by JeanWidner | Nov 3, 2024 | Adoptee Stories
What does it mean to be truly child centered when considering adoption? It begins with listening, sincerely and without dismissal, to the adoptees involved. Most importantly, being child centered in adoption means that the interests of the adults are set aside, and the needs of the child are prioritized over all others. Quite often, this is not the way adoption is practiced in the US, although many like to think it is so.
It begins with our first, natural mothers.
I am angry at the way many birth mothers have been treated in the past and continue to be treated. During the baby scoop, some mothers were left to labor in hospital hallways because delivery rooms were only for proper married ladies. In 2005, when Shayanne (who readers will meet in Chapters 15 and 16) was in labor, she was left to lie for four hours in her amniotic fluid after her water broke. The dignity extended to these women has not improved as much as one might hope.
My natural mother may indeed have made some mistakes and used poor judgment. I do not romanticize her but see her for who and what she was at that time. I don’t know her full story, but from the non-identifying information in my file, she was an eighteen-year-old young woman with an abusive stepfather, and a boyfriend who couldn’t support her and wouldn’t marry her.
But she is more than just a sad story and deserved the opportunity to prove that. Automatically assuming her incapable of parenting me is a myth, and she likely would have made a good mother. My adoptive parents also made mistakes and, in spite of that, were good parents whom I love, respect, and cared for through the end of their days.
I am a product of both my first and raising parents. When people with power exert coercive pressures or treat my mother with a lack of care, harsh judgements, or disrespect, you are treating me the same whether you understand the truth of this or not. Biases about her and her situation create the belief about my “need” to be “rescued.” If her options are limited, and you think they deserve to be because she got herself into this predicament, then please recall a certain parable about people carrying stones in glass houses.
She had sex and may not have been as responsible as she could have been about using birth control. For some of these women the sex was not consensual. Now, this baby forming in her womb is unplanned for, but that does not mean she doesn’t want to parent. When you judge her, you are judging my existence. And because she was “irresponsible” I therefore need to be better provided for by others. Maybe some view her as no longer of the same value she was before. These biases were applied to my mother back in 1965 and are still present today.
Our society says to modern mothers, “You’re irresponsible and can’t possibly raise this child, so we’ll take better care of it than you can.” They deem that such children should be raised by another, more suitable, family. We pretend this is her choice, but others have manipulated her options and are profiting from her misfortune.
The outcome of an adoption means that barely out of the womb, I’m separated from the one person I need and know more than any other human being. This is done supposedly for my welfare, and people will say she did a good thing by being so noble and brave. Society then declares me lucky, and insists I agree.
Everyone needs to understand the bond between a natural mother and her infant is not a casual one, and that breaking us apart has consequences. An infant pays dearly for that separation and so will their mother. When we use adoption as part of our social safety net, we fail everyone involved. Financial hardship must not be the only factor in the equation of when an adoption occurs, nor should society or religiously imposed shame. If these are the only reasons an adoption may be happening and the mother wants to parent, then that adoption is unnecessary.
ALL ADOPTIONS CONTAIN TRAUMA
Separating an infant from its mother at birth is inherently traumatizing. These actions will affect both of them for the rest of their lives. This has been shown in a multitude of studies in mammals with rats and monkeys, and much study has been done on human beings. What is unknown is how and at what level that separation trauma and loss of attachment so early after birth will manifest in that adoptee’s life.
Many will say endlessly that the adopted adults they know in their life are fine. Many adopted persons reading this will agree. It is true that many such individuals are successful and appear to have no problems. But consider another view.
Adopted children grow up with messaging they are “chosen, special, and wanted.” If their nervous system is already geared around abandonment because this is how their primal instincts have interpreted their separation, one of the ways this can manifest is a highly driven need to be perfect. The preverbal trauma responds within their nervous systems and intrinsically motivates them to be sure they are wanted and kept. These individuals may be driven to be good or even the best at what they do, which can make them highly successful in their careers and lives, and are traits this society admires greatly.
