts of who we once were, as adoptees, prior to being removed from our first lives?
As for me, I’ve risked everything. I have put it all on the line in the quest to know who I am. I’ve faced my deepest fear: rejection. And, along the way, I’ve met with the sweetest redemption, all in the name of adoption.
I’ve learned the names of relatives, both past and present, and I speak their names out loud. Although I was a secret to many of them, they are no longer a secret to me. Cecilia, Julian, Maria, Eva, Rosa, Andre … and the list goes on and on. I have longed to speak their names and, in the longing, I have grieved what was lost; and what never was.
I’ve discovered that, as an adoptee, it is my birthright to be given the chance to know my history and my heritage. It is my right to have access to this information and to uncover as much of the mystery of me that I can. It is my right to know that I am a product of what is Spanish and English. It is my right to know of my Saudi Arabian and Pakistani roots. It is pure gift to know these parts of who I am. For, in the knowing is birthed the beginnings of healing.
Yet, beyond the bounds of birth heritage and birth history, I have come to learn a deeper sense of identity. One that has been, on many levels, unexpected: my nationality — over and above all else — is adoption.
What does this mean?
For me, it means that there are no people on this planet of whom I feel more akin to than those who live within the skin of adoption. No people of whom I could be more proud to say I’m related to. Adoption is a proud heritage, even though the history often comes with pain and sorrow.
Adoption says that I have survived the unthinkable experience of being severed from the life I was born into. Adoption speaks of the gratitude I feel for being able to forgive and even bless those who walked away. Adoption expresses my ability to love beyond the borders of bloodline. It exemplifies my ability to see the events of my life as happening for me and not to me. In other words, I am not a victim. I am a victor, and I choose to thrive.
And, when I stand with others who share this nationality called adoption, I am able to share my story and know that I am safe because I’m understood. They understand because they live a similar journey. Within our differences, we are one. We are tapestry. There is room for all voices within this nation, there is room for diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective.
As an adoption community, may we see ourselves as the founders of a unique nation that speaks the language of inclusion and a love that knows no borders.
As you, dear sisters and brothers of adoption and foster care, go out into your lives and seek truth, fact, and possibly reunion … know that — even though you may not understand this now — your adoption nationality could be the purest part of what makes you resilient, strong, and unbreakable.
Adoption is my nationality: I don’t fight this truth. Not anymore. In fact, I embrace this identity and I’m pliable to the lessons it has taught me; the lessons it continues to teach me. These lessons have taken root and blossomed into my individual offering; my calling.
I once believed that adoption was my weakness. I no longer think this true. Adoption has become my strength. I stand proud and able to continue the work of ensuring that this adoption nation is heard, seen, valued, respected, and understood.
May we be risk takers for truth; may we find the courage to revive the lost parts of ourselves. May we discover the inner-power to fuel us forward in sharing our stories; may we do so with grace and with dignity.
Within the loss that accompanies adoption, may we find life — beautiful life — and may this life be our anthem to the world.
To change a child’s Identity is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Whilst state governments argue the need to regress to past forced adoption practices to solve the problem in child protection, with out of home care other states and countries forge a forward thinking approach to caring for vulnerable children.They are seeing the light, finally coming to the reality of trauma created by a draconian adoption model that they have endorsed in the past and we are currently introducing again.
In all the following alternatives to Adoption they all have the same fundamental difference to adoption and that is that they do not change the child’s Identity or sever the child’s legal ties to its siblings, heritage, extended family and bloodline.
1) The UK has introduced a special guardianship model.
2) South Australia Places guardianship as the preferred model for child protection instead of adoption.
3) Queensland is piloting the following program Permanent care for children and young people
4)Victoria already has a viable alternative in the Victorian Permanent care model along with a viable alternative in the stewardship model that has been and is being proposed
Background to special guardianship UK.
1.The Prime Minister’s Review of Adoption identified that, while there was no clear difference in disruption rates between adoption and long-term fostering when age was taken into account, there were indications that children generally preferred the sense of security that adoption gives them over long-term foster placements. However, research indicated that there was a significant group of children, mainly older, who did not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption.
2.The report identified the need for an alternative legal status for children that offered greater security than long-term fostering but without the absolute legal severance from the birth family that stems from an adoption order. The report recommended that the Government consult on the details of a new legislative option for providing permanence short of adoption. This was strongly supported in the consultation on the report that followed.
3. The White Paper Adoption: a new approach 2 set out a number of routes to permanence for looked after children. One of these proposed routes was a new legal status to be known as special guardianship. The White Paper committed the Government to legislating to create special guardianship to provide legal permanence for those children for whom adoption is not appropriate. It stated that special guardianship would:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503547/special_guardianship_guidance.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/337568/iro_statutory_guidance_iros_and_las_march_2010_tagged.pdf
ADOPTION AND OTHER PERSON GUARDIANSHIP SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Stability of care relationships for children is an important precondition to their development. Adoption is one way of securing that stability. Some members of the community hold the view that adoption of children from care solves the problem of the shortage of suitable home-based placements.
However, the Commission is not persuaded that an increased emphasis on making children in care available for adoption is necessarily appropriate, when fundamental considerations of the child’s best interests are brought into account. That is not to exclude the possibility of adoption of children in care when it is genuinely in their best interests.
However, children can gain additional feelings of security within a loving family through Other Person Guardianship where guardianship responsibilities and powers are shifted in certain circumstances from the Minister to the carer of the child under the Children’s Protection Act. It can bring a greater sense of stability, certainty and normalcy to a child’s life, including placing important decision-making in the hands of the adults who know the child best.
Other Person Guardianship has been under-used in South Australia. The Agency has retained decision-making powers over many children in situations in which, for all intents and purposes, they are a settled part of a new family. In 2014/15 South Australia had the lowest rate of Other Person Guardianship carers of any state in Australia.
The focus on Other Person Guardianship should be renewed. The Commission recommends a new procedure to facilitate such applications being made by foster parents—an independent expert panel established to enable foster parents and relative carers to apply for an official assessment of their suitability and timely consideration of such applications.
The Children’s Protection Act should be amended to limit the ability of a child’s parents to oppose the making of an Other Person Guardianship order if the court is satisfied that such an order is in the best interests of the child.”
QUEENSLAND PERMANENT CARE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
All children and young people deserve to live in a safe and supportive home where they are valued and cared for.
In building a new child protection and family support system in Queensland, the department is working to reduce the number of children and young people in the tertiary system.
My Home is a new care option for children who need long-term out-of-home care and where reunification with family is no longer possible.
Couples who have been assessed by the department as suitable adoptive parents, or who have committed to an adoption assessment, can become permanent foster carers and provide a loving, nurturing and stable home where the child is considered as a member of their family.
Children under six years of age and subject to Child Protection Orders until they are 18 years old (or a decision has been made to apply for a Child Protection Order until they are 18 years old) will be placed with suitable permanent foster carers.
My Home also enables the department to consider whether the permanent foster cares will be the child’s legal guardians under a Long-Term Guardianship Order to the carers. This allows the child to have the security and stability of living permanently with a family, without ongoing intensive involvement from the department.
Providing a permanent, stable home life allows children to form trusting and secure attachments to their carers, and feel a sense of belonging with family and community.
THE STEWARDSHIP MODEL:
Why a stewardship model and not adoption for children in child protection?
Adoption should not be included as a child protection strategy in any form of legislation, policy or practice. We believe that overall decision-making authorities in relation to adoption need to take care to ensure that dialogue and policy is not driven by the desire of adoptive “parents to have “ownership” of such children, rather than to create safe and supportive care environments that maintains their identity, connection to their family and community” Changing a child’s identity in the name of care is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Having families THAT DON’T discontinue their relationship just because the court order discontinue at 18 years of age can radically change outcomes for these kids.
We know these families exist when we hear that there are 100s of people who want to adopt, it poses the Question. Why can’t these people care for children in need and offer support for the duration of the child’s life time without the need to change the child’s Identity and cut legal ties to its brothers, sisters, grandparent’s and the rest of its extended family, heritage and blood line.
By the introduction of a post adoption Birth Certificate that states a legal lie that they are now the natural parents “As If Born To”?
Why it is that Adopters must own a child before they will commit to a lifelong caring relationship with a child in need?
Is it the child’s needs that they are truly wanting to fulfil or is it the needs of the person/s that seeks to adopt that they want fulfilled instead?
Understandably for many people it’s a profound commitment, but it doesn’t have to be based on ownership here’s how a Stewardship model works: The approach is tailored to the Child’s needs first and is the paramount consideration. The overarching principle which is meant to govern adoption is that the ‘welfare and interests of the child’ are the ‘paramount consideration’.
This puts the child’s welfare and interests above the interests of the, people wanting to adopt adoptive parents and the child’s natural parents This overarching principle is the focus of the Alternative care Stewardship model to ‘ensure that the best interests and rights of the child are the foremost consideration in any decision made
Adoption changes the child’s identity and the child is legally severed from its family heritage and blood line it is not only a replacement family but also an ownership transaction that denies the child’s human right to its true identity but allows the child knowledge of who they use to be.
On the other hand a stewardship model has the role of the life long relationship between the child and adult clear the family is not a replacement family because the child already has one but a lifelong support family that take the role as an uncle and aunt type characters who include the child in their family but do not try to replace the child’s family and respect’s the child’s identity and loves the child as any relative should.
The Stewardship model is preferred as a last resort instead of adoption
After all efforts have been exhausted for family reunification and have exhausted all efforts to place the child with appropriate kin then it only is logical that a model is chosen that takes on a kinship type roll such as stewardship rather than a replacement family as the child already has a family and heritage. In a position to care for them or not they are still the child’s flesh and blood. In a stewardship model The child maintains its rights to its true identity and has a lifelong support family grows up to become an adult with no confusion, no divided loyalties no living a lie and growing up with the truth about its family circumstances and is supported to come to terms with its truth within an honest ,transparent and supportive family with a warm and loving safe environment to grow up in and not be expected to be anyone else but the child’s true self and as the child becomes an adult it will still be supported through to independence and beyond without having to trade its identity for care and will always have some where to come home for Xmas.
“Stewardship is the responsible overseeing and protection of somebody special considered worth caring for and preserving”.
*The Court issues a guardianship Care Order granting custody to a nominated family
*Retain original birth certificates and the truth of the family of origin
*Issue a subsequent document which states care and guardianship without legally severing biological ties
Only sever the ties that give care and control for a child whilst a minor.
*Add a clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age therefore reality and truth is retained, consequently identity is protected.
We agree that some children can’t be raised with their parents for many reasons and that they might feel positive about the experiences they’ve had in the care of others – even in some cases building relationships with these people who are ongoing, strong and positive. The way to get it right is to fundamentally rethink how to provide safe homes to all children.” NOT permanent removal by means of adoption by people fulfilling their need for a child and governments looking to save money. Adoption is a past option for today’s children who need care. However severing ties and creating a false birth certificate isn’t a necessary part of that. It doesn’t logically follow that to protect and care for a child their identity must be changed or invented. Basing care of a child on changing the child’s identity and denying a previous existence and origins (whether known or not) is not a sound basis for child protection and child development.
Definitely, there will always be a need to remove children in some cases, however family preservation should always be the first port of call but changing the child’s birth certificate (adoption) is not about what the child needs at all. In adoption, child protection becomes inextricably linked with child ownership and becomes – disturbingly often – about those who ‘need’ a child.
Wherever an adoption has ‘worked’, what should be examined is whether great caring with well-balanced, good people lucky enough to have the means to offer care has ‘worked’ instead. (Sharyn White)
Wherever an adoption has occurred, what should be examined is whether it was necessary to change the child’s identity, and disconnect the child from its family, heritage and blood line. ·
Stewardship is a model just like kinship Care is a Model and both are placed and monitored under a guardianship order by the courts. After it has been determined that there has been no coercion, family reunification is not possible and all efforts have failed to place the child with kin a guardianship order is legally established. In the case of siblings, a stewardship family is chosen that can keep them together. The guardians are responsible for all day-to-day care of the child and for decisions about matters such as education, employment, health and wellbeing.
The guardianship order expires when the child reaches age 18/21 and it is assumed that by adding the clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age along with the close relationship established between the guardians/family and the child who becomes an adult would last a lifetime. The child is able to be involved in both the guardians/family and their own parents/family lives by choice. Without the added pressure from a replacement family that wants the child to be “As if Born To” them that often exists in adoption. .
“In a natural family the parents no longer have the legal responsibilities for their child when the child reaches age 18/21 the child becomes legally responsible for themselves, however the relationship between the child and its family does not finish, and this is the same with a stewardship model”
Contact
The court’s involvement is to construct a contact regime for each particular child with immediate family, siblings, grandparents and extended family depending on his or her needs and circumstances, (you can’t say ‘one size fits all) that is legally binding and the guardians are legally bound to support its implementation through until the child reaches the end of the guardianship order. If this is not appropriate the court shall set out and monitor what is appropriate. Contact is a difficult issue, relying on, in practice, the goodwill of the parties involved however we believe that a contact regime can only be legally protected and enforceable if the Court has made the contact regime part of the guardianship order. In adoption current practice and section 59A of the adoption act 1984 (Vic) permits mothers/parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact in the form of face-to-face meetings and information exchange, which, with the agreement of the adoptive parents, is written into the adoption order by the Court. Contact is generally set at between one to four times per year but this is usually a minimum frequency with contact beyond the nominated frequency at the discretion of the adopting parents. Open adoption in the Adoption Act 1984 2.46 The Adoption Act establishes open adoption. Openness is built into the adoption process. The Act allows natural parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact which, with agreement from the adoptive parents, becomes a condition of the adoption order
‘However while contact arrangements agreed to in an adoption order are legally enforceable, in practice they rely on the goodwill of the parties involved. If family of origin members do not keep their commitments, there is little that children or adoptive parents can do to enforce them. Likewise, adoptive parents can also ‘make it difficult or uncomfortable for families of origin to stay in contact, with the result that contact may cease or greatly diminish over time’. Review of the Adoption Act 1984: Consultation Paper/ Victorian Law Reform Commission
How contact is to be conducted is not prescribed beyond the requirement that the adoption service manage the arrangements for the year between the placement of the baby and the order being ratified in the Court. After the adoption order is made, there is no professional support for the ongoing contact ordered by the Court.
A stewardship model would introduce a body to assist the court with an Independent/Ethics Committee not connected to the NGO or DoHHS is to be established to report to the court. This body would oversee, monitor, and report to the court on all aspects of the process, including the contact regime and regular welfare checks
Welfare checks must be carried out on all cared for children in private homes not like adoption which has no welfare checks or follow-up at present the government and NGOs have no duty of care once a child is adopted which possibly leaves the child at risk
Contact agreements should be set based on each individual case recognising one size does not fit all, along with the ongoing monitoring, implementation of those agreements with the full weight of the law for the execution of such until the child comes of age.
Contact agreements should be decided upon between the independent ethics committee, parents/relatives, the guardians and the child when the child is of an age to contribute overtime. Recommendations should be put to the court for including in the guardianship order. If the family of origin do not keep their commitments, it would be part of the role of an ethics committee to consult and counsel all parties, if the ethics committee’s efforts fail, then it goes to the court to be determined
Natural parents must have the option to re-establish contact at a later date pending their circumstances.
Whilst Britain continues to try, not terribly successfully, to modernise its child welfare system, we continue to look to countries like Australia, who are always ahead of the curve in this field.
Former judge of the Family Court of Australia, Professor the Honourable Nahum Mushin on ‘permanency and adoption’:
“I think the concept of permanency is contrary to what I regard as being in the best interests of children. We shouldn’t be talking about permanency, we should be talking about long-term. Once we get to that, really what you got to do is that you have to construct a care regime for each particular child depending on his or her needs, and you can’t say ‘one size fits all’.”
In all the following alternatives to Adoption they all have the same fundamental difference to adoption and that is that they do not change the child’s Identity or sever the child’s legal ties to its siblings, heritage, extended family and bloodline.
1) The UK has introduced a special guardianship model.
2) South Australia Places guardianship as the preferred model for child protection instead of adoption.
3) Queensland is piloting the following program Permanent care for children and young people
4)Victoria already has a viable alternative in the Victorian Permanent care model along with a viable alternative in the stewardship model that has been and is being proposed
Background to special guardianship UK.
1.The Prime Minister’s Review of Adoption identified that, while there was no clear difference in disruption rates between adoption and long-term fostering when age was taken into account, there were indications that children generally preferred the sense of security that adoption gives them over long-term foster placements. However, research indicated that there was a significant group of children, mainly older, who did not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption.
2.The report identified the need for an alternative legal status for children that offered greater security than long-term fostering but without the absolute legal severance from the birth family that stems from an adoption order. The report recommended that the Government consult on the details of a new legislative option for providing permanence short of adoption. This was strongly supported in the consultation on the report that followed.
3. The White Paper Adoption: a new approach 2 set out a number of routes to permanence for looked after children. One of these proposed routes was a new legal status to be known as special guardianship. The White Paper committed the Government to legislating to create special guardianship to provide legal permanence for those children for whom adoption is not appropriate. It stated that special guardianship would:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503547/special_guardianship_guidance.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/337568/iro_statutory_guidance_iros_and_las_march_2010_tagged.pdf
ADOPTION AND OTHER PERSON GUARDIANSHIP SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Stability of care relationships for children is an important precondition to their development. Adoption is one way of securing that stability. Some members of the community hold the view that adoption of children from care solves the problem of the shortage of suitable home-based placements.