An adoptee who wants desperately to be loved and to “fit in” with the world around them may develop a “chameleon” personality, which makes them highly malleable and likable to be around. This persona seeps into their being and does enrich their lives, in that they may have many friends and appear well adjusted. On the surface, the world interprets them as happy and maintaining great relationships.
One question worth asking is if the adoptee is more resilient, or did their adoptive parents bond with them more thoroughly, or did they disassociate from their pain in childhood so completely they are not in touch with their honest feelings? Does a chameleon personality know who it truly is or what they want from life? Or, what happens when a perfectionist who equates their success with love struggles with normal human failures?
The adoption competent therapists interviewed for the book all had stories of the 40-to-50-year-old adopted adult who wandered through their doors seeking help, believing they had always been fine. But then, a divorce or death occurred and suddenly they found themselves unable to cope as they had in the past. Feelings, long buried, surfaced in these moments, but if they don’t have the right help, it is hard to accurately diagnose what is going on.
RECONCILING THE COLLECTIVE DENIAL
There are so many good adoptive parents out there, my own included. They loved me unconditionally, celebrated my unique personality and differences, and never allowed me to be belittled or “othered” by anyone around me. They were always honest and, overall, got more things right in adoption than wrong. And people are people, and we are all beautiful and flawed in our own ways.
My father, as a school psychologist of his time, quoted the “blank slate theory” and believed it, as it was the dominant view then. Were he alive and still mentally active today he would be reading the work of Gabor Maté, Bessel van der Kolk, and others, and learning how wrong these older notions were.
It would crush him to know that his ignorance at the time may have harmed me or the formation of my little self while growing up. I wish he’d known. If his essence carries on in another plane of existence where he watches over us, I know he’s listening closely and is proud of me. The same is true of my mother. I love my raising parents and cannot regret being their daughter.
I don’t know the answers, but they begin by setting aside the false assumptions that have been built by the adoption industry and our culture’s simplified rhetoric that adoption is a beautiful way to build a family. As a fellow adoptee and good friend recently said, “We’ve all been bamboozled!”
The paradox arises from the idea that when adoption is necessary, it can be or at least should be beautiful. It should be. I want it to be beautiful! If you have a child who is unsafe in their home or truly cannot be raised by its natural mother, then being raised by a new family and given the ability to belong and be healed can be beautiful. But it is born of rupture, of trauma, and a loss so profound it must not be ignored. It is not the adopted child’s responsibility to make it beautiful. This depends on the adoptive parent’s ability to accept their child as he or she is, and understand they need to help them heal. When that occurs, adoption can fulfill its potential.
Healing is possible and necessary and, for many, is a life-long journey. For me it comes down to finding grace and understanding for everyone involved. My first mother and father could not figure out how to make it work, and the world they lived in was uninclined to assist. My adoptive parents loved me dearly, and I them, but collectively we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
I’ve worked hard on myself for years to heal from the more visible and clearly understood problems created through my adoptive mother’s alcoholism and my father’s denial of it. I’m grateful for the Adult Children of Alcoholics groups and mentors who helped me. Those wounds are still present, but the new information learned in writing this book has created an internal revolution that reveals more. In spelunking through the internal caverns of my implicit memories, I now understand my adoption’s impacts. I’ve always believed I was fine, and that adoption never affected me. Ironically, I’ve found new peace in understanding how it did.
New revelations surface where suddenly things fit. I have a chronic inability to understand when I need help from others, and don’t ask for help, ever. That tendency likely formed because when I was born and separated from my mother, my little baby brain thought she abandoned me. I received loving care but that was not enough, because no one understood I needed her, my first mother, and had no words to tell anyone. My implicit memory formed under the emotion of loss, and my cries never brought me the help I needed. Which made it very likely I was less able to bond to my already psychologically insecure new adoptive mother. We were both harmed by the lack of knowing.
I had another epiphany about my innate hyper-vigilism which many adoptees share. My nervous system is geared for subliminal stress. If life doesn’t create stressors for me, I will manufacture them because that is my normal. Even if things are calm, I feel an unease, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.
Putting these patterns of behavior into proper perspective has been revolutionary, because no other therapy has been able to touch these struggles. No one ever told me it existed. Now I know. Had I learned earlier, it is hard to compose an explanation for what might have been different.
Seeing all of this with a clear lens gives me the power and freedom to heal. Being around other adoptees and first mothers has been cathartic for my soul. In them I have a community and safety I never expected to find. Other powerful allies are the adoptive parents who have also moved into awareness of these complexities. I have new friends in unexpected places, with a highly diverse and loving band of brothers and sisters bonded by our trials. Each of us toils separately through our lives, but we are never completely alone because we know there are friends just a call away who understand. Healing in community is powerful, and I invite all within the constellation to join.
Appreciating something that is flawed, holding this duality of thinking and emotional intelligence is hard. My love for both my first and second set of parents is unending. It will swirl around and around and feed back upon itself escorted by an eternal fire. One that was lit inside of me first by my natural mother, then tended by my adoptive parents, and now lives under my care. It glows bright and steady and is mine alone, which is as it should be.
Adoption contains love and loss and forces the human spirit to entertain new ways to experience both of those emotions at the same time. This duality is always present. Adoption is a paradox.
by JeanWidner | Jun 10, 2022 | Adoptee Stories
A paradox means that you have seemingly opposite and dual realities. Adoptees are rescued, repaired, loved, rejected, celebrated, abandoned, made to feel special, made to feel less than. We are both grateful and angry. We are different from everyone else, and yet we are the same. Regardless of the backstory or the upbringing, we usually know a reality that contradicts itself.
To understand the paradox, it is best to understand the history. Over the centuries, adoptee children have been stolen, sold, loved, wanted, abused, made into indentured servants, used as farm hands, and graced with wealth, education, and opportunities their native birth families could never have afforded them.
In the modern era, most love their families very much and feel wanted, safe, cared for, and a part of the family that raises them. But what no one who is not adopted can understand is this: no matter who raises you, you will never see your features in the people around you. And depending upon the circumstances of your specific situation, you will not know or have access to medical information and many other vital and identifying facts about yourself. Your heritage is theirs, not yours.
I know this because I’ve lived it. I was adopted from birth, born in 1965 at a Salvation Army Hospital for unwed mothers. My parents applied with an adoption agency in Yakima, Washington, and within a few months, were approved. When I was two months of age, they took me home, raised me, and loved me as their own. It may sound charming, and for the most part, it was, but there is always a gap. There is a silent undertone of living with the weight of the unknown, or what if, or how come – sometimes all of the above.
Adoption has consequences. It has joy. It can complete a family, create one from scratch or fulfill through some mystical unknown the way things are supposed to be, without the conscious knowledge of how. It can rescue, heal, and harm.
I am a fan of the practice – but it must be done ethically. Historically adoption had nothing to do with the welfare of a child. It was created to protect wealth and manage the labor of children. Throughout history, adoption has been done well and, at times, horribly.
My intentions with my upcoming book are to tell the tales of those who have lived any three sides of the triad: adoptees, parents, and birth parents. This is not sugar-coated rainbows and unicorns. It is an honest, hard look at the joys and tragedies that unfold for everyone involved. This is the baseline for the paradox of adoption.
Adoptees
“I just feel so incredibly lucky. My parents gave me so many opportunities that I would have never had from my biological mother. I used to think she didn’t want me, and that hurt. But later I learned that she hadn’t had a very stable or happy childhood, and so for that reason when she knew she was pregnant and my father wasn’t going to be in the picture, she did what she thought was best.” ~Kate
“I don’t want to say my parents are reluctant to discuss adoption, but they feel that once the adoption took place, that pretty much ended that whole chapter. Once I became adopted by them, everything was fine. There’s no need to go digging into the past. There’s no need to find out health-related things. You know you’re going to die anyway, so who cares. I remember this vividly when I told my parents that I was reunited and found by my biological sister. My dad said, “Well, it sounds like you had a better life with us.” And I think, “Okay, but we don’t know that things wouldn’t have been different had I stayed with them. Maybe my mom wouldn’t have gone down a certain path.” It didn’t hurt, but you don’t know that that was better for anybody. I remember him saying, “It sounds like your mom was messed up.” Yeah, I would be messed up too if I had to give my baby up, and my mom was considered a minor at the time; she was only 18. And I guess 21 was the age of consent in Michigan then. So, my grandmother was the one who placed me for adoption.” ~Tina
“I never really felt out of place or anything like that. Nothing like that. My mom told me I was adopted. I knew my whole life, you can just kind of see. I never really questioned it. I was like, they love me. I love them. When you’re loved, it really doesn’t matter by who.” ~Jacob
As an adoptee talking to others, it’s a common theme that there is a lingering sense of abandonment or rejection. That their birth mothers did not want them. That they are discarded, set aside, and unworthy of love. Here, you’ll not only read many personal stories from adoptees, but the book we examine the psychological impacts that adoption and its processes have on the emotional and mental health of adopted persons.