However, the Commission is not persuaded that an increased emphasis on making children in care available for adoption is necessarily appropriate, when fundamental considerations of the child’s best interests are brought into account. That is not to exclude the possibility of adoption of children in care when it is genuinely in their best interests.
However, children can gain additional feelings of security within a loving family through Other Person Guardianship where guardianship responsibilities and powers are shifted in certain circumstances from the Minister to the carer of the child under the Children’s Protection Act. It can bring a greater sense of stability, certainty and normalcy to a child’s life, including placing important decision-making in the hands of the adults who know the child best.
Other Person Guardianship has been under-used in South Australia. The Agency has retained decision-making powers over many children in situations in which, for all intents and purposes, they are a settled part of a new family. In 2014/15 South Australia had the lowest rate of Other Person Guardianship carers of any state in Australia.
The focus on Other Person Guardianship should be renewed. The Commission recommends a new procedure to facilitate such applications being made by foster parents—an independent expert panel established to enable foster parents and relative carers to apply for an official assessment of their suitability and timely consideration of such applications.
The Children’s Protection Act should be amended to limit the ability of a child’s parents to oppose the making of an Other Person Guardianship order if the court is satisfied that such an order is in the best interests of the child.”
QUEENSLAND PERMANENT CARE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
All children and young people deserve to live in a safe and supportive home where they are valued and cared for.
In building a new child protection and family support system in Queensland, the department is working to reduce the number of children and young people in the tertiary system.
My Home is a new care option for children who need long-term out-of-home care and where reunification with family is no longer possible.
Couples who have been assessed by the department as suitable adoptive parents, or who have committed to an adoption assessment, can become permanent foster carers and provide a loving, nurturing and stable home where the child is considered as a member of their family.
Children under six years of age and subject to Child Protection Orders until they are 18 years old (or a decision has been made to apply for a Child Protection Order until they are 18 years old) will be placed with suitable permanent foster carers.
My Home also enables the department to consider whether the permanent foster cares will be the child’s legal guardians under a Long-Term Guardianship Order to the carers. This allows the child to have the security and stability of living permanently with a family, without ongoing intensive involvement from the department.
Providing a permanent, stable home life allows children to form trusting and secure attachments to their carers, and feel a sense of belonging with family and community.
THE STEWARDSHIP MODEL:
Why a stewardship model and not adoption for children in child protection?
Adoption should not be included as a child protection strategy in any form of legislation, policy or practice. We believe that overall decision-making authorities in relation to adoption need to take care to ensure that dialogue and policy is not driven by the desire of adoptive “parents to have “ownership” of such children, rather than to create safe and supportive care environments that maintains their identity, connection to their family and community” Changing a child’s identity in the name of care is too great a price for a child to pay when it is in need of care.
Having families THAT DON’T discontinue their relationship just because the court order discontinue at 18 years of age can radically change outcomes for these kids.
We know these families exist when we hear that there are 100s of people who want to adopt, it poses the Question. Why can’t these people care for children in need and offer support for the duration of the child’s life time without the need to change the child’s Identity and cut legal ties to its brothers, sisters, grandparent’s and the rest of its extended family, heritage and blood line.
By the introduction of a post adoption Birth Certificate that states a legal lie that they are now the natural parents “As If Born To”?
Why it is that Adopters must own a child before they will commit to a lifelong caring relationship with a child in need?
Is it the child’s needs that they are truly wanting to fulfil or is it the needs of the person/s that seeks to adopt that they want fulfilled instead?
Understandably for many people it’s a profound commitment, but it doesn’t have to be based on ownership here’s how a Stewardship model works: The approach is tailored to the Child’s needs first and is the paramount consideration. The overarching principle which is meant to govern adoption is that the ‘welfare and interests of the child’ are the ‘paramount consideration’.
This puts the child’s welfare and interests above the interests of the, people wanting to adopt adoptive parents and the child’s natural parents This overarching principle is the focus of the Alternative care Stewardship model to ‘ensure that the best interests and rights of the child are the foremost consideration in any decision made
Adoption changes the child’s identity and the child is legally severed from its family heritage and blood line it is not only a replacement family but also an ownership transaction that denies the child’s human right to its true identity but allows the child knowledge of who they use to be.
On the other hand a stewardship model has the role of the life long relationship between the child and adult clear the family is not a replacement family because the child already has one but a lifelong support family that take the role as an uncle and aunt type characters who include the child in their family but do not try to replace the child’s family and respect’s the child’s identity and loves the child as any relative should.
The Stewardship model is preferred as a last resort instead of adoption
After all efforts have been exhausted for family reunification and have exhausted all efforts to place the child with appropriate kin then it only is logical that a model is chosen that takes on a kinship type roll such as stewardship rather than a replacement family as the child already has a family and heritage. In a position to care for them or not they are still the child’s flesh and blood. In a stewardship model The child maintains its rights to its true identity and has a lifelong support family grows up to become an adult with no confusion, no divided loyalties no living a lie and growing up with the truth about its family circumstances and is supported to come to terms with its truth within an honest ,transparent and supportive family with a warm and loving safe environment to grow up in and not be expected to be anyone else but the child’s true self and as the child becomes an adult it will still be supported through to independence and beyond without having to trade its identity for care and will always have some where to come home for Xmas.
“Stewardship is the responsible overseeing and protection of somebody special considered worth caring for and preserving”.
*The Court issues a guardianship Care Order granting custody to a nominated family
*Retain original birth certificates and the truth of the family of origin
*Issue a subsequent document which states care and guardianship without legally severing biological ties
Only sever the ties that give care and control for a child whilst a minor.
*Add a clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age therefore reality and truth is retained, consequently identity is protected.
We agree that some children can’t be raised with their parents for many reasons and that they might feel positive about the experiences they’ve had in the care of others – even in some cases building relationships with these people who are ongoing, strong and positive. The way to get it right is to fundamentally rethink how to provide safe homes to all children.” NOT permanent removal by means of adoption by people fulfilling their need for a child and governments looking to save money. Adoption is a past option for today’s children who need care. However severing ties and creating a false birth certificate isn’t a necessary part of that. It doesn’t logically follow that to protect and care for a child their identity must be changed or invented. Basing care of a child on changing the child’s identity and denying a previous existence and origins (whether known or not) is not a sound basis for child protection and child development.
Definitely, there will always be a need to remove children in some cases, however family preservation should always be the first port of call but changing the child’s birth certificate (adoption) is not about what the child needs at all. In adoption, child protection becomes inextricably linked with child ownership and becomes – disturbingly often – about those who ‘need’ a child.
Wherever an adoption has ‘worked’, what should be examined is whether great caring with well-balanced, good people lucky enough to have the means to offer care has ‘worked’ instead. (Sharyn White)
Wherever an adoption has occurred, what should be examined is whether it was necessary to change the child’s identity, and disconnect the child from its family, heritage and blood line. ·
Stewardship is a model just like kinship Care is a Model and both are placed and monitored under a guardianship order by the courts. After it has been determined that there has been no coercion, family reunification is not possible and all efforts have failed to place the child with kin a guardianship order is legally established. In the case of siblings, a stewardship family is chosen that can keep them together. The guardians are responsible for all day-to-day care of the child and for decisions about matters such as education, employment, health and wellbeing.
The guardianship order expires when the child reaches age 18/21 and it is assumed that by adding the clause about continued responsibility and obligation after the child reaches 18 years of age along with the close relationship established between the guardians/family and the child who becomes an adult would last a lifetime. The child is able to be involved in both the guardians/family and their own parents/family lives by choice. Without the added pressure from a replacement family that wants the child to be “As if Born To” them that often exists in adoption. .
“In a natural family the parents no longer have the legal responsibilities for their child when the child reaches age 18/21 the child becomes legally responsible for themselves, however the relationship between the child and its family does not finish, and this is the same with a stewardship model”
Contact
The court’s involvement is to construct a contact regime for each particular child with immediate family, siblings, grandparents and extended family depending on his or her needs and circumstances, (you can’t say ‘one size fits all) that is legally binding and the guardians are legally bound to support its implementation through until the child reaches the end of the guardianship order. If this is not appropriate the court shall set out and monitor what is appropriate. Contact is a difficult issue, relying on, in practice, the goodwill of the parties involved however we believe that a contact regime can only be legally protected and enforceable if the Court has made the contact regime part of the guardianship order. In adoption current practice and section 59A of the adoption act 1984 (Vic) permits mothers/parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact in the form of face-to-face meetings and information exchange, which, with the agreement of the adoptive parents, is written into the adoption order by the Court. Contact is generally set at between one to four times per year but this is usually a minimum frequency with contact beyond the nominated frequency at the discretion of the adopting parents. Open adoption in the Adoption Act 1984 2.46 The Adoption Act establishes open adoption. Openness is built into the adoption process. The Act allows natural parents to nominate a preferred frequency of contact which, with agreement from the adoptive parents, becomes a condition of the adoption order
‘However while contact arrangements agreed to in an adoption order are legally enforceable, in practice they rely on the goodwill of the parties involved. If family of origin members do not keep their commitments, there is little that children or adoptive parents can do to enforce them. Likewise, adoptive parents can also ‘make it difficult or uncomfortable for families of origin to stay in contact, with the result that contact may cease or greatly diminish over time’. Review of the Adoption Act 1984: Consultation Paper/ Victorian Law Reform Commission
How contact is to be conducted is not prescribed beyond the requirement that the adoption service manage the arrangements for the year between the placement of the baby and the order being ratified in the Court. After the adoption order is made, there is no professional support for the ongoing contact ordered by the Court.
A stewardship model would introduce a body to assist the court with an Independent/Ethics Committee not connected to the NGO or DoHHS is to be established to report to the court. This body would oversee, monitor, and report to the court on all aspects of the process, including the contact regime and regular welfare checks
Welfare checks must be carried out on all cared for children in private homes not like adoption which has no welfare checks or follow-up at present the government and NGOs have no duty of care once a child is adopted which possibly leaves the child at risk
Contact agreements should be set based on each individual case recognising one size does not fit all, along with the ongoing monitoring, implementation of those agreements with the full weight of the law for the execution of such until the child comes of age.
Contact agreements should be decided upon between the independent ethics committee, parents/relatives, the guardians and the child when the child is of an age to contribute overtime. Recommendations should be put to the court for including in the guardianship order. If the family of origin do not keep their commitments, it would be part of the role of an ethics committee to consult and counsel all parties, if the ethics committee’s efforts fail, then it goes to the court to be determined
Natural parents must have the option to re-establish contact at a later date pending their circumstances.
Whilst Britain continues to try, not terribly successfully, to modernise its child welfare system, we continue to look to countries like Australia, who are always ahead of the curve in this field.
Former judge of the Family Court of Australia, Professor the Honourable Nahum Mushin on ‘permanency and adoption’:
“I think the concept of permanency is contrary to what I regard as being in the best interests of children. We shouldn’t be talking about permanency, we should be talking about long-term. Once we get to that, really what you got to do is that you have to construct a care regime for each particular child depending on his or her needs, and you can’t say ‘one size fits all’.”
The Presence of Absence: Birth Mother Grief Beyond the Five Stages
Grief after death and grief after adoption share some similarities: both involve mourning a profound separation, both bring waves of longing and sorrow, and both can alter a person’s identity and worldview. However they differ in crucial ways: Liminal loss is about living in a place of presence vs. absence. In death, the person is gone. The grief centers around permanent absence. In adoption, the child is alive but absent, which means the parent is suspended in an “in-between” state—always wondering, imagining, and hoping. Death has rituals (funerals, obituaries, anniversaries) that validate grief. Adoption loss is often hidden or minimized, leaving birth/first parents with no socially accepted way to mourn. With death, holidays or anniversaries may reopen grief. With adoption, grief can be triggered by ordinary milestones: the first day of school, graduations, or even seeing a child who is around the same age as the lost child. The wound is repeatedly touched by the ongoing reality of the child’s life apart from the parent. Society generally allows compassion for the bereaved parent. In adoption, society imposes narratives of “choice,” “selflessness,” or “moving on,” which silence the grieving parent and add layers of shame. Death takes away someone we love; adoption asks a parent to continue living with a split identity—they are a parent, yet not parenting. This paradox defines liminal loss. Understanding adoption grief as a form of liminal loss helps explain why Worden’s tasks are so essential, but also why they must be adapted. Birth/first parents do not complete these tasks and move on—they are expanded by them as they revisit them across a lifetime.
AF Articles
Articles & Publications for Adoptive Families
Five Hard Truths About Adoption Adoptive Parents don't want to Hear: This is a tough read for some, but it's an excellent article full of truth, and it is the reality for so many Adoptees I work with daily. I hope we will all become more aware of these truths that impact so many of us.
Adoptees. We're allegedly 16% of America's estimated 500 serial killers whilst we represent only 2-3% of the population1. We're also the heroes of pop culture from Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins, to Superman and Luke Skywalker. In real life we're Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, Marilyn Monroe...and Ted Bundy. We're overrepresented in mental health settings, often at two-and-a-half to six times the rate of non-adopted children2. Why can we fly so high and fall so hard?
Most of the analysis disregards the truths about adoption, swept under the carpet along with our origins by a society who prefers to ignore them. So it's time for adoptees to step up and tell the world those truths. None of the 'a mom is a mom, it doesn't matter who gave birth' shit. Because it does matter. The truth matters.
1. There is not one 'real' mother.
Real is one of those words that denotes authenticity. Superiority. Only one according to King Solomon, can be the 'real mother'. And I know you want to be the only 'real' mother. You may be a great caregiver. I know you changed my nappies and stayed up countless nights with me, attended the parent-teacher evenings and all that good stuff. I know you 'mother' me - often to the best of your ability and always with the resources within you.
But the relegation of my first real mother to the function of incubator by using the terms 'birth or biological mother' objectifies her, and diminishes her role and her importance in my heritage. She is also my 'real' mother plain and simple... I bonded with her before I was born during my very formation, she is and forever will be a part of me and I of her. And you - adopter - you are my parent. Maybe you are my 'real mother' too. After all, it's just a label. Two women played a part in making me who I am. My mother doesn't parent me. You do. Does this mean that either one of you is less important than the other? No.
Without my mother I would not be alive. Without you I would not survive to see adulthood. I would not be able to survive without either of you. Don't think that I cannot appreciate life and our relationship. I can... if we both acknowledge the truth. You and I have a unique bond without you pretending it's something that it can never be and trying to force others to do the same. Otherwise all we are taught is that lying is the best way to handle life - as if living under an assumed name wasn't already enough to teach us that.
2. No matter how good our childhoods are, most of us fantasize about our origins.
In my childhood daydreams, I was the daughter of a nobleman and a beggar girl, the ugly duckling who turned out to be a swan or even a lost princess. Surely my fairy godmother would soon rescue me. When you are ignorant of your parentage such fantasies are beautiful to dwell upon. Even though my adoptive mother wasn't an evil queen, nor my father an abusive woodcutter, the fairy tales I read kept me dreaming. One day I would be reunited with my natural family and ascend my true power. Power that had been taken from me when I was adopted.
It is the sad truth that all adoptions start out of loss no matter how you try to frame it. I may be your gift. I may be your chosen one although the reality is that usually you were chosen to be my parents by a team of so-called experts....whilst for you, any child would do. And saying otherwise is a lie. But I am a child who's lost her mother without her conscious knowledge or consent. I have learnt by my formative experiences that my consent is not important. It has unsurprisingly left me far more open to abusive situations later on in life.
That I dream of my reunion with my natural parents has little to do with your ability to parent me, although it may be enhanced by it. If you tell me that happy children do not find their natural parents, you invalidate my very natural need to repair the bond that was once broken. You might use manipulation and indirect blackmail to stay my hand by putting me into the position of telling you that I do not appreciate your parenting and if so, I will learn by your example. I will also use manipulation and emotional blackmail. You might force me to commit sacrilege by contradicting the universally acknowledged ideal of motherhood. Because you know full well that I will hesitate from further rejection and keep me bound to you by fear. Fear leads to pain. Pain leads to destruction. Is that what you want?
3. I am not the answer to your prayers.
...even if you think I am.
You may have had hopes and fantasies about your natural child and when you realized you couldn't have one, they were transferred to me. This is normal, but when those hopes and dreams turn into expectations it creates a box that I feel I must fill or risk rejection a second time. If you objectify me, you deny me my humanity and create a permanent sense of failure.
For that reason, I would ask you to ditch your hopes and dreams and look at who I really am. Whilst hopes and dreams may be resisted more easily by your biological child, an adopted child will subconsciously perceive that she must match up to the child you could have had and end up second best. We are after all, more often than not, your second option and worse told to feel happy about this. Grieve your unborn child and don't fill that hole with us. Because whilst we won't fit, we will still kill ourselves trying.
4. My reunion will most likely be disappointing because reality never lives up to dreams. This does not mean it isn't needed.
When I grew up and found my natural parents, there was of course no gold crown waiting for me. Just a realization that I was the rather ordinary product of a tawdry affair where responsibility for my presence was passed off to a childless married couple desperate for a child of 'their own'. I was a possession. My mother had become pregnant, victim of the wiles of a married and - as it turned out - immoral man. Not only was I not special, I was worse than others... born a bastard child, a second class citizen denied her birthright and a reject. And yet my reunion with my mother, a wonderful woman, was by all accounts successful even though it initially left me empty inside. My reunion with my father was an unmitigated disaster colored by [his] genetic sexual attraction.
Does this mean I should never have found them?