I have my own wounds. Being raised in a home with addiction colors my perspectives in ways that are so intertwined that they cannot be undone. As an adult now, I do not and cannot blame the mother who raised me for her flaws. Likewise, I never blame my birth mother for my circumstances.
Many do blame their birth mothers and are unable to move beyond what they have internalized as a physical rejection of them as human beings.
A question that needs to be asked is, ‘what is the difference between us?’. Why do some feel that profound abandonment while others do not? What forces create that? Biology, environment, or something else?
Adopting Parents
I once heard in an interview, “parents come to adoption on their knees.” Couples who cannot conceive because of biology, be they heterosexual or same-sex couples, are often in pain. They have tried multiple times to get pregnant or keep a pregnancy and have often experienced multiple losses and endless heartache. Gay and lesbian couples have faced open discrimination for centuries, which continues today. That has often been reflected in state laws on their ability to adopt and has changed over time, even though gay marriage has been legal in the U.S. since 2015.
People wishing to adopt have more options than in the past. Some contact state agencies or other non-profit organizations to help them. Others use the services of a lawyer or other for-profit organizations for private adoptions. Some try to find birth mothers via social media or other outlets.
National adoption statistics for 2021 report that approximately 1 million willing couples are actively seeking to adopt a baby. This contrasts with only eighteen thousand domestically born babies who will become available in any given year within the U.S. That level of disparity has never existed at any time since adoption records have been kept.
What is interesting in talking to adoptive parents in the modern era is that many report that when they contact an agency to apply, they are told to consider foster care first. The application and approval process is quicker for foster care than for becoming adoptive parents. Given the ongoing problems of the foster care system in the United States, that should give us all pause. Foster kids, adrift without their biological families for whatever reason, have an even higher need for specialized care both physically, emotionally, and mentally.
“I called everyone. The state was more interested in you fostering and then getting your home study for the adoption process. I wasn’t interested in adopting a seven-year-old, as we already had two children naturally, but a pregnancy was too much for me physically, and we wanted a third child.
It was extremely expensive. The first route we tried was the Mormons because they’re less expensive, but we’re not Mormon, so they wouldn’t help us. Then we went to Jewish Social Services. We are not Jewish. They did our home study, but they wouldn’t help us find a baby because we’re not Jewish, but they did all the stuff that’s required by the state for probably $20,000, which is less than Catholic Charities, the state, or anybody else. But we had to find our own baby.
Then we get a call from Jewish Social Services. Their attorney who deals with adoption has this baby that’s coming quickly, and she needs someone to adopt that doesn’t care about race, color, or whatever.
It was January. The baby was due on February 14th. The birth mom had a woman who was going to adopt the baby, but she never did the home study and approval process. If you wait, then it’s even more expensive. You’re talking $30-$40,000.00 easy because they have to rush all the paperwork. Now here’s the mother with a baby, and she has nowhere for the baby to go.
We met at an Olive Garden in town and talked to her for about four hours. She asked us, “Are you equipped and able to raise a chocolate child?” And yes, she actually used that word.
They induced her on February 12th. She called, and she had him at a local hospital. We walked into the room, and she said, “Here’s your chocolate boy!” I said, “Thank you.” That’s why he’s been Chocolate Boy ever since because his birth mom called him that. I even call him that.