Until 19, I was effectively in limbo living the life of someone I didn't even know. Meeting my mother and father didn't teach me who I was, it taught me that I had the ability to choose who I was, for myself. But without that realization, I would have been forever stuck a victim of my circumstance not able to assume responsibility for my life or my actions. Feeling that you are a victim of life doesn't lead to anything good; so let us pursue our own journey and help us recover from the trauma - in part - by finding our natural parents. The outcome of the reunion could be good or bad... but in either way it will help shape how we manage our future and maybe give us the wings we need to fly. If we don't have that reunion, the realisation might never come and we will try to create meaning in our lives by pushing the boundaries. Sometimes quietly. Most times not.
5. I have no idea who I am. This can be good. But first it could be very, very bad.
Adoptees have gone through a trauma and a loss of their mother4. It doesn't matter whether or not they are conscious of it. Losing a baby is like an amputee having a phantom leg... for the mother. It should be there. It hurts that it is not. But it's not debilitating. If the mother is the amputee, the adopted child is like the phantom leg. Cut adrift, the connections which are supposed to be there, that the brain expects to be there... gone. We look like the other children, but we operate under different schematics because our brains have undergone stress at a formative stage.
For a time after birth until the age of around 2-3, the child is not fully aware of its own independence. Until the natural development and physiological separation of the child from the mother at this point, any enforced separation like adoption will result in a different kind of growth pattern. We are, like all children, naturally equipped with the resources to survive. We find the workarounds. But we do so differently, with strangers instead of with the people the brain is hardwired to expect.
We are not taught how to deal with this. We are told that our adoption is good, that our new caregiver for everything that matters, is our mother. But we know instinctively she isn't even before our cognitive brain kicks in. We have a fear of rejection which the mind has created as a survival mechanism from its first experience. We cannot trust those around us... so the best way of surviving is to trust no one. We are insecure, and are more likely to suffer low self esteem because we were already discarded as not worthy. It doesn't matter what you say. In most cases we will not be able to understand this until we are much much older and by then it is often too late.
Your adopted child will be more susceptible to bullying or to bully, more likely to become a rebel (after the initial attempt to be the perfect child), and in later life if this trauma remains unacknowledged and untreated, more susceptible to addiction, abuse and self-harm.
If your child gets through this, (s)he will start to realize that the ability to define themselves and create their own meaning free of lineage and free of definition is one of the most stunning gifts in this world. We like the superheroes, are truly able to follow our call to adventure. But not before the shit has hit the fan, leaving everyone wondering what is 'wrong' with us.
The answer is nothing. We're following our own blue print designed to protect us in the best way it knows how. But it may not fit with your ideas. You may have to adapt them to help us counteract those parts with prove to be at odds with the healthiest way of living. If you do, then thank you. But you may also try and ignore, disparage or otherwise suppress what is widely researched and supported by the brightest minds working in clinical psychology and neuroscience.
And if you do, the question is not what is wrong with us, but why you put your own need to be parents before the needs of the child that you once said you loved... as if they were your very own.
Most of the analysis disregards the truths about adoption, swept under the carpet along with our origins by a society who prefers to ignore them. So it's time for adoptees to step up and tell the world those truths. None of the 'a mom is a mom, it doesn't matter who gave birth' shit. Because it does matter. The truth matters.
1. There is not one 'real' mother.
Real is one of those words that denotes authenticity. Superiority. Only one according to King Solomon, can be the 'real mother'. And I know you want to be the only 'real' mother. You may be a great caregiver. I know you changed my nappies and stayed up countless nights with me, attended the parent-teacher evenings and all that good stuff. I know you 'mother' me - often to the best of your ability and always with the resources within you.
But the relegation of my first real mother to the function of incubator by using the terms 'birth or biological mother' objectifies her, and diminishes her role and her importance in my heritage. She is also my 'real' mother plain and simple... I bonded with her before I was born during my very formation, she is and forever will be a part of me and I of her. And you - adopter - you are my parent. Maybe you are my 'real mother' too. After all, it's just a label. Two women played a part in making me who I am. My mother doesn't parent me. You do. Does this mean that either one of you is less important than the other? No.
Without my mother I would not be alive. Without you I would not survive to see adulthood. I would not be able to survive without either of you. Don't think that I cannot appreciate life and our relationship. I can... if we both acknowledge the truth. You and I have a unique bond without you pretending it's something that it can never be and trying to force others to do the same. Otherwise all we are taught is that lying is the best way to handle life - as if living under an assumed name wasn't already enough to teach us that.
2. No matter how good our childhoods are, most of us fantasize about our origins.
In my childhood daydreams, I was the daughter of a nobleman and a beggar girl, the ugly duckling who turned out to be a swan or even a lost princess. Surely my fairy godmother would soon rescue me. When you are ignorant of your parentage such fantasies are beautiful to dwell upon. Even though my adoptive mother wasn't an evil queen, nor my father an abusive woodcutter, the fairy tales I read kept me dreaming. One day I would be reunited with my natural family and ascend my true power. Power that had been taken from me when I was adopted.
It is the sad truth that all adoptions start out of loss no matter how you try to frame it. I may be your gift. I may be your chosen one although the reality is that usually you were chosen to be my parents by a team of so-called experts....whilst for you, any child would do. And saying otherwise is a lie. But I am a child who's lost her mother without her conscious knowledge or consent. I have learnt by my formative experiences that my consent is not important. It has unsurprisingly left me far more open to abusive situations later on in life.
That I dream of my reunion with my natural parents has little to do with your ability to parent me, although it may be enhanced by it. If you tell me that happy children do not find their natural parents, you invalidate my very natural need to repair the bond that was once broken. You might use manipulation and indirect blackmail to stay my hand by putting me into the position of telling you that I do not appreciate your parenting and if so, I will learn by your example. I will also use manipulation and emotional blackmail. You might force me to commit sacrilege by contradicting the universally acknowledged ideal of motherhood. Because you know full well that I will hesitate from further rejection and keep me bound to you by fear. Fear leads to pain. Pain leads to destruction. Is that what you want?
3. I am not the answer to your prayers.
...even if you think I am.
You may have had hopes and fantasies about your natural child and when you realized you couldn't have one, they were transferred to me. This is normal, but when those hopes and dreams turn into expectations it creates a box that I feel I must fill or risk rejection a second time. If you objectify me, you deny me my humanity and create a permanent sense of failure.
For that reason, I would ask you to ditch your hopes and dreams and look at who I really am. Whilst hopes and dreams may be resisted more easily by your biological child, an adopted child will subconsciously perceive that she must match up to the child you could have had and end up second best. We are after all, more often than not, your second option and worse told to feel happy about this. Grieve your unborn child and don't fill that hole with us. Because whilst we won't fit, we will still kill ourselves trying.
4. My reunion will most likely be disappointing because reality never lives up to dreams. This does not mean it isn't needed.
When I grew up and found my natural parents, there was of course no gold crown waiting for me. Just a realization that I was the rather ordinary product of a tawdry affair where responsibility for my presence was passed off to a childless married couple desperate for a child of 'their own'. I was a possession. My mother had become pregnant, victim of the wiles of a married and - as it turned out - immoral man. Not only was I not special, I was worse than others... born a bastard child, a second class citizen denied her birthright and a reject. And yet my reunion with my mother, a wonderful woman, was by all accounts successful even though it initially left me empty inside. My reunion with my father was an unmitigated disaster colored by [his] genetic sexual attraction.
Does this mean I should never have found them?
Until 19, I was effectively in limbo living the life of someone I didn't even know. Meeting my mother and father didn't teach me who I was, it taught me that I had the ability to choose who I was, for myself. But without that realization, I would have been forever stuck a victim of my circumstance not able to assume responsibility for my life or my actions. Feeling that you are a victim of life doesn't lead to anything good; so let us pursue our own journey and help us recover from the trauma - in part - by finding our natural parents. The outcome of the reunion could be good or bad... but in either way it will help shape how we manage our future and maybe give us the wings we need to fly. If we don't have that reunion, the realisation might never come and we will try to create meaning in our lives by pushing the boundaries. Sometimes quietly. Most times not.
5. I have no idea who I am. This can be good. But first it could be very, very bad.
Adoptees have gone through a trauma and a loss of their mother4. It doesn't matter whether or not they are conscious of it. Losing a baby is like an amputee having a phantom leg... for the mother. It should be there. It hurts that it is not. But it's not debilitating. If the mother is the amputee, the adopted child is like the phantom leg. Cut adrift, the connections which are supposed to be there, that the brain expects to be there... gone. We look like the other children, but we operate under different schematics because our brains have undergone stress at a formative stage.
For a time after birth until the age of around 2-3, the child is not fully aware of its own independence. Until the natural development and physiological separation of the child from the mother at this point, any enforced separation like adoption will result in a different kind of growth pattern. We are, like all children, naturally equipped with the resources to survive. We find the workarounds. But we do so differently, with strangers instead of with the people the brain is hardwired to expect.
We are not taught how to deal with this. We are told that our adoption is good, that our new caregiver for everything that matters, is our mother. But we know instinctively she isn't even before our cognitive brain kicks in. We have a fear of rejection which the mind has created as a survival mechanism from its first experience. We cannot trust those around us... so the best way of surviving is to trust no one. We are insecure, and are more likely to suffer low self esteem because we were already discarded as not worthy. It doesn't matter what you say. In most cases we will not be able to understand this until we are much much older and by then it is often too late.
Your adopted child will be more susceptible to bullying or to bully, more likely to become a rebel (after the initial attempt to be the perfect child), and in later life if this trauma remains unacknowledged and untreated, more susceptible to addiction, abuse and self-harm.
If your child gets through this, (s)he will start to realize that the ability to define themselves and create their own meaning free of lineage and free of definition is one of the most stunning gifts in this world. We like the superheroes, are truly able to follow our call to adventure. But not before the shit has hit the fan, leaving everyone wondering what is 'wrong' with us.
The answer is nothing. We're following our own blue print designed to protect us in the best way it knows how. But it may not fit with your ideas. You may have to adapt them to help us counteract those parts with prove to be at odds with the healthiest way of living. If you do, then thank you. But you may also try and ignore, disparage or otherwise suppress what is widely researched and supported by the brightest minds working in clinical psychology and neuroscience.
And if you do, the question is not what is wrong with us, but why you put your own need to be parents before the needs of the child that you once said you loved... as if they were your very own.
Adoption and Genetics Why We Need to Pay Attention by E. Kay Trimberger
In 2006 I helped my twenty-five-year-old son Marco locate
his biological families. I hoped this reunion would help him
overcome some of the challenges he was wrestling with on
his path to adulthood. I was thrilled when the families of both
his white mother and his black father welcomed him. But
I was unprepared for the discovery of how much he had in
common with his birth parents: not just appearance, but also
many personality traits, talents and problems.
When I adopted in 1981, I believed—like many social scientists
and adoption professionals at that time —that nurture
was everything, each infant a blank slate awaiting parental
inscription. Even when Marco was a young child, I recognized
that this idea was too simple, that my son had many attributes
different from those of anyone else in my family. Still, I was
surprised by these reunion revelations.
The adoption theory that I absorbed over the years never
mentioned genetic heritage. Marco’s difficulty finding his
way as a young adult, I was told, might stem from a number
of psychological factors. First was the loss of a birth mother
with whom he had bonded in utero—a “primal wound” that
supposedly made it difficult for him to bond with an adoptive
mother. This idea never resonated with me, for we always
had a close connection, with a lot of emotional and verbal
sharing. Even in our most troubled times, we never lost
contact, and he often confided in me. If anything, I saw him as
too close to me, his only parent.
More compelling was the idea that he had been affected by
the fetal environment of a stressed teenage birth mother, who
probably drank and smoked. This, possibly combined with a
weak sense of self deriving from a loss of ethnicity and family
history, especially prevalent in the transracially adopted, might
help to explain why he chose a life outside the mainstream,
one that for many years involved heavy marijuana and alcohol
use.
None of these theories, however, prepared me for the shock
of finding that my son’s birth mother and father—out of touch
with each other for twenty-five years—had both struggled
with drug addiction throughout their lives. I was especially
surprised because in my phone conversations and a visit with
them, I had seen that they (like Marco) were charming and
intelligent people. I learned, however, that substance abuse
had taken a toll on their lives, especially the father’s.
Reunion has helped Marco secure a stronger sense of self,
especially since he found mixed-race heritage on both sides.
His mother married another black man and had three more
biracial children, and his father’s extended family is multiracial
as well. But reunion also added many complications to his
life, as he has tried to reconcile the heritage of what he calls
his “three families.” Only gradually, through moving to
Louisiana for six months and living first with his birth mother
and then with his birth father, did Marco acknowledge their
shared substance abuse problems. This realization led him
for the first time to enter a recovery program, something his
birth parents have never done. He sought to overcome the
negative part of his birth heritage so he could build on the
positive. Recently, I asked Marco how he was different from
his birth father.
“Not a heck of a lot,” he replied. “But I have better tools.”
Marco’s reunion experience led me to undertake my own
search, a quest to understand genetics and how they might
impact adoption. Perhaps I hoped to find that nature is
everything, and that I could let go of my parental guilt for his
problems. As a social scientist with little biological education,
I began by looking at science journalism, then turned to the
original research. I found that genetics alone could not explain
either Marco’s positive behavior or his addiction; genes
provide only probabilistic propensities not predetermined
programming. They provide probabilities for behavior and risk
factors for disease, but do not indicate whether any individual
will sustain a behavior or succumb to a particular mental or
physical disorder, or how severe the disease will be. I did,
however, gain important insights into adoptive parenting.
What I found astounded me: an interdisciplinary field that I’d
never heard of called behavioral genetics. Though not focused
Adoption and Genetics
Why We Need to Pay Attention
by E. Kay Trimberger
First published in Pact’s Point of View © 2011
Do not reprint without permission.
on adoption per se, many of its findings are based on the study
of adoptees. 1 While I had not known about this field by name,
I had heard of some its more infamous practitioners, like those
at the turn of the century who advocated selective breeding
and forced sterilization. I also knew about a few more recent
behavioral geneticists who published controversial studies of
racial differences in I.Q. But now I discovered that behavioral
genetics had gained legitimacy as a science for its studies on
individual differences.
Behavioral genetics tries to explain how much of the variation
among individuals’ cognitive and psychological traits can be
attributed to genetic heritage and how much is due to the
environment. Their major methodology is a natural experiment
which separates genetic heritage and environment by
comparing the similarities and differences among adoptees,
adoptive parents, and biological parents, and also between
biological and adoptive siblings. Behavioral genetics, in
addition, studies identical twins raised apart. In studies over
a number of years in many different countries, researchers
concur that identical twins separated at birth and adopted into
different families, compared to identical twins raised together
by their biological parents, are very similar on a number of
measures of personality, temperament, intelligence, interests
and susceptibility to physical and mental disease. Additionally,
identical twins raised apart are more similar than fraternal
twins raised together.
Even more interesting is a study published in 1997 by Robert
Plomin and his colleagues at The Colorado Adoption Project.
Their twenty-year longitudinal study of 245 adoptees, placed in
the first few months of life, compared the children’s cognitive
abilities to those of their birth and adoptive parents. (Ninety
percent of the biological parents and ninety-five percent of
adoptive parents were white and from roughly equal social
classes.) Before age five, the adoptees’ cognitive skills
correlated more with those in their adoptive families. As they
matured, however, the adoptees’ cognitive skills, including
verbal ability, became more like those of their biological
parents. The researchers concluded that “environmental
transmission from parent to offspring has little effect on later
cognitive ability.” A number of other studies, including ones
on transracial adoption, have replicated these results.
Behavioral geneticists have found that all behavioral traits,
cognitive and psychological, normal and abnormal, have at
least a modest genetic component. However, since genetic
heritage accounts for only about fifty percent or less of the
difference between individuals, there is plenty of room for an
impact by the environment. We might think—and traditional
psychology has taught us—that the family environment
would be the most important other factor in explaining adult
outcomes. But a number of studies have found that highly
important in explaining behavioral variation are the experiences
a child does not share with siblings, whether because of
different prenatal conditions, distinct interactions between
parents and the individual child or because of different
experiences outside the home, many of them chosen by the
child as she or he matures. This “non-shared environment”
is partially influenced by genes. Science writer Matt Ridley
in The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture, explains:
“The environment acts as a multiplier of small genetic
differences, pushing athletic children toward the sports that
reward them and pushing bright children toward the books that
reward them.” The non-shared environment also allows for
unsystematic, idiosyncratic and serendipitous events during
the individual life course that cannot be predicted by research.
This is not to say that the family environment does not matter.
Rather, the researchers conclude that nature acts through
nurture; the care provided by parents (biological and adoptive)
is necessary for the genetic heritage to express itself. But
the nature of an adopted child also affects the nurture offered
them. For example, a child’s auditory sensitivity and the speed
at which they can decode language affects how she or he
experiences a parent’s voice. Thus, nature and nurture are two
inseparable sides of the same coin, which continues to spin
throughout life.
Currently, behavioral genetics, combined with molecular
genetics, tells us that behavior is influenced by many genes,
each of which may have a large or small effect. Geneticists
know that genes build proteins which influence the nervous
system and the brain before leading to certain behaviors,
but they haven’t yet identified the exact mechanisms of this
process. Gene expression is further complicated by new
findings that genes can turn each other on or off, and are
affected by environmental changes.
So why should we be interested in a field with a tainted past
and controversial findings which look too complicated to
provide useful knowledge in the near future? The answer is
that the large, international pool of data about adoptees, and
some of the research findings they have generated, can alter
the way we think about and act in adoption.
Behavioral genetics indicates that the more we know about
the birth families, the better parents we can be. Thomas
Bouchard, a prominent behavioral geneticist, concluded in a
1990 article in Science: “If the correct formula is nature via
nurture then intervention is not precluded even for highly
heritable traits, but should be more effective when tailored to
each specific child’s talents and inclinations.” For too long,
the practice of closed adoption, and adoptive parents’ fears
about open adoption, have hindered our efforts to be effective
parents.
Beth Hall, the director of Pact, provides an example of how
knowledge about the birth family can help adoptive parents:
I remember a case once where a kid who was
kind of a tinkerer was placed with a family that
was very goal-oriented. The family felt that he
was not motivated and not “trying” in school,
but when we talked with his birth family, it turns
out that many of them were engineers and web
designers who had similar histories in school,
but later bloomed into professional tinkerers
if you will, who learned by doing. Once the
adoptive parents were enlightened about this,
they were able to take a different attitude and
actually promote his tinkering. They stopped
taking down his “projects” because it was
“time to clean up.”
When getting to know their child, non-adoptive parents have
the advantage of access to extended family information.
They may see a bit of themselves in their child—or they may
recognize traits of a parent, sibling, or other relation. Adoptive
parents often don’t have this advantage. Parents who adopt
internationally and others with no access to birth families must
accept that their child is not a blank slate. All of us need to
Pact, An Adoption Alliance, 5515 Doyle Street - Suite 1 - Emeryville, CA 94608 voice: 510.243.9460 www.pactadopt.org
discover our child’s interests and abilities, and figure out how
to parent to the child’s strengths and weaknesses. We can
provide them with “better tools,” but behavioral genetics tells
us we can’t control whom they will become as adults.
Some may say that an emphasis on genetics could have
harmful effects on adoption. Prospective parents, for example,
might ask for genetic testing of the birth mother and/or the
baby. Even if such testing were done, however, it would reveal
only a potential, not an actual, asset or problem. I’m not
advocating a return to the adoption policy of the 1940s through
the 1960s which encouraged social workers to match adoptive
parents with birth parents by race, looks, social class, and
education. . Rather, I seek a new ideal of an extended family
characterized by varying levels of contact between adoptive
and birth families. Such extended families will not only have
tremendous benefits for adoptees and birth parents, but will
lead to more satisfied and effective adoptive parents, ones
with fewer illusions and more knowledge.
As for me, I wish I could have had the courage to open my
son’s adoption sooner. If, during his teenage years, I had
known about his birth parent’s substance abuse, I would have
been less anxious and confused, could have sought effective
help, and taken a stronger stand against drugs and alcohol.
This may or may not have made a difference for Marco, but
meeting his half-brother at sixteen rather than at twenty-six
could have been decisive. His brother, in all likelihood, would
have told him ten years earlier what it was like growing up
with addicted parents, and how it motivated him to never take
a drink or use a drug. I wish too that at an earlier age, Marco
could have known his birth uncle, who like me, and my father,
has a Ph.D. Whether he chose to participate or not, Marco
could have seen that some of his birth family are also in our
“family business” of education.
Whatever my regrets, I’m fortunate that adoption brought me
a loving son, whose differences from me have enriched my
life.
Author’s Note: Marco read this article before publication
and gave me permission to share personal details. We are
still close and both still struggling with how adoption, nature,
and nurture have impacted our lives, our identities, and our
relationship.
E. Kay Trimberger was one of the volunteer leaders of Pact’s
reading and film group in 2009-2010. She is writing a memoir,
Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother’s Story of Nurture and Nature.
his biological families. I hoped this reunion would help him
overcome some of the challenges he was wrestling with on
his path to adulthood. I was thrilled when the families of both
his white mother and his black father welcomed him. But
I was unprepared for the discovery of how much he had in
common with his birth parents: not just appearance, but also
many personality traits, talents and problems.
When I adopted in 1981, I believed—like many social scientists
and adoption professionals at that time —that nurture
was everything, each infant a blank slate awaiting parental
inscription. Even when Marco was a young child, I recognized
that this idea was too simple, that my son had many attributes
different from those of anyone else in my family. Still, I was
surprised by these reunion revelations.
The adoption theory that I absorbed over the years never
mentioned genetic heritage. Marco’s difficulty finding his
way as a young adult, I was told, might stem from a number
of psychological factors. First was the loss of a birth mother
with whom he had bonded in utero—a “primal wound” that
supposedly made it difficult for him to bond with an adoptive
mother. This idea never resonated with me, for we always
had a close connection, with a lot of emotional and verbal
sharing. Even in our most troubled times, we never lost
contact, and he often confided in me. If anything, I saw him as
too close to me, his only parent.
More compelling was the idea that he had been affected by
the fetal environment of a stressed teenage birth mother, who
probably drank and smoked. This, possibly combined with a
weak sense of self deriving from a loss of ethnicity and family
history, especially prevalent in the transracially adopted, might
help to explain why he chose a life outside the mainstream,
one that for many years involved heavy marijuana and alcohol
use.
None of these theories, however, prepared me for the shock
of finding that my son’s birth mother and father—out of touch
with each other for twenty-five years—had both struggled
with drug addiction throughout their lives. I was especially
surprised because in my phone conversations and a visit with
them, I had seen that they (like Marco) were charming and
intelligent people. I learned, however, that substance abuse
had taken a toll on their lives, especially the father’s.
Reunion has helped Marco secure a stronger sense of self,
especially since he found mixed-race heritage on both sides.
His mother married another black man and had three more
biracial children, and his father’s extended family is multiracial
as well. But reunion also added many complications to his
life, as he has tried to reconcile the heritage of what he calls
his “three families.” Only gradually, through moving to
Louisiana for six months and living first with his birth mother
and then with his birth father, did Marco acknowledge their
shared substance abuse problems. This realization led him
for the first time to enter a recovery program, something his
birth parents have never done. He sought to overcome the
negative part of his birth heritage so he could build on the
positive. Recently, I asked Marco how he was different from
his birth father.
“Not a heck of a lot,” he replied. “But I have better tools.”
Marco’s reunion experience led me to undertake my own
search, a quest to understand genetics and how they might
impact adoption. Perhaps I hoped to find that nature is
everything, and that I could let go of my parental guilt for his
problems. As a social scientist with little biological education,
I began by looking at science journalism, then turned to the
original research. I found that genetics alone could not explain
either Marco’s positive behavior or his addiction; genes
provide only probabilistic propensities not predetermined
programming. They provide probabilities for behavior and risk
factors for disease, but do not indicate whether any individual
will sustain a behavior or succumb to a particular mental or
physical disorder, or how severe the disease will be. I did,
however, gain important insights into adoptive parenting.
What I found astounded me: an interdisciplinary field that I’d
never heard of called behavioral genetics. Though not focused
Adoption and Genetics
Why We Need to Pay Attention
by E. Kay Trimberger
First published in Pact’s Point of View © 2011
Do not reprint without permission.
on adoption per se, many of its findings are based on the study
of adoptees. 1 While I had not known about this field by name,
I had heard of some its more infamous practitioners, like those
at the turn of the century who advocated selective breeding
and forced sterilization. I also knew about a few more recent
behavioral geneticists who published controversial studies of
racial differences in I.Q. But now I discovered that behavioral
genetics had gained legitimacy as a science for its studies on
individual differences.
Behavioral genetics tries to explain how much of the variation
among individuals’ cognitive and psychological traits can be
attributed to genetic heritage and how much is due to the
environment. Their major methodology is a natural experiment
which separates genetic heritage and environment by
comparing the similarities and differences among adoptees,
adoptive parents, and biological parents, and also between
biological and adoptive siblings. Behavioral genetics, in
addition, studies identical twins raised apart. In studies over
a number of years in many different countries, researchers
concur that identical twins separated at birth and adopted into
different families, compared to identical twins raised together
by their biological parents, are very similar on a number of
measures of personality, temperament, intelligence, interests
and susceptibility to physical and mental disease. Additionally,
identical twins raised apart are more similar than fraternal
twins raised together.
Even more interesting is a study published in 1997 by Robert
Plomin and his colleagues at The Colorado Adoption Project.
Their twenty-year longitudinal study of 245 adoptees, placed in
the first few months of life, compared the children’s cognitive
abilities to those of their birth and adoptive parents. (Ninety
percent of the biological parents and ninety-five percent of
adoptive parents were white and from roughly equal social
classes.) Before age five, the adoptees’ cognitive skills
correlated more with those in their adoptive families. As they
matured, however, the adoptees’ cognitive skills, including
verbal ability, became more like those of their biological
parents. The researchers concluded that “environmental
transmission from parent to offspring has little effect on later
cognitive ability.” A number of other studies, including ones
on transracial adoption, have replicated these results.
Behavioral geneticists have found that all behavioral traits,
cognitive and psychological, normal and abnormal, have at
least a modest genetic component. However, since genetic
heritage accounts for only about fifty percent or less of the
difference between individuals, there is plenty of room for an
impact by the environment. We might think—and traditional
psychology has taught us—that the family environment
would be the most important other factor in explaining adult
outcomes. But a number of studies have found that highly
important in explaining behavioral variation are the experiences
a child does not share with siblings, whether because of
different prenatal conditions, distinct interactions between
parents and the individual child or because of different
experiences outside the home, many of them chosen by the
child as she or he matures. This “non-shared environment”
is partially influenced by genes. Science writer Matt Ridley
in The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture, explains:
“The environment acts as a multiplier of small genetic
differences, pushing athletic children toward the sports that
reward them and pushing bright children toward the books that
reward them.” The non-shared environment also allows for
unsystematic, idiosyncratic and serendipitous events during
the individual life course that cannot be predicted by research.
This is not to say that the family environment does not matter.
Rather, the researchers conclude that nature acts through
nurture; the care provided by parents (biological and adoptive)
is necessary for the genetic heritage to express itself. But
the nature of an adopted child also affects the nurture offered
them. For example, a child’s auditory sensitivity and the speed
at which they can decode language affects how she or he
experiences a parent’s voice. Thus, nature and nurture are two
inseparable sides of the same coin, which continues to spin
throughout life.
Currently, behavioral genetics, combined with molecular
genetics, tells us that behavior is influenced by many genes,
each of which may have a large or small effect. Geneticists
know that genes build proteins which influence the nervous
system and the brain before leading to certain behaviors,
but they haven’t yet identified the exact mechanisms of this
process. Gene expression is further complicated by new
findings that genes can turn each other on or off, and are
affected by environmental changes.
So why should we be interested in a field with a tainted past
and controversial findings which look too complicated to
provide useful knowledge in the near future? The answer is
that the large, international pool of data about adoptees, and
some of the research findings they have generated, can alter
the way we think about and act in adoption.
Behavioral genetics indicates that the more we know about
the birth families, the better parents we can be. Thomas
Bouchard, a prominent behavioral geneticist, concluded in a
1990 article in Science: “If the correct formula is nature via
nurture then intervention is not precluded even for highly
heritable traits, but should be more effective when tailored to
each specific child’s talents and inclinations.” For too long,
the practice of closed adoption, and adoptive parents’ fears
about open adoption, have hindered our efforts to be effective
parents.
Beth Hall, the director of Pact, provides an example of how
knowledge about the birth family can help adoptive parents:
I remember a case once where a kid who was
kind of a tinkerer was placed with a family that
was very goal-oriented. The family felt that he
was not motivated and not “trying” in school,
but when we talked with his birth family, it turns
out that many of them were engineers and web
designers who had similar histories in school,
but later bloomed into professional tinkerers
if you will, who learned by doing. Once the
adoptive parents were enlightened about this,
they were able to take a different attitude and
actually promote his tinkering. They stopped
taking down his “projects” because it was
“time to clean up.”
When getting to know their child, non-adoptive parents have
the advantage of access to extended family information.
They may see a bit of themselves in their child—or they may
recognize traits of a parent, sibling, or other relation. Adoptive
parents often don’t have this advantage. Parents who adopt
internationally and others with no access to birth families must
accept that their child is not a blank slate. All of us need to
Pact, An Adoption Alliance, 5515 Doyle Street - Suite 1 - Emeryville, CA 94608 voice: 510.243.9460 www.pactadopt.org
discover our child’s interests and abilities, and figure out how
to parent to the child’s strengths and weaknesses. We can
provide them with “better tools,” but behavioral genetics tells
us we can’t control whom they will become as adults.
Some may say that an emphasis on genetics could have
harmful effects on adoption. Prospective parents, for example,
might ask for genetic testing of the birth mother and/or the
baby. Even if such testing were done, however, it would reveal
only a potential, not an actual, asset or problem. I’m not
advocating a return to the adoption policy of the 1940s through
the 1960s which encouraged social workers to match adoptive
parents with birth parents by race, looks, social class, and
education. . Rather, I seek a new ideal of an extended family
characterized by varying levels of contact between adoptive
and birth families. Such extended families will not only have
tremendous benefits for adoptees and birth parents, but will
lead to more satisfied and effective adoptive parents, ones
with fewer illusions and more knowledge.
As for me, I wish I could have had the courage to open my
son’s adoption sooner. If, during his teenage years, I had
known about his birth parent’s substance abuse, I would have
been less anxious and confused, could have sought effective
help, and taken a stronger stand against drugs and alcohol.
This may or may not have made a difference for Marco, but
meeting his half-brother at sixteen rather than at twenty-six
could have been decisive. His brother, in all likelihood, would
have told him ten years earlier what it was like growing up
with addicted parents, and how it motivated him to never take
a drink or use a drug. I wish too that at an earlier age, Marco
could have known his birth uncle, who like me, and my father,
has a Ph.D. Whether he chose to participate or not, Marco
could have seen that some of his birth family are also in our
“family business” of education.
Whatever my regrets, I’m fortunate that adoption brought me
a loving son, whose differences from me have enriched my
life.
Author’s Note: Marco read this article before publication
and gave me permission to share personal details. We are
still close and both still struggling with how adoption, nature,
and nurture have impacted our lives, our identities, and our
relationship.
E. Kay Trimberger was one of the volunteer leaders of Pact’s
reading and film group in 2009-2010. She is writing a memoir,
Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother’s Story of Nurture and Nature.
Adoptee Rights Law: Interactive Map
AdopteeRightsLaw.com has an Interactive Map feature to help make sence out of accessing your origional birth certificate in each state.
On this site you can hover over a state or marker for more information. Click on a state to view a summary of the state’s OBC access law. A full list of states and their restrictions is here and a changelog covering changes in state summaries is also available. There are also interactive maps for pending or prior state OBC access legislation.
ALL STATES: UNRESTRICTED, COMPROMISED, AND RESTRICTED ACCESS
UNRESTRICTED STATES
Unrestricted means an adult adoptee has the right to apply for and obtain an original birth certificate without any restrictions or conditions, other than following general procedures for obtaining a state vital record. Nine states in the United States currently recognize an adult adoptee’s unrestricted right to obtain the OBC.
COMPROMISED STATES
Compromised means that a state has enacted laws that discriminatory limit the rights of adult adoptees to obtain their own original birth certificates, whether through birth parent disclosure vetoes, redaction of identifying information, or limited rights based on the date of a person’s adoption. Hover over a restriction marker for a list of current restrictions.
RESTRICTED STATES
Restricted typically means that adult adoptees have no specific right to obtain their own original birth certificates, except through a court order. The District of Columbia (not pictured) is a restricted state/district.
DC
We are developing additional interactive maps to cover other issues, such as pending legislation, state-funded mutual consent adoption registries, and OBC access statistics.
On this site you can hover over a state or marker for more information. Click on a state to view a summary of the state’s OBC access law. A full list of states and their restrictions is here and a changelog covering changes in state summaries is also available. There are also interactive maps for pending or prior state OBC access legislation.
ALL STATES: UNRESTRICTED, COMPROMISED, AND RESTRICTED ACCESS
UNRESTRICTED STATES
Unrestricted means an adult adoptee has the right to apply for and obtain an original birth certificate without any restrictions or conditions, other than following general procedures for obtaining a state vital record. Nine states in the United States currently recognize an adult adoptee’s unrestricted right to obtain the OBC.
COMPROMISED STATES
Compromised means that a state has enacted laws that discriminatory limit the rights of adult adoptees to obtain their own original birth certificates, whether through birth parent disclosure vetoes, redaction of identifying information, or limited rights based on the date of a person’s adoption. Hover over a restriction marker for a list of current restrictions.
RESTRICTED STATES
Restricted typically means that adult adoptees have no specific right to obtain their own original birth certificates, except through a court order. The District of Columbia (not pictured) is a restricted state/district.
DC
We are developing additional interactive maps to cover other issues, such as pending legislation, state-funded mutual consent adoption registries, and OBC access statistics.
The Heartache of Another Adoptee Suicide: Rest in Peace, Kaleab Schmidt
Posted on May 3, 2018
On April 30, just three days ago, Kaleab Schmidt ended his life. He was 13. He was an Ethiopian adoptee. May he rest in peace and in power. May his family, his adoptive parents and his sisters, also adopted from Ethiopia, find healing and consolation.
Before I go on, I need to say that most adoptees do well. I do not want to pathologize adoptees in any way. I share this news with, I hope, respect for the family, for Kaleab, and for all those who struggle. We have to be able to acknowledge suicide, even as we long to prevent it.
Kaleab lived in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, in the city of Regina. According to his obituary, he loved his family, played lots of sports, was on the honor roll at school, was great with pets. He looks, from his photo, like a beautiful young man who should have had a long and wonderful life.
My understanding from folks who know is that there may have been bullying involved. It was probably bullying based on race.
My heart aches so.
What can we in the adoption community do?
We can contribute to the GoFundMe for the funeral and other expenses.
We can offer prayers for the family, if that’s our faith tradition.
We can learn about suicide prevention; that’s a U.S. based resource. A Canada-based resource for suicide prevention is here. We can learn about suicide and adoption.
We can acknowledge the reality and extent of bullying.
We can learn about and believe the realities of race-based bullying.
We can acknowledge the need for racial mirrors and mentors for adoptees.
We can hold our children close, and try to give them both room to talk as well as tools for dealing with their struggles.
We white adoptive parents can recognize and endorse the importance of race and the reality of systemic racism in our global society. We can support other families and adoptees, offering help and resources.
This is the third time I’ve written about an Ethiopian adoptee who died by suicide. Each was deeply loved by their families. Each left behind parents and siblings and others who had to recover from the loss. I am so terribly sorry for each young person and their families.
Again, I acknowledge that there are thousands of adoptees who do not die by suicide. There may well be some additional risk for adoptees nonetheless, and we would be naïve not to consider that. More research is needed.
I’m so damn sad.
May Kaleab be remembered for his life. May his family, in Ethiopia and Canada, find peace.
On April 30, just three days ago, Kaleab Schmidt ended his life. He was 13. He was an Ethiopian adoptee. May he rest in peace and in power. May his family, his adoptive parents and his sisters, also adopted from Ethiopia, find healing and consolation.
Before I go on, I need to say that most adoptees do well. I do not want to pathologize adoptees in any way. I share this news with, I hope, respect for the family, for Kaleab, and for all those who struggle. We have to be able to acknowledge suicide, even as we long to prevent it.
Kaleab lived in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, in the city of Regina. According to his obituary, he loved his family, played lots of sports, was on the honor roll at school, was great with pets. He looks, from his photo, like a beautiful young man who should have had a long and wonderful life.
My understanding from folks who know is that there may have been bullying involved. It was probably bullying based on race.
My heart aches so.
What can we in the adoption community do?
We can contribute to the GoFundMe for the funeral and other expenses.
We can offer prayers for the family, if that’s our faith tradition.
We can learn about suicide prevention; that’s a U.S. based resource. A Canada-based resource for suicide prevention is here. We can learn about suicide and adoption.
We can acknowledge the reality and extent of bullying.
We can learn about and believe the realities of race-based bullying.
We can acknowledge the need for racial mirrors and mentors for adoptees.
We can hold our children close, and try to give them both room to talk as well as tools for dealing with their struggles.
We white adoptive parents can recognize and endorse the importance of race and the reality of systemic racism in our global society. We can support other families and adoptees, offering help and resources.
This is the third time I’ve written about an Ethiopian adoptee who died by suicide. Each was deeply loved by their families. Each left behind parents and siblings and others who had to recover from the loss. I am so terribly sorry for each young person and their families.
Again, I acknowledge that there are thousands of adoptees who do not die by suicide. There may well be some additional risk for adoptees nonetheless, and we would be naïve not to consider that. More research is needed.
I’m so damn sad.
May Kaleab be remembered for his life. May his family, in Ethiopia and Canada, find peace.
But I adopted my child at birth. What do you mean trauma?
BY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
It is not uncommon for adoptive parents to come to us feeling out of options for their difficult child and overwhelmed about what could have created all of these DSM diagnoses and intense feelings and behaviors. Especially if the child was adopted at or near birth.
“We adopted our son at birth. We brought him home from the hospital ourselves and have done nothing but love him.”
Does this sound too familiar? If so, then why are you now being told that all of that had something to do with the issues today?
First and foremost, it is important not to be too hard on ourselves or even our child’s birth parents. At this time, it is most important to find our child the help that they need. Understanding the diagnosis and its origins may help one decide on the most appropriate course of treatment. Quality and traditional parenting techniques may no longer be a solution – our child’s condition will likely require trauma sensitive interventions to heal.
Fetal Trauma
First we need to understand there are many developmental milestones for your child that occur prior to birth. Your child began feeling and learning in the womb. According to Samuel Lopez De Victoria, Ph.D., your baby learned to be comforted by the voice and heartbeat of his mother well before birth– a voice that was not yours. In the case of adoption this connective disruption has an impact on the brain and body.
Paula Thomson writes for Birth Psychology, “Early pre- and post-natal experiences, including early trauma, are encoded in the implicit memory of the fetus, located in the subcortical and deep limbic regions of the maturing brain. These memories will travel with us into our early days of infancy and beyond and more importantly, these early experiences set our ongoing physiological and psychological regulatory baselines.”
Clearly, chaos outside of the womb, for example, may affect children in utero. This includes arguments, a chaotic home environment or an abusive spouse, and other rambunctious noise that may seem harmless to the fetus. If the mother drinks or smokes, or is generally unhealthy, this also impacts in-utero development, including the sense of safety and self-worth for the child. Critical brain development is also stunted.
Mothers that end up placing their child with adoptive parents are also likely to feel increased stress during their pregnancies. Many are very young, have many other children or are emotionally or financially unable to support a child. Each of these stressors could expose unborn babies to cortisol, making them also stressed. The baby is then born anxious.
Surprisingly, babies are also able to sense a disconnection or lack of acceptance from their mother while in the womb – leading to attachment issues and developmental trauma down the road.
Genetic Memory
Beyond these connection concerns, trauma can also be an inherited condition. Recent studies indicate that trauma resides in the DNA, allowing mental disease and behavioral disorders to be passed down for generations.
In the end, adoption itself is a form of trauma. Without the biological connection to their mother, even newborns can feel that something is wrong and be difficult to sooth as a result. This effect has the potential to grow over time – even in the most loving and supportive adoptive homes.
Summary: Humans, and the brain, develop through experience. Adverse experiences stunt this development. And development starts way before birth – even before conception.
First College for Youth Emerging from Foster Care Gets Name, Opening Date
Every year, nearly 30,000 young adults “age out” of foster care without the life skills and support network to help them become independent, successful adults. Eighty-four percent of these youth want to go to college, yet 51% don’t complete high school. Just 2% of youth emerging from foster care earn a degree of any kind after high school.
KVC Health Systems envisions a welcoming, healthy, supportive campus designed specifically for these youth, one that provides an educational environment that teaches vocational and life skills. As a national child welfare and behavioral health organization, KVC has worked for nearly five years to establish the nation’s first college campus designed specifically to support youth transitioning from foster care. The campus, recently named the Riverbend Center. Supporting Higher Education, aims to be a new national model, representing a unique infrastructure of specialized services and supports, tailored to seamlessly support older youth from foster care into high-demand careers paying sustainable wages. Riverbend expects to begin welcoming students as early as November 2018 to prepare for classes in 2019.
This 118-acre college community campus, located in Montgomery, West Virginia, is the former home of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech). Through a 25-year lease purchase agreement, KVC took possession of the furnished facility in July 2017 and immediately began repurposing the campus into a fully-capable educational environment with subtle wraparound supports to create a safe, nurturing environment. KVC’s approach follows research-based initiatives in five areas: education, employment, housing, health care and relationships.
Visit www.kvc.org/college for more photos and details.
KVC is meeting with individuals, organizations and communities that are excited about and committed to seeing this vision come to fruition. To learn more, contact Thomas Bailey, KVC’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, at tsbailey@kvc.org or (304) 347-9818.
KVC Health Systems envisions a welcoming, healthy, supportive campus designed specifically for these youth, one that provides an educational environment that teaches vocational and life skills. As a national child welfare and behavioral health organization, KVC has worked for nearly five years to establish the nation’s first college campus designed specifically to support youth transitioning from foster care. The campus, recently named the Riverbend Center. Supporting Higher Education, aims to be a new national model, representing a unique infrastructure of specialized services and supports, tailored to seamlessly support older youth from foster care into high-demand careers paying sustainable wages. Riverbend expects to begin welcoming students as early as November 2018 to prepare for classes in 2019.
This 118-acre college community campus, located in Montgomery, West Virginia, is the former home of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech). Through a 25-year lease purchase agreement, KVC took possession of the furnished facility in July 2017 and immediately began repurposing the campus into a fully-capable educational environment with subtle wraparound supports to create a safe, nurturing environment. KVC’s approach follows research-based initiatives in five areas: education, employment, housing, health care and relationships.
Visit www.kvc.org/college for more photos and details.
KVC is meeting with individuals, organizations and communities that are excited about and committed to seeing this vision come to fruition. To learn more, contact Thomas Bailey, KVC’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, at tsbailey@kvc.org or (304) 347-9818.
WSU launches program for students with intellectual, developmental disabilities
The Washington State University College of Education has launched a new on-campus program in Pullman, aimed at providing educational opportunities and a college experience to young adults from around the country with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
The two-year post-secondary program is called ROAR (Responsibility, Opportunity, Advocacy, and Respect) and its co-founders say it closely follows WSU’s land-grant mission of access, engagement, and service to the community.
Program co-founder Brenda Barrio, an assistant professor of special education, said ROAR will use workshops, specialized training seminars, career development, and perhaps most important, on-campus living, to help empower program students to become self-determined, independent adults.
“With this program, we want to provide young adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and their families, similar opportunities that many other same-aged peers get to experience: be a college student and continue developing their skills to pursue a career and independence,” Barrio said. “We have done the research and learned through other programs like ROAR, but we feel that the voices of students with disabilities and their families are the most important ones to learn from. That is why we have worked really hard to provide them with this opportunity and experience. We can only continue learning from them through this program.”
Paula Groves Price, the college’s associate dean for diversity and international programs, said ROAR is a great example of the college’s commitment to inclusive excellence.
“The program is about intentional engagement with diversity, but above all, it provides access and training opportunities for young adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities to experience WSU and improve the quality of their lives,” she said. “WSU has been working hard to be an inclusive campus community, and now we have the opportunity to open our arms and hearts to a population who has historically been shut out, but can teach us all about our humanity.”
Further, Barrio said the three-year effort to begin the program would not only help ROAR students, but would also educate people who work with the students.
The ROAR program will accept applications starting April 1 of this year and will welcome its first cohort of four students in the fall semester. Cohorts of 10 students will be accepted in years thereafter.
Students will be admitted from anywhere across the nation as out-of-state tuition will not be a barrier for ROAR students.
For More Information:
Contact Brenda L. Barrio – Assistant Professor of Special Education – 509-335-2525 – brenda.barrio@wsu.edu
Website: www.education.wsu.edu/WSUROAR
The two-year post-secondary program is called ROAR (Responsibility, Opportunity, Advocacy, and Respect) and its co-founders say it closely follows WSU’s land-grant mission of access, engagement, and service to the community.
Program co-founder Brenda Barrio, an assistant professor of special education, said ROAR will use workshops, specialized training seminars, career development, and perhaps most important, on-campus living, to help empower program students to become self-determined, independent adults.
“With this program, we want to provide young adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and their families, similar opportunities that many other same-aged peers get to experience: be a college student and continue developing their skills to pursue a career and independence,” Barrio said. “We have done the research and learned through other programs like ROAR, but we feel that the voices of students with disabilities and their families are the most important ones to learn from. That is why we have worked really hard to provide them with this opportunity and experience. We can only continue learning from them through this program.”
Paula Groves Price, the college’s associate dean for diversity and international programs, said ROAR is a great example of the college’s commitment to inclusive excellence.
“The program is about intentional engagement with diversity, but above all, it provides access and training opportunities for young adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities to experience WSU and improve the quality of their lives,” she said. “WSU has been working hard to be an inclusive campus community, and now we have the opportunity to open our arms and hearts to a population who has historically been shut out, but can teach us all about our humanity.”
Further, Barrio said the three-year effort to begin the program would not only help ROAR students, but would also educate people who work with the students.
The ROAR program will accept applications starting April 1 of this year and will welcome its first cohort of four students in the fall semester. Cohorts of 10 students will be accepted in years thereafter.
Students will be admitted from anywhere across the nation as out-of-state tuition will not be a barrier for ROAR students.
For More Information:
Contact Brenda L. Barrio – Assistant Professor of Special Education – 509-335-2525 – brenda.barrio@wsu.edu
Website: www.education.wsu.edu/WSUROAR
Articles & Publications for Professionals
Pro Articles
Traumatic States Handout
This handout efficiently synthesizes the different ways trauam manifests in children who have experienced.
CLICK BELOW FOR ARTICLE
CLICK BELOW FOR ARTICLE
Diagnostic Criteria for Complicated Grief Disorder
Diagnostic Criteria for Complicated Grief Disorder
Objective: Some prolonged and turbulent grief reactions include symptoms that differ from the DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder. The authors investigated a new diagnosis that would include these symptoms. Method: They developed observer-based definitions of 30 symptoms noted clinically in previous longitudinal interviews of bereaved persons and then designed a plan to investigate whether any combination of these would serve as criteria for a possible new diagnosis of complicated grief disorder. Using a structured diagnostic interview, they assessed 70 subjects whose spouses had died. Latent class model analyses and signal detection procedures were used to calibrate the data against global clinical ratings and self-re- port measures of grief-specific distress. Results: Complicated grief disorder was found to be characterized by a smaller set of the assessed symptoms. Subjects selected by an algorithm for these symptom patterns did not significantly overlap with subjects who received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Conclusions: A new diagnosis of complicated grief disorder may be indicated. Its criteria would include the current experience (more than a year after a loss) of intense intrusive thoughts, pangs of severe emotion, distressing yearnings, feeling excessively alone and empty, excessively avoiding tasks reminiscent of the deceased, unusual sleep distur- bances, and maladaptive levels of loss of interest in personal activities
(Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:904–910)
Horowitz, M. J., Siegel, B., Holen, A., Bonanno, G. A., Milbrath, C., & Stinson, C. H. (2003). Diagnostic Criteria for Complicated Grief Disorder. Focus, 1(3), 290-298. doi:10.1176/foc.1.3.290
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE FULL ARTICLE
Objective: Some prolonged and turbulent grief reactions include symptoms that differ from the DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder. The authors investigated a new diagnosis that would include these symptoms. Method: They developed observer-based definitions of 30 symptoms noted clinically in previous longitudinal interviews of bereaved persons and then designed a plan to investigate whether any combination of these would serve as criteria for a possible new diagnosis of complicated grief disorder. Using a structured diagnostic interview, they assessed 70 subjects whose spouses had died. Latent class model analyses and signal detection procedures were used to calibrate the data against global clinical ratings and self-re- port measures of grief-specific distress. Results: Complicated grief disorder was found to be characterized by a smaller set of the assessed symptoms. Subjects selected by an algorithm for these symptom patterns did not significantly overlap with subjects who received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Conclusions: A new diagnosis of complicated grief disorder may be indicated. Its criteria would include the current experience (more than a year after a loss) of intense intrusive thoughts, pangs of severe emotion, distressing yearnings, feeling excessively alone and empty, excessively avoiding tasks reminiscent of the deceased, unusual sleep distur- bances, and maladaptive levels of loss of interest in personal activities
(Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:904–910)
Horowitz, M. J., Siegel, B., Holen, A., Bonanno, G. A., Milbrath, C., & Stinson, C. H. (2003). Diagnostic Criteria for Complicated Grief Disorder. Focus, 1(3), 290-298. doi:10.1176/foc.1.3.290
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE FULL ARTICLE
Mental Health Professionals' Attitude and Expectations About Adoption and Adopted Children
Mental Health Professionals' Attitude and Expectations About Adoption and Adopted Children. This PDF discusses the topic of many researchers having documented heavy use of clinical services by adoptees, but little is known about how much training mental health professionals actually receive about adoption, or their beliefs about adoption and adopted people. It is important to understand mental health professionals’ expectations for their adopted clients. Previous research has shown that teachers treat students differently if they have high expectations for those students. In other studies, some adoptive parents have told us it was necessary to educate their child’s counselor about issues related to adoption. We have therefore investigated adoption-related expectations and training on adoption issues among mental health professionals. In this article, we will review some of the most current published information about the adjustment of adopted
children, and present our own findings regarding clinicians’ beliefs and expectations for their adopted clients.
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children, and present our own findings regarding clinicians’ beliefs and expectations for their adopted clients.
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Resources and Rational for Providing Adoption Support and Preservation Services
Resources and Rational for Providing Adoption Support and Preservation Services. This bulletin draws from available literature and practice knowledge to summarize key issues related to providing
effective services to support the stability and permanency of adoptions. It is intended to support adoption professionals
in addressing adoptive parents’ and children’s needs for services, recognizing key considerations in providing services, addressing emerging issues, and meeting common challenges in delivery.
Adoptive families and adoption professionals have long recognized the important role of high-quality
postadoption services in ensuring ongoing stability,
permanency, and well-being for children who have been adopted and for adoptive families as a
whole. These services help address the effects that
separation, loss, and trauma can have on children
and youth who have been adopted, help children
and their families address special needs, and help
family members strengthen their relationships and deepen their attachment and bonding. For many years, postadoption services have been commonly viewed as services that are provided only after the legal finalization of the adoption— and in some cases only for short periods of time.
However, adoption professionals and families
have recognized that a comprehensive continuum
of multiple forms of support that vary in level of intensity is necessary to ensure well-being, longterm stability, and true permanency for children who have been adopted and their families.
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effective services to support the stability and permanency of adoptions. It is intended to support adoption professionals
in addressing adoptive parents’ and children’s needs for services, recognizing key considerations in providing services, addressing emerging issues, and meeting common challenges in delivery.
Adoptive families and adoption professionals have long recognized the important role of high-quality
postadoption services in ensuring ongoing stability,
permanency, and well-being for children who have been adopted and for adoptive families as a
whole. These services help address the effects that
separation, loss, and trauma can have on children
and youth who have been adopted, help children
and their families address special needs, and help
family members strengthen their relationships and deepen their attachment and bonding. For many years, postadoption services have been commonly viewed as services that are provided only after the legal finalization of the adoption— and in some cases only for short periods of time.
However, adoption professionals and families
have recognized that a comprehensive continuum
of multiple forms of support that vary in level of intensity is necessary to ensure well-being, longterm stability, and true permanency for children who have been adopted and their families.
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Adoption Competence among Mental Health Professionals
Adoption Competence among Mental Health Professionals. In this 64 PDF, the need for enhancing adoption competency among mental health professionals is addressed and information provided on how you can . For a variety of reasons, mental health professionals typically do not receive the training required to fill adoption-related counseling needs and, too often, either do not fully understand why such training is necessary or mistakenly believe the knowledge they already have is
sufficient. To address that reality, this report by the Donaldson Adoption Institute seeks to raise the level of awareness among mental health professionals about the nature and importance of adoption clinical competence, heighten their desire to receive such training, and identify
various means by which the relevant knowledge and skills can be obtained.
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sufficient. To address that reality, this report by the Donaldson Adoption Institute seeks to raise the level of awareness among mental health professionals about the nature and importance of adoption clinical competence, heighten their desire to receive such training, and identify
various means by which the relevant knowledge and skills can be obtained.
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE FULL ARTICLE
7 Core Issues in Adoption
7 Core Issues in Adoption. Adoption is a lifelong, intergenerational process which unites the triad of birth families, adoptees, and adoptive families forever. Adoption, especially of adolescents, can lead to both great joy and tremendous pain. Recognizing the core issues in adoption is one intervention that can assist triad members and professionals working in adoption better to understand each other and the residual effects of the adoption experience.
Adoption triggers seven lifelong or core issues for all triad members, regardless of the circumstances of the adoption or the characteristics of the participants:
Loss
Rejection
Guilt and Shame
Grief
Identity
Intimacy
Mastery/control
(Silverstein and Kaplan 1982)
Clearly, the specific experiences of triad members vary, but there is a commonality of affective experiences which persists throughout the individual's or family's life cycle development. The recognition of these similarities permits dialogue among triad members and allows those professionals with whom they interface to intervene in proactive as well as curative ways.
The presence of these issues does not indicate, however, that either the individual or the institution of adoption is pathological or pseudopathological. Rather, these are expected issues that evolve logically out of the nature of adoption. Before the recent advent of open and cooperative practices, adoption- had been practiced as a win/lose or adversarial process. In such an approach, birth families lose their child in order for the adoptive family to gain a child. The adoptee was transposed from one family to another with time-limited and, at times, short-sighted consideration of the child's long-term needs. Indeed, the emphasis has been on the needs of the adults--on the needs of the birth family not to parent and on the needs of the adoptive family to parent. The ramifications of this attitude can be seen in the number of difficulties experienced by adoptees and their families over their lifetimes.
Many of the issues inherent in the adoption experience converge when the adoptee reaches adolescence. At this time three factors intersect: an acute awareness of the significance of being adopted; a drive toward emancipation; and a biopsychosocial striving toward the development of an integrated identity.
It is not our intent here to question adoption, but rather to challenge some adoption assumptions, specifically, the persistent notion that adoption is not different from other forms of parenting and the accompanying disregard for the pain and struggles inherent in adoption.
However, identifying and integrating these core issues into pre-adoption education, post-placement supervision, and all post-legalized services, including treatment, universalizes and validates triad members' experiences, decreasing their isolation and feelings of helplessness.
Loss
Adoption is created through loss; without loss there would be no adoption. Loss, then, is at the hub of the wheel. All birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees share in having experienced at least one major, life-altering loss before becoming involved in adoption. In adoption, in order to gain anything, one must first lose--a family, a child, a dream. It is these losses and the way they are accepted and, hopefully, resolved which set the tone for the lifelong process of adoption.
Adoption is a fundamental, life-altering event. It transposes people from one location in the human mosaic into totally new configuration. Adoptive parents, whether through infertility, failed pregnancy, stillbirth, or the death of a child have suffered one of life's greatest blows prior to adopting. They have lost their dream child. No matter how well resolved the loss of bearing a child appears to be, it continues to affect the adoptive family at a variety of points throughout the families love cycle (Berman and Bufferd 1986). This fact is particularly evident during the adoptee's adolescence when the issues of burgeoning sexuality and impending emancipation may rekindle the loss issue.
Birthparents lose, perhaps forever, the child to whom they are genetically connected. Subsequently, they undergo multiple losses associated with the loss of role, the loss of contact, and perhaps the loss of the other birth parent which reshape the entire course of their lives.
Adoptees suffer their first loss at the initial separation from the birth family. Awareness of their adopted status is inevitable. Even if the loss is beyond conscious awareness, recognition, or vocabulary, it affects the adoptee on a very profound level. Any subsequent loss, or the perceived threat of separation, becomes more formidable for adoptees than their non-adopted peers.
The losses in adoption and the role they play in all triad members lives have largely been ignored. The grief process in adoption, so necessary for healthy functioning, is further complicated by the fact that there is no end to the losses, no closure to the loss experience. Loss in adoption is not a single occurrence. There is the initial, identifiable loss and innumerable secondary sub-losses. Loss becomes an evolving process, creating a theme of loss in both the individual's and family's development. Those losses affect all subsequent development.
Loss is always a part of triad members' lives. A loss in adoption is never totally forgotten. It remains either in conscious awareness or is pushed into the unconscious, only to be reawakened by later loss. It is crucial for triad members, their significant others, and the professional with whom they interface, to recognize these losses and the effect loss has on their lives.
Rejection
Feelings of loss are exacerbated by keen feelings of rejection. One way individuals seek to cope with a loss is to personalize it. Triad members attempt to decipher what they did or did not do that led to the loss. Triad members become sensitive to the slightest hint of rejection, causing them either to avoid situations where they might be rejected or to provoke rejection in order to validate their earlier negative self-perceptions.
Adoptees seldom are able to view their placement into adoption by the birthparents as anything other than total rejection. Adoptees even at young ages grasp the concept that to be "chosen" means first that one was "un-chosen," reinforcing adoptees' lowered self-concept. Society promulgates the idea that the "good" adoptee is the one who is not curious and accepts adoption without question. At the other extreme of the continuum is the "bad" adoptee who is constantly questioning, thereby creating feelings of rejection in the adoptive parents.
Birthparents frequently condemn themselves for being irresponsible, as does society. Adoptive parents may inadvertently create fantasies for the adoptee about the birth family which reinforce these feelings of rejection. For example, adoptive parents may block an adolescent adoptee's interest in searching for birthparents by stating that the birthparents may have married and had other children. The implication is clear that the birthparents would consider contact with the adoptee an unwelcome intrusion.
Adoptive parents may sense that their bodies have rejected them if they are infertile. This impression may lead the infertile couple, for example, to feel betrayed or rejected by God. When they come to adoption, the adoptors, possibly unconsciously, anticipate the birthparents' rejection and criticism of their parenting. Adoptive parents struggle with issues of entitlement, wondering if perhaps they were never meant to be parents, especially to this child. The adopting family, then, may watch for the adoptee to reject them, interpreting many benign, childish actions as rejection. To avoid that ultimate rejection, some adoptive parents expel or bind adolescent adoptees prior to the accomplishment of appropriate emancipation tasks.
Guilt/Shame
The sense of deserving such rejection leads triad members to experience tremendous guilt and shame. They commonly believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with them or their deeds that caused the losses to occur. Most triad members have internalized, romantic images of the American family which remain unfulfilled because there is no positive, realistic view of the adoptive family in our society.
For many triad members, the shame of being involved in adoption per se exists passively, often without recognition. The shame of an unplanned pregnancy, or the crisis of infertility, or the shame of having been given up remains unspoken, often as an unconscious motivator.
Adoptees suggest that something about their very being caused the adoption. The self-accusation is intensified by the secrecy often present in past and present adoption practices. These factors combine to lead the adoptee to conclude that the feelings of guilt and shame are indeed valid.
Adoptive parents, when they are diagnosed as infertile, frequently believe that they must have committed a grave sin to have received such a harsh sentence. They are ashamed of themselves, of their defective bodies, of their inability to bear children.
Birthparents feel tremendous guilt and shame for having been intimate and sexual; for the very act of conception, they find themselves guilty.
Grief
Every loss in adoption must be grieved. The losses in adoption, however, are difficult to mourn in a society where adoption is seen as a problem-solving event filled with joy. There are no rituals to bury the unborn children; no rites to mark off the loss of role of caretaking parents; no ceremonies for lost dreams or unknown families. Grief washes over triad members' lives, particularly at times of subsequent loss or developmental transitions.
Triad members can be assisted at any point in the adoption experience by learning about and discussing the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kubler-Ross 1969).
Adoptees in their youth find it difficult to grieve their losses, although they are in many instances aware of them, even as young children. Youngsters removed from abusive homes are expected to feel only relief and gratitude, not loss and grief. Adults block children's expressions of pain or attempt to divert them. In addition, due to developmental unfolding of cognitive processes, adoptees do not fully appreciate the total impact of their losses into their adolescence or, for many, into adulthood. This delayed grief may lead to depression or acting out through substance abuse or aggressive behaviors.
Birthparents may undergo an initial, brief, intense period of grief at the time of the loss of the child, but are encouraged by well-meaning friends and family to move on in their lives and to believe that their child is better off. The grief, however, does not vanish, and, in fact, it has been reported that birth mothers may deny the experience for up to ten years (Campbell 1979).
Adoptive Pants' grief over the inability to bear children is also blocked by family and friends who encourage the couple to adopt, as if children are interchangeable. The grief of the adoptive parents continues as the child grows up since the adoptee can never fully meet the fantasies and expectations of the adoptive parents.
Identity
Adoption may also threaten triad members' sense of identity. Triad members often express feelings related to confused identity and identity crises, particularly at times of unrelated loss.
Identity is defined both by what one is and what one is not. In adoption, birthparents are parents and are not. Adoptive parents who were not parents suddenly become parents. Adoptees born into one family, a family probably nameless to them now, lose an identity and then borrow one from the adopting family.
Adoption, for some, precludes a complete or integrated sense of self. Triad members may experience themselves as incomplete, deficient, or unfinished. They state that they lack feelings of well-being, integration, or solidity associated with a fully developed identity.
Adoptees lacking medical, genetic, religious, and historical information are plagued by questions such as: Who are they? Why were they born? Were they in fact merely a mistake, not meant to have been born, an accident? This lack of identity may lead adoptees, particularly in adolescent years, to seek out ways to belong in more extreme fashion than many of their non-adopted peers. Adolescent adoptees are overrepresented among those who join sub-cultures, run away, become pregnant, or totally reject their families.
For many couples in our society a sense of identity is tied to procreation. Adoptive parents may lose that sense of generativity, of being fled to the past and future, often created through procreation.
Adoptive parents and birthparents share a common experience of role confusion. They are handicapped by the lack of positive identity associated with being either a birthparent or adoptive parent (Kirk 1964). Neither set of parents can lay full claim to the adoptee and neither can gain distance from any problems that may arise.
Intimacy
The multiple, ongoing losses in adoption, coupled with feelings of rejection, shame, and grief as well as an incomplete sense of self, may impede the development of intimacy for triad members. One maladaptive way to avoid possible reenactment of previous losses is to avoid closeness and commitment.
Adoptive parents report that their adopted children seem to hold back a part of themselves in the relationship. Adoptive mothers indicate, for example, that even as an infant, the adoptee was "not cuddly.'' Many adoptees as teens state that they truly have never felt close to anyone. Some youngsters declare a lifetime emptiness related to a longing for the birthmother they may have never seen.
Due to these multiple losses for both adoptees and adoptive parents, there may also have been difficulties in early bonding and attachment. For children adopted at older ages, multiple disruptions in attachment and/or abuse may interfere with relationships in the new family (Fahlberg 1979 a,b).
The adoptee's intimacy issues are particularly evident in relationships with members of the opposite sex and revolve around questions about the adoptee's conception, biological and genetic concerns, and sexuality.
The adoptive parents' couple relationship may have been irreparably harmed by the intrusive nature of medical procedures and the scapegoating and blame that may have been part of the diagnosis of infertility. These residual effects may become the hallmark of the later relationship.
Birthparents may come to equate sex, intimacy, and pregnancy with pain leading them to avoid additional loss by shunning intimate relationships. Further, birthparents may question their ability to parent a child successfully. In many instances, the birthparents fear intimacy in relationships with opposite sex partners, family or subsequent children.
Mastery/Control
Adoption alters the course of one's life. This shift presents triad members with additional hurdles in their development, and may hinder growth, self-actualization, and the evolution of self-control.
Birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees are all forced to give up control. Adoption, for most, is a second choice. Birthparents did not grow up with romantic images of becoming accidentally pregnant or abusing their children and surrendering them for adoption. In contrast, the pregnancy or abuse is a crisis situation whose resolution becomes adoption. In order to solve the predicament, birthparents must surrender not only the child but also their volition, leading to feelings of victimization and powerlessness which may become themes in birthparents' lives.
Adoptees are keenly aware that they were not party to the decision which led to their adoption. They had no- control over the loss of the birth family or the choice of the adoptive family. The adoption proceeded with adults making life-altering choices for them. This unnatural change of course impinges on growth toward self-actualization and self-control. Adolescent adoptees, attempting to master the loss of control they have experienced in adoption, frequently engage in power struggles with adoptive parents and other authority figures. They may lack internalized self-control, leading to a lowered sense of self-responsibility. These patterns, frequently passive/aggressive in nature, may continue into adulthood.
For adoptive parents, the intricacies of the adoption process lead to feelings of helplessness. These feelings sometimes cause adoptive parents to view themselves as powerless, and perhaps entitled to be parents, leading to laxity in parenting. As an alternative response, some adoptive parents may seek to regain the lost control by becoming overprotective and controlling, leading to rigidity in the parent/adoptee relationship.
Summary
The experience of adoption, then can be one of loss, rejection, guilt/shame, grief, diminished identity, thwarted intimacy, and threats to self-control and to the accomplishment of mastery. These seven core or lifelong issues permeate the lives of triad members regardless of the circumstances of the adoption.
Identifying these core issues can assist triad members and professionals in establishing an open dialogue and alleviating some of the pain and isolation which so often characterize adoption. Triad members may need professional assistance in recognizing that they may have become trapped in the negative feelings generated by the adoption experience. Armed with this new awareness, they can choose to catapult themselves into growth and strength.
Triad members may repeatedly do and undo their adoption experiences in their minds and in their vacillating behaviors while striving toward mastery. They will benefit from identifying, exploring and ultimately accepting the role of the seven core issues in their lives.
The following tasks and questions will help triad members and professionals explore the seven core issues in adoption:
List the losses, large and small, that you have experienced in adoption.
Identify the feelings associated with these losses.
What experiences in adoption have led to feelings of rejection?
Do you ever see yourself rejecting others before they can reject you? When?
What guilt or shame do you feel about adoption?
What feelings do you experience when you talk about adoption?
Identify your behaviors at each of the five stages of the grief process. Have you accepted your losses?
How has adoption impacted your sense of who you are?
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Adoption triggers seven lifelong or core issues for all triad members, regardless of the circumstances of the adoption or the characteristics of the participants:
Loss
Rejection
Guilt and Shame
Grief
Identity
Intimacy
Mastery/control
(Silverstein and Kaplan 1982)
Clearly, the specific experiences of triad members vary, but there is a commonality of affective experiences which persists throughout the individual's or family's life cycle development. The recognition of these similarities permits dialogue among triad members and allows those professionals with whom they interface to intervene in proactive as well as curative ways.
The presence of these issues does not indicate, however, that either the individual or the institution of adoption is pathological or pseudopathological. Rather, these are expected issues that evolve logically out of the nature of adoption. Before the recent advent of open and cooperative practices, adoption- had been practiced as a win/lose or adversarial process. In such an approach, birth families lose their child in order for the adoptive family to gain a child. The adoptee was transposed from one family to another with time-limited and, at times, short-sighted consideration of the child's long-term needs. Indeed, the emphasis has been on the needs of the adults--on the needs of the birth family not to parent and on the needs of the adoptive family to parent. The ramifications of this attitude can be seen in the number of difficulties experienced by adoptees and their families over their lifetimes.
Many of the issues inherent in the adoption experience converge when the adoptee reaches adolescence. At this time three factors intersect: an acute awareness of the significance of being adopted; a drive toward emancipation; and a biopsychosocial striving toward the development of an integrated identity.
It is not our intent here to question adoption, but rather to challenge some adoption assumptions, specifically, the persistent notion that adoption is not different from other forms of parenting and the accompanying disregard for the pain and struggles inherent in adoption.
However, identifying and integrating these core issues into pre-adoption education, post-placement supervision, and all post-legalized services, including treatment, universalizes and validates triad members' experiences, decreasing their isolation and feelings of helplessness.
Loss
Adoption is created through loss; without loss there would be no adoption. Loss, then, is at the hub of the wheel. All birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees share in having experienced at least one major, life-altering loss before becoming involved in adoption. In adoption, in order to gain anything, one must first lose--a family, a child, a dream. It is these losses and the way they are accepted and, hopefully, resolved which set the tone for the lifelong process of adoption.
Adoption is a fundamental, life-altering event. It transposes people from one location in the human mosaic into totally new configuration. Adoptive parents, whether through infertility, failed pregnancy, stillbirth, or the death of a child have suffered one of life's greatest blows prior to adopting. They have lost their dream child. No matter how well resolved the loss of bearing a child appears to be, it continues to affect the adoptive family at a variety of points throughout the families love cycle (Berman and Bufferd 1986). This fact is particularly evident during the adoptee's adolescence when the issues of burgeoning sexuality and impending emancipation may rekindle the loss issue.
Birthparents lose, perhaps forever, the child to whom they are genetically connected. Subsequently, they undergo multiple losses associated with the loss of role, the loss of contact, and perhaps the loss of the other birth parent which reshape the entire course of their lives.
Adoptees suffer their first loss at the initial separation from the birth family. Awareness of their adopted status is inevitable. Even if the loss is beyond conscious awareness, recognition, or vocabulary, it affects the adoptee on a very profound level. Any subsequent loss, or the perceived threat of separation, becomes more formidable for adoptees than their non-adopted peers.
The losses in adoption and the role they play in all triad members lives have largely been ignored. The grief process in adoption, so necessary for healthy functioning, is further complicated by the fact that there is no end to the losses, no closure to the loss experience. Loss in adoption is not a single occurrence. There is the initial, identifiable loss and innumerable secondary sub-losses. Loss becomes an evolving process, creating a theme of loss in both the individual's and family's development. Those losses affect all subsequent development.
Loss is always a part of triad members' lives. A loss in adoption is never totally forgotten. It remains either in conscious awareness or is pushed into the unconscious, only to be reawakened by later loss. It is crucial for triad members, their significant others, and the professional with whom they interface, to recognize these losses and the effect loss has on their lives.
Rejection
Feelings of loss are exacerbated by keen feelings of rejection. One way individuals seek to cope with a loss is to personalize it. Triad members attempt to decipher what they did or did not do that led to the loss. Triad members become sensitive to the slightest hint of rejection, causing them either to avoid situations where they might be rejected or to provoke rejection in order to validate their earlier negative self-perceptions.
Adoptees seldom are able to view their placement into adoption by the birthparents as anything other than total rejection. Adoptees even at young ages grasp the concept that to be "chosen" means first that one was "un-chosen," reinforcing adoptees' lowered self-concept. Society promulgates the idea that the "good" adoptee is the one who is not curious and accepts adoption without question. At the other extreme of the continuum is the "bad" adoptee who is constantly questioning, thereby creating feelings of rejection in the adoptive parents.
Birthparents frequently condemn themselves for being irresponsible, as does society. Adoptive parents may inadvertently create fantasies for the adoptee about the birth family which reinforce these feelings of rejection. For example, adoptive parents may block an adolescent adoptee's interest in searching for birthparents by stating that the birthparents may have married and had other children. The implication is clear that the birthparents would consider contact with the adoptee an unwelcome intrusion.
Adoptive parents may sense that their bodies have rejected them if they are infertile. This impression may lead the infertile couple, for example, to feel betrayed or rejected by God. When they come to adoption, the adoptors, possibly unconsciously, anticipate the birthparents' rejection and criticism of their parenting. Adoptive parents struggle with issues of entitlement, wondering if perhaps they were never meant to be parents, especially to this child. The adopting family, then, may watch for the adoptee to reject them, interpreting many benign, childish actions as rejection. To avoid that ultimate rejection, some adoptive parents expel or bind adolescent adoptees prior to the accomplishment of appropriate emancipation tasks.
Guilt/Shame
The sense of deserving such rejection leads triad members to experience tremendous guilt and shame. They commonly believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with them or their deeds that caused the losses to occur. Most triad members have internalized, romantic images of the American family which remain unfulfilled because there is no positive, realistic view of the adoptive family in our society.
For many triad members, the shame of being involved in adoption per se exists passively, often without recognition. The shame of an unplanned pregnancy, or the crisis of infertility, or the shame of having been given up remains unspoken, often as an unconscious motivator.
Adoptees suggest that something about their very being caused the adoption. The self-accusation is intensified by the secrecy often present in past and present adoption practices. These factors combine to lead the adoptee to conclude that the feelings of guilt and shame are indeed valid.
Adoptive parents, when they are diagnosed as infertile, frequently believe that they must have committed a grave sin to have received such a harsh sentence. They are ashamed of themselves, of their defective bodies, of their inability to bear children.
Birthparents feel tremendous guilt and shame for having been intimate and sexual; for the very act of conception, they find themselves guilty.
Grief
Every loss in adoption must be grieved. The losses in adoption, however, are difficult to mourn in a society where adoption is seen as a problem-solving event filled with joy. There are no rituals to bury the unborn children; no rites to mark off the loss of role of caretaking parents; no ceremonies for lost dreams or unknown families. Grief washes over triad members' lives, particularly at times of subsequent loss or developmental transitions.
Triad members can be assisted at any point in the adoption experience by learning about and discussing the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kubler-Ross 1969).
Adoptees in their youth find it difficult to grieve their losses, although they are in many instances aware of them, even as young children. Youngsters removed from abusive homes are expected to feel only relief and gratitude, not loss and grief. Adults block children's expressions of pain or attempt to divert them. In addition, due to developmental unfolding of cognitive processes, adoptees do not fully appreciate the total impact of their losses into their adolescence or, for many, into adulthood. This delayed grief may lead to depression or acting out through substance abuse or aggressive behaviors.
Birthparents may undergo an initial, brief, intense period of grief at the time of the loss of the child, but are encouraged by well-meaning friends and family to move on in their lives and to believe that their child is better off. The grief, however, does not vanish, and, in fact, it has been reported that birth mothers may deny the experience for up to ten years (Campbell 1979).
Adoptive Pants' grief over the inability to bear children is also blocked by family and friends who encourage the couple to adopt, as if children are interchangeable. The grief of the adoptive parents continues as the child grows up since the adoptee can never fully meet the fantasies and expectations of the adoptive parents.
Identity
Adoption may also threaten triad members' sense of identity. Triad members often express feelings related to confused identity and identity crises, particularly at times of unrelated loss.
Identity is defined both by what one is and what one is not. In adoption, birthparents are parents and are not. Adoptive parents who were not parents suddenly become parents. Adoptees born into one family, a family probably nameless to them now, lose an identity and then borrow one from the adopting family.
Adoption, for some, precludes a complete or integrated sense of self. Triad members may experience themselves as incomplete, deficient, or unfinished. They state that they lack feelings of well-being, integration, or solidity associated with a fully developed identity.
Adoptees lacking medical, genetic, religious, and historical information are plagued by questions such as: Who are they? Why were they born? Were they in fact merely a mistake, not meant to have been born, an accident? This lack of identity may lead adoptees, particularly in adolescent years, to seek out ways to belong in more extreme fashion than many of their non-adopted peers. Adolescent adoptees are overrepresented among those who join sub-cultures, run away, become pregnant, or totally reject their families.
For many couples in our society a sense of identity is tied to procreation. Adoptive parents may lose that sense of generativity, of being fled to the past and future, often created through procreation.
Adoptive parents and birthparents share a common experience of role confusion. They are handicapped by the lack of positive identity associated with being either a birthparent or adoptive parent (Kirk 1964). Neither set of parents can lay full claim to the adoptee and neither can gain distance from any problems that may arise.
Intimacy
The multiple, ongoing losses in adoption, coupled with feelings of rejection, shame, and grief as well as an incomplete sense of self, may impede the development of intimacy for triad members. One maladaptive way to avoid possible reenactment of previous losses is to avoid closeness and commitment.
Adoptive parents report that their adopted children seem to hold back a part of themselves in the relationship. Adoptive mothers indicate, for example, that even as an infant, the adoptee was "not cuddly.'' Many adoptees as teens state that they truly have never felt close to anyone. Some youngsters declare a lifetime emptiness related to a longing for the birthmother they may have never seen.
Due to these multiple losses for both adoptees and adoptive parents, there may also have been difficulties in early bonding and attachment. For children adopted at older ages, multiple disruptions in attachment and/or abuse may interfere with relationships in the new family (Fahlberg 1979 a,b).
The adoptee's intimacy issues are particularly evident in relationships with members of the opposite sex and revolve around questions about the adoptee's conception, biological and genetic concerns, and sexuality.
The adoptive parents' couple relationship may have been irreparably harmed by the intrusive nature of medical procedures and the scapegoating and blame that may have been part of the diagnosis of infertility. These residual effects may become the hallmark of the later relationship.
Birthparents may come to equate sex, intimacy, and pregnancy with pain leading them to avoid additional loss by shunning intimate relationships. Further, birthparents may question their ability to parent a child successfully. In many instances, the birthparents fear intimacy in relationships with opposite sex partners, family or subsequent children.
Mastery/Control
Adoption alters the course of one's life. This shift presents triad members with additional hurdles in their development, and may hinder growth, self-actualization, and the evolution of self-control.
Birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees are all forced to give up control. Adoption, for most, is a second choice. Birthparents did not grow up with romantic images of becoming accidentally pregnant or abusing their children and surrendering them for adoption. In contrast, the pregnancy or abuse is a crisis situation whose resolution becomes adoption. In order to solve the predicament, birthparents must surrender not only the child but also their volition, leading to feelings of victimization and powerlessness which may become themes in birthparents' lives.
Adoptees are keenly aware that they were not party to the decision which led to their adoption. They had no- control over the loss of the birth family or the choice of the adoptive family. The adoption proceeded with adults making life-altering choices for them. This unnatural change of course impinges on growth toward self-actualization and self-control. Adolescent adoptees, attempting to master the loss of control they have experienced in adoption, frequently engage in power struggles with adoptive parents and other authority figures. They may lack internalized self-control, leading to a lowered sense of self-responsibility. These patterns, frequently passive/aggressive in nature, may continue into adulthood.
For adoptive parents, the intricacies of the adoption process lead to feelings of helplessness. These feelings sometimes cause adoptive parents to view themselves as powerless, and perhaps entitled to be parents, leading to laxity in parenting. As an alternative response, some adoptive parents may seek to regain the lost control by becoming overprotective and controlling, leading to rigidity in the parent/adoptee relationship.
Summary
The experience of adoption, then can be one of loss, rejection, guilt/shame, grief, diminished identity, thwarted intimacy, and threats to self-control and to the accomplishment of mastery. These seven core or lifelong issues permeate the lives of triad members regardless of the circumstances of the adoption.
Identifying these core issues can assist triad members and professionals in establishing an open dialogue and alleviating some of the pain and isolation which so often characterize adoption. Triad members may need professional assistance in recognizing that they may have become trapped in the negative feelings generated by the adoption experience. Armed with this new awareness, they can choose to catapult themselves into growth and strength.
Triad members may repeatedly do and undo their adoption experiences in their minds and in their vacillating behaviors while striving toward mastery. They will benefit from identifying, exploring and ultimately accepting the role of the seven core issues in their lives.
The following tasks and questions will help triad members and professionals explore the seven core issues in adoption:
List the losses, large and small, that you have experienced in adoption.
Identify the feelings associated with these losses.
What experiences in adoption have led to feelings of rejection?
Do you ever see yourself rejecting others before they can reject you? When?
What guilt or shame do you feel about adoption?
What feelings do you experience when you talk about adoption?
Identify your behaviors at each of the five stages of the grief process. Have you accepted your losses?
How has adoption impacted your sense of who you are?
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE
7 Core Issues Handout
Use this handout to quickly identify the intersection of the 7 Core Issues of Adoption and its impact on the adoption constelation.
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE FULL ARTICLE
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE FULL ARTICLE
Adoption and Genetics Why We Need to Pay Attention by E. Kay Trimberger
In 2006 I helped my twenty-five-year-old son Marco locate
his biological families. I hoped this reunion would help him
overcome some of the challenges he was wrestling with on
his path to adulthood. I was thrilled when the families of both
his white mother and his black father welcomed him. But
I was unprepared for the discovery of how much he had in
common with his birth parents: not just appearance, but also
many personality traits, talents and problems.
When I adopted in 1981, I believed—like many social scientists
and adoption professionals at that time —that nurture
was everything, each infant a blank slate awaiting parental
inscription. Even when Marco was a young child, I recognized
that this idea was too simple, that my son had many attributes
different from those of anyone else in my family. Still, I was
surprised by these reunion revelations.
The adoption theory that I absorbed over the years never
mentioned genetic heritage. Marco’s difficulty finding his
way as a young adult, I was told, might stem from a number
of psychological factors. First was the loss of a birth mother
with whom he had bonded in utero—a “primal wound” that
supposedly made it difficult for him to bond with an adoptive
mother. This idea never resonated with me, for we always
had a close connection, with a lot of emotional and verbal
sharing. Even in our most troubled times, we never lost
contact, and he often confided in me. If anything, I saw him as
too close to me, his only parent.
More compelling was the idea that he had been affected by
the fetal environment of a stressed teenage birth mother, who
probably drank and smoked. This, possibly combined with a
weak sense of self deriving from a loss of ethnicity and family
history, especially prevalent in the transracially adopted, might
help to explain why he chose a life outside the mainstream,
one that for many years involved heavy marijuana and alcohol
use.
None of these theories, however, prepared me for the shock
of finding that my son’s birth mother and father—out of touch
with each other for twenty-five years—had both struggled
with drug addiction throughout their lives. I was especially
surprised because in my phone conversations and a visit with
them, I had seen that they (like Marco) were charming and
intelligent people. I learned, however, that substance abuse
had taken a toll on their lives, especially the father’s.
Reunion has helped Marco secure a stronger sense of self,
especially since he found mixed-race heritage on both sides.
His mother married another black man and had three more
biracial children, and his father’s extended family is multiracial
as well. But reunion also added many complications to his
life, as he has tried to reconcile the heritage of what he calls
his “three families.” Only gradually, through moving to
Louisiana for six months and living first with his birth mother
and then with his birth father, did Marco acknowledge their
shared substance abuse problems. This realization led him
for the first time to enter a recovery program, something his
birth parents have never done. He sought to overcome the
negative part of his birth heritage so he could build on the
positive. Recently, I asked Marco how he was different from
his birth father.
“Not a heck of a lot,” he replied. “But I have better tools.”
Marco’s reunion experience led me to undertake my own
search, a quest to understand genetics and how they might
impact adoption. Perhaps I hoped to find that nature is
everything, and that I could let go of my parental guilt for his
problems. As a social scientist with little biological education,
I began by looking at science journalism, then turned to the
original research. I found that genetics alone could not explain
either Marco’s positive behavior or his addiction; genes
provide only probabilistic propensities not predetermined
programming. They provide probabilities for behavior and risk
factors for disease, but do not indicate whether any individual
will sustain a behavior or succumb to a particular mental or
physical disorder, or how severe the disease will be. I did,
however, gain important insights into adoptive parenting.
What I found astounded me: an interdisciplinary field that I’d
never heard of called behavioral genetics. Though not focused
Adoption and Genetics
Why We Need to Pay Attention
by E. Kay Trimberger
First published in Pact’s Point of View © 2011
Do not reprint without permission.
on adoption per se, many of its findings are based on the study
of adoptees. 1 While I had not known about this field by name,
I had heard of some its more infamous practitioners, like those
at the turn of the century who advocated selective breeding
and forced sterilization. I also knew about a few more recent
behavioral geneticists who published controversial studies of
racial differences in I.Q. But now I discovered that behavioral
genetics had gained legitimacy as a science for its studies on
individual differences.
Behavioral genetics tries to explain how much of the variation
among individuals’ cognitive and psychological traits can be
attributed to genetic heritage and how much is due to the
environment. Their major methodology is a natural experiment
which separates genetic heritage and environment by
comparing the similarities and differences among adoptees,
adoptive parents, and biological parents, and also between
biological and adoptive siblings. Behavioral genetics, in
addition, studies identical twins raised apart. In studies over
a number of years in many different countries, researchers
concur that identical twins separated at birth and adopted into
different families, compared to identical twins raised together
by their biological parents, are very similar on a number of
measures of personality, temperament, intelligence, interests
and susceptibility to physical and mental disease. Additionally,
identical twins raised apart are more similar than fraternal
twins raised together.
Even more interesting is a study published in 1997 by Robert
Plomin and his colleagues at The Colorado Adoption Project.
Their twenty-year longitudinal study of 245 adoptees, placed in
the first few months of life, compared the children’s cognitive
abilities to those of their birth and adoptive parents. (Ninety
percent of the biological parents and ninety-five percent of
adoptive parents were white and from roughly equal social
classes.) Before age five, the adoptees’ cognitive skills
correlated more with those in their adoptive families. As they
matured, however, the adoptees’ cognitive skills, including
verbal ability, became more like those of their biological
parents. The researchers concluded that “environmental
transmission from parent to offspring has little effect on later
cognitive ability.” A number of other studies, including ones
on transracial adoption, have replicated these results.
Behavioral geneticists have found that all behavioral traits,
cognitive and psychological, normal and abnormal, have at
least a modest genetic component. However, since genetic
heritage accounts for only about fifty percent or less of the
difference between individuals, there is plenty of room for an
impact by the environment. We might think—and traditional
psychology has taught us—that the family environment
would be the most important other factor in explaining adult
outcomes. But a number of studies have found that highly
important in explaining behavioral variation are the experiences
a child does not share with siblings, whether because of
different prenatal conditions, distinct interactions between
parents and the individual child or because of different
experiences outside the home, many of them chosen by the
child as she or he matures. This “non-shared environment”
is partially influenced by genes. Science writer Matt Ridley
in The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture, explains:
“The environment acts as a multiplier of small genetic
differences, pushing athletic children toward the sports that
reward them and pushing bright children toward the books that
reward them.” The non-shared environment also allows for
unsystematic, idiosyncratic and serendipitous events during
the individual life course that cannot be predicted by research.
This is not to say that the family environment does not matter.
Rather, the researchers conclude that nature acts through
nurture; the care provided by parents (biological and adoptive)
is necessary for the genetic heritage to express itself. But
the nature of an adopted child also affects the nurture offered
them. For example, a child’s auditory sensitivity and the speed
at which they can decode language affects how she or he
experiences a parent’s voice. Thus, nature and nurture are two
inseparable sides of the same coin, which continues to spin
throughout life.
Currently, behavioral genetics, combined with molecular
genetics, tells us that behavior is influenced by many genes,
each of which may have a large or small effect. Geneticists
know that genes build proteins which influence the nervous
system and the brain before leading to certain behaviors,
but they haven’t yet identified the exact mechanisms of this
process. Gene expression is further complicated by new
findings that genes can turn each other on or off, and are
affected by environmental changes.
So why should we be interested in a field with a tainted past
and controversial findings which look too complicated to
provide useful knowledge in the near future? The answer is
that the large, international pool of data about adoptees, and
some of the research findings they have generated, can alter
the way we think about and act in adoption.
Behavioral genetics indicates that the more we know about
the birth families, the better parents we can be. Thomas
Bouchard, a prominent behavioral geneticist, concluded in a
1990 article in Science: “If the correct formula is nature via
nurture then intervention is not precluded even for highly
heritable traits, but should be more effective when tailored to
each specific child’s talents and inclinations.” For too long,
the practice of closed adoption, and adoptive parents’ fears
about open adoption, have hindered our efforts to be effective
parents.
Beth Hall, the director of Pact, provides an example of how
knowledge about the birth family can help adoptive parents:
I remember a case once where a kid who was
kind of a tinkerer was placed with a family that
was very goal-oriented. The family felt that he
was not motivated and not “trying” in school,
but when we talked with his birth family, it turns
out that many of them were engineers and web
designers who had similar histories in school,
but later bloomed into professional tinkerers
if you will, who learned by doing. Once the
adoptive parents were enlightened about this,
they were able to take a different attitude and
actually promote his tinkering. They stopped
taking down his “projects” because it was
“time to clean up.”
When getting to know their child, non-adoptive parents have
the advantage of access to extended family information.
They may see a bit of themselves in their child—or they may
recognize traits of a parent, sibling, or other relation. Adoptive
parents often don’t have this advantage. Parents who adopt
internationally and others with no access to birth families must
accept that their child is not a blank slate. All of us need to
Pact, An Adoption Alliance, 5515 Doyle Street - Suite 1 - Emeryville, CA 94608 voice: 510.243.9460 www.pactadopt.org
discover our child’s interests and abilities, and figure out how
to parent to the child’s strengths and weaknesses. We can
provide them with “better tools,” but behavioral genetics tells
us we can’t control whom they will become as adults.
Some may say that an emphasis on genetics could have
harmful effects on adoption. Prospective parents, for example,
might ask for genetic testing of the birth mother and/or the
baby. Even if such testing were done, however, it would reveal
only a potential, not an actual, asset or problem. I’m not
advocating a return to the adoption policy of the 1940s through
the 1960s which encouraged social workers to match adoptive
parents with birth parents by race, looks, social class, and
education. . Rather, I seek a new ideal of an extended family
characterized by varying levels of contact between adoptive
and birth families. Such extended families will not only have
tremendous benefits for adoptees and birth parents, but will
lead to more satisfied and effective adoptive parents, ones
with fewer illusions and more knowledge.
As for me, I wish I could have had the courage to open my
son’s adoption sooner. If, during his teenage years, I had
known about his birth parent’s substance abuse, I would have
been less anxious and confused, could have sought effective
help, and taken a stronger stand against drugs and alcohol.
This may or may not have made a difference for Marco, but
meeting his half-brother at sixteen rather than at twenty-six
could have been decisive. His brother, in all likelihood, would
have told him ten years earlier what it was like growing up
with addicted parents, and how it motivated him to never take
a drink or use a drug. I wish too that at an earlier age, Marco
could have known his birth uncle, who like me, and my father,
has a Ph.D. Whether he chose to participate or not, Marco
could have seen that some of his birth family are also in our
“family business” of education.
Whatever my regrets, I’m fortunate that adoption brought me
a loving son, whose differences from me have enriched my
life.
Author’s Note: Marco read this article before publication
and gave me permission to share personal details. We are
still close and both still struggling with how adoption, nature,
and nurture have impacted our lives, our identities, and our
relationship.
E. Kay Trimberger was one of the volunteer leaders of Pact’s
reading and film group in 2009-2010. She is writing a memoir,
Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother’s Story of Nurture and Nature.
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE
his biological families. I hoped this reunion would help him
overcome some of the challenges he was wrestling with on
his path to adulthood. I was thrilled when the families of both
his white mother and his black father welcomed him. But
I was unprepared for the discovery of how much he had in
common with his birth parents: not just appearance, but also
many personality traits, talents and problems.
When I adopted in 1981, I believed—like many social scientists
and adoption professionals at that time —that nurture
was everything, each infant a blank slate awaiting parental
inscription. Even when Marco was a young child, I recognized
that this idea was too simple, that my son had many attributes
different from those of anyone else in my family. Still, I was
surprised by these reunion revelations.
The adoption theory that I absorbed over the years never
mentioned genetic heritage. Marco’s difficulty finding his
way as a young adult, I was told, might stem from a number
of psychological factors. First was the loss of a birth mother
with whom he had bonded in utero—a “primal wound” that
supposedly made it difficult for him to bond with an adoptive
mother. This idea never resonated with me, for we always
had a close connection, with a lot of emotional and verbal
sharing. Even in our most troubled times, we never lost
contact, and he often confided in me. If anything, I saw him as
too close to me, his only parent.
More compelling was the idea that he had been affected by
the fetal environment of a stressed teenage birth mother, who
probably drank and smoked. This, possibly combined with a
weak sense of self deriving from a loss of ethnicity and family
history, especially prevalent in the transracially adopted, might
help to explain why he chose a life outside the mainstream,
one that for many years involved heavy marijuana and alcohol
use.
None of these theories, however, prepared me for the shock
of finding that my son’s birth mother and father—out of touch
with each other for twenty-five years—had both struggled
with drug addiction throughout their lives. I was especially
surprised because in my phone conversations and a visit with
them, I had seen that they (like Marco) were charming and
intelligent people. I learned, however, that substance abuse
had taken a toll on their lives, especially the father’s.
Reunion has helped Marco secure a stronger sense of self,
especially since he found mixed-race heritage on both sides.
His mother married another black man and had three more
biracial children, and his father’s extended family is multiracial
as well. But reunion also added many complications to his
life, as he has tried to reconcile the heritage of what he calls
his “three families.” Only gradually, through moving to
Louisiana for six months and living first with his birth mother
and then with his birth father, did Marco acknowledge their
shared substance abuse problems. This realization led him
for the first time to enter a recovery program, something his
birth parents have never done. He sought to overcome the
negative part of his birth heritage so he could build on the
positive. Recently, I asked Marco how he was different from
his birth father.
“Not a heck of a lot,” he replied. “But I have better tools.”
Marco’s reunion experience led me to undertake my own
search, a quest to understand genetics and how they might
impact adoption. Perhaps I hoped to find that nature is
everything, and that I could let go of my parental guilt for his
problems. As a social scientist with little biological education,
I began by looking at science journalism, then turned to the
original research. I found that genetics alone could not explain
either Marco’s positive behavior or his addiction; genes
provide only probabilistic propensities not predetermined
programming. They provide probabilities for behavior and risk
factors for disease, but do not indicate whether any individual
will sustain a behavior or succumb to a particular mental or
physical disorder, or how severe the disease will be. I did,
however, gain important insights into adoptive parenting.
What I found astounded me: an interdisciplinary field that I’d
never heard of called behavioral genetics. Though not focused
Adoption and Genetics
Why We Need to Pay Attention
by E. Kay Trimberger
First published in Pact’s Point of View © 2011
Do not reprint without permission.
on adoption per se, many of its findings are based on the study
of adoptees. 1 While I had not known about this field by name,
I had heard of some its more infamous practitioners, like those
at the turn of the century who advocated selective breeding
and forced sterilization. I also knew about a few more recent
behavioral geneticists who published controversial studies of
racial differences in I.Q. But now I discovered that behavioral
genetics had gained legitimacy as a science for its studies on
individual differences.
Behavioral genetics tries to explain how much of the variation
among individuals’ cognitive and psychological traits can be
attributed to genetic heritage and how much is due to the
environment. Their major methodology is a natural experiment
which separates genetic heritage and environment by
comparing the similarities and differences among adoptees,
adoptive parents, and biological parents, and also between
biological and adoptive siblings. Behavioral genetics, in
addition, studies identical twins raised apart. In studies over
a number of years in many different countries, researchers
concur that identical twins separated at birth and adopted into
different families, compared to identical twins raised together
by their biological parents, are very similar on a number of
measures of personality, temperament, intelligence, interests
and susceptibility to physical and mental disease. Additionally,
identical twins raised apart are more similar than fraternal
twins raised together.
Even more interesting is a study published in 1997 by Robert
Plomin and his colleagues at The Colorado Adoption Project.
Their twenty-year longitudinal study of 245 adoptees, placed in
the first few months of life, compared the children’s cognitive
abilities to those of their birth and adoptive parents. (Ninety
percent of the biological parents and ninety-five percent of
adoptive parents were white and from roughly equal social
classes.) Before age five, the adoptees’ cognitive skills
correlated more with those in their adoptive families. As they
matured, however, the adoptees’ cognitive skills, including
verbal ability, became more like those of their biological
parents. The researchers concluded that “environmental
transmission from parent to offspring has little effect on later
cognitive ability.” A number of other studies, including ones
on transracial adoption, have replicated these results.
Behavioral geneticists have found that all behavioral traits,
cognitive and psychological, normal and abnormal, have at
least a modest genetic component. However, since genetic
heritage accounts for only about fifty percent or less of the
difference between individuals, there is plenty of room for an
impact by the environment. We might think—and traditional
psychology has taught us—that the family environment
would be the most important other factor in explaining adult
outcomes. But a number of studies have found that highly
important in explaining behavioral variation are the experiences
a child does not share with siblings, whether because of
different prenatal conditions, distinct interactions between
parents and the individual child or because of different
experiences outside the home, many of them chosen by the
child as she or he matures. This “non-shared environment”
is partially influenced by genes. Science writer Matt Ridley
in The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture, explains:
“The environment acts as a multiplier of small genetic
differences, pushing athletic children toward the sports that
reward them and pushing bright children toward the books that
reward them.” The non-shared environment also allows for
unsystematic, idiosyncratic and serendipitous events during
the individual life course that cannot be predicted by research.
This is not to say that the family environment does not matter.
Rather, the researchers conclude that nature acts through
nurture; the care provided by parents (biological and adoptive)
is necessary for the genetic heritage to express itself. But
the nature of an adopted child also affects the nurture offered
them. For example, a child’s auditory sensitivity and the speed
at which they can decode language affects how she or he
experiences a parent’s voice. Thus, nature and nurture are two
inseparable sides of the same coin, which continues to spin
throughout life.
Currently, behavioral genetics, combined with molecular
genetics, tells us that behavior is influenced by many genes,
each of which may have a large or small effect. Geneticists
know that genes build proteins which influence the nervous
system and the brain before leading to certain behaviors,
but they haven’t yet identified the exact mechanisms of this
process. Gene expression is further complicated by new
findings that genes can turn each other on or off, and are
affected by environmental changes.
So why should we be interested in a field with a tainted past
and controversial findings which look too complicated to
provide useful knowledge in the near future? The answer is
that the large, international pool of data about adoptees, and
some of the research findings they have generated, can alter
the way we think about and act in adoption.
Behavioral genetics indicates that the more we know about
the birth families, the better parents we can be. Thomas
Bouchard, a prominent behavioral geneticist, concluded in a
1990 article in Science: “If the correct formula is nature via
nurture then intervention is not precluded even for highly
heritable traits, but should be more effective when tailored to
each specific child’s talents and inclinations.” For too long,
the practice of closed adoption, and adoptive parents’ fears
about open adoption, have hindered our efforts to be effective
parents.
Beth Hall, the director of Pact, provides an example of how
knowledge about the birth family can help adoptive parents:
I remember a case once where a kid who was
kind of a tinkerer was placed with a family that
was very goal-oriented. The family felt that he
was not motivated and not “trying” in school,
but when we talked with his birth family, it turns
out that many of them were engineers and web
designers who had similar histories in school,
but later bloomed into professional tinkerers
if you will, who learned by doing. Once the
adoptive parents were enlightened about this,
they were able to take a different attitude and
actually promote his tinkering. They stopped
taking down his “projects” because it was
“time to clean up.”
When getting to know their child, non-adoptive parents have
the advantage of access to extended family information.
They may see a bit of themselves in their child—or they may
recognize traits of a parent, sibling, or other relation. Adoptive
parents often don’t have this advantage. Parents who adopt
internationally and others with no access to birth families must
accept that their child is not a blank slate. All of us need to
Pact, An Adoption Alliance, 5515 Doyle Street - Suite 1 - Emeryville, CA 94608 voice: 510.243.9460 www.pactadopt.org
discover our child’s interests and abilities, and figure out how
to parent to the child’s strengths and weaknesses. We can
provide them with “better tools,” but behavioral genetics tells
us we can’t control whom they will become as adults.
Some may say that an emphasis on genetics could have
harmful effects on adoption. Prospective parents, for example,
might ask for genetic testing of the birth mother and/or the
baby. Even if such testing were done, however, it would reveal
only a potential, not an actual, asset or problem. I’m not
advocating a return to the adoption policy of the 1940s through
the 1960s which encouraged social workers to match adoptive
parents with birth parents by race, looks, social class, and
education. . Rather, I seek a new ideal of an extended family
characterized by varying levels of contact between adoptive
and birth families. Such extended families will not only have
tremendous benefits for adoptees and birth parents, but will
lead to more satisfied and effective adoptive parents, ones
with fewer illusions and more knowledge.
As for me, I wish I could have had the courage to open my
son’s adoption sooner. If, during his teenage years, I had
known about his birth parent’s substance abuse, I would have
been less anxious and confused, could have sought effective
help, and taken a stronger stand against drugs and alcohol.
This may or may not have made a difference for Marco, but
meeting his half-brother at sixteen rather than at twenty-six
could have been decisive. His brother, in all likelihood, would
have told him ten years earlier what it was like growing up
with addicted parents, and how it motivated him to never take
a drink or use a drug. I wish too that at an earlier age, Marco
could have known his birth uncle, who like me, and my father,
has a Ph.D. Whether he chose to participate or not, Marco
could have seen that some of his birth family are also in our
“family business” of education.
Whatever my regrets, I’m fortunate that adoption brought me
a loving son, whose differences from me have enriched my
life.
Author’s Note: Marco read this article before publication
and gave me permission to share personal details. We are
still close and both still struggling with how adoption, nature,
and nurture have impacted our lives, our identities, and our
relationship.
E. Kay Trimberger was one of the volunteer leaders of Pact’s
reading and film group in 2009-2010. She is writing a memoir,
Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother’s Story of Nurture and Nature.
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE
Adoptee Rights Law: Interactive Map
AdopteeRightsLaw.com has an Interactive Map feature to help make sence out of accessing your origional birth certificate in each state.
On this site you can hover over a state or marker for more information. Click on a state to view a summary of the state’s OBC access law. A full list of states and their restrictions is here and a changelog covering changes in state summaries is also available. There are also interactive maps for pending or prior state OBC access legislation.
ALL STATES: UNRESTRICTED, COMPROMISED, AND RESTRICTED ACCESS
UNRESTRICTED STATES
Unrestricted means an adult adoptee has the right to apply for and obtain an original birth certificate without any restrictions or conditions, other than following general procedures for obtaining a state vital record. Nine states in the United States currently recognize an adult adoptee’s unrestricted right to obtain the OBC.
COMPROMISED STATES
Compromised means that a state has enacted laws that discriminatory limit the rights of adult adoptees to obtain their own original birth certificates, whether through birth parent disclosure vetoes, redaction of identifying information, or limited rights based on the date of a person’s adoption. Hover over a restriction marker for a list of current restrictions.
RESTRICTED STATES
Restricted typically means that adult adoptees have no specific right to obtain their own original birth certificates, except through a court order. The District of Columbia (not pictured) is a restricted state/district.
DC
We are developing additional interactive maps to cover other issues, such as pending legislation, state-funded mutual consent adoption registries, and OBC access statistics.
CLICK BELOW FOR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE
On this site you can hover over a state or marker for more information. Click on a state to view a summary of the state’s OBC access law. A full list of states and their restrictions is here and a changelog covering changes in state summaries is also available. There are also interactive maps for pending or prior state OBC access legislation.
ALL STATES: UNRESTRICTED, COMPROMISED, AND RESTRICTED ACCESS
UNRESTRICTED STATES
Unrestricted means an adult adoptee has the right to apply for and obtain an original birth certificate without any restrictions or conditions, other than following general procedures for obtaining a state vital record. Nine states in the United States currently recognize an adult adoptee’s unrestricted right to obtain the OBC.
COMPROMISED STATES
Compromised means that a state has enacted laws that discriminatory limit the rights of adult adoptees to obtain their own original birth certificates, whether through birth parent disclosure vetoes, redaction of identifying information, or limited rights based on the date of a person’s adoption. Hover over a restriction marker for a list of current restrictions.
RESTRICTED STATES
Restricted typically means that adult adoptees have no specific right to obtain their own original birth certificates, except through a court order. The District of Columbia (not pictured) is a restricted state/district.
DC
We are developing additional interactive maps to cover other issues, such as pending legislation, state-funded mutual consent adoption registries, and OBC access statistics.
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