My breast milk came in. I nursed him. So, I nursed him for two weeks. From the minute I held him, I loved him. He completed our family.
I would say this to anyone thinking about adopting a baby or a child – love it like it’s your own because it is. You have to go into adoption knowing that that’s yours until you die. No matter what they do, no matter their medical issues, no matter what. He is mine until I die. I never questioned that or would re-think that ever.” ~Gayle
Birth Parents
I say birth parents rather than simply birth mothers because you have birth fathers as part of this experience too. Before a family is built, one is broken and dissolved. There are coercion and pressures brought to bear on birth mothers in particular, and a staggering load of personal judgment heaped upon them by others.
Inseparable from the issues faced by birth parents is the discussion of sexual oppression, access to birth control and education, and the sexual revolution as it has evolved and continues to evolve in American culture.
Whenever and however an unplanned pregnancy comes into being, there will be consequences from that. Before the modern sexual revolution in the 1960s and ‘70s, an unmarried woman could not be a single mother – our culture would not readily allow it. The increasing sexual activities of young people between WWII and Roe v. Wade created what is known as the ‘baby scoop era.’
During this phase, at least one and a half million young American women were trapped into giving up their babies by their parents and the constraints of our society. At no time in history were there more adoptions in the U.S., before or since. These women were pushed into relinquishing their children even if they had the financial means to have raised them. Young men were either not held accountable or were equally set aside by their parents. It was tragic for all involved, and yet it was normal at the time. One wonders now if the men were not pushed aside, if the women were allowed to socially keep the baby, what our current culture might look like.
In the modern era, women do and can raise children without a husband or partner. Some unmarried women without a partner will even adopt a child independently. We have progressed, but our shaded history still has living and breathing suffering from its impact.
Currently, birth parents who relinquish a child usually do so because they, together or singly, cannot feasibly support it. Some will give up their baby, knowing that because of addiction or criminal behavior, they are unfit to parent at that time. Women who become victims of a sexual attack will sometimes carry the baby to term and place it for adoption because of their religious beliefs.
There are now open adoptions to minimize the emotional pain of relinquishing a child. In these legal arrangements, the birth parent(s) will remain present in the child’s life even though the adoptive parents are the unquestionable caregivers and are solely legally responsible for the child’s welfare. These arrangements are often complex for all involved and create their own set of unique emotional and mental health challenges. But many birth parents and adoptive parents appear to make this work.
Regardless of the circumstances, I have never spoken to a birth parent who didn’t in some way think about the child they gave up. Even if they come not to regret their decision, and most do believe it was ultimately the right choice, they remember what happened.
“You have to remember, it was 1973. Our world was changing and there was a lot of the old guard who still believed that unwed mothers were garbage. And I was treated like garbage by the women I worked with, by the nurses at the hospital, and by the doctors. I was left in the hallway screaming in pain. And when the nurse came out, she unceremoniously spread my knees, looked in, and said, “You’re not ready. We’ll come back when you are.” And I remember screaming. And she said, “This is what you get for being an unwed tramp. I’m going back in there with this proper married woman and take care of her.” That was burned into my brain. So, when that baby girl was taken from my arms, I don’t remember anything. I just remember being numb. I was numb for months.” ~ Ellen
“It was like closing the book, but the memories are still there. You don’t forget the birthdays and the “this year he would be in kindergarten, and then first grade.” You don’t forget about those, but I felt like I have to go on with life. I always knew I did the right thing because I gave somebody else life that couldn’t have life. So, I didn’t sit back and beat myself. But the thoughts of those birthdays, or I wonder what he got for Christmas. Those thoughts always came up.” ~Ann
That night after dinner at my parents’ home, like always, we sat in the TV room, and I walked in and just stood there. I said to my father, “I’ve got something to tell you.” He let me tell him the story of Candace and that she was pregnant. They were just the kind of parents you’d want because they simply said, “is there anything we can do?” We had only dated a few months and had broken up several months before I learned she was pregnant. But she and her mother had decided they wanted to have the baby and give it up for adoption.
A lawyer was hired, and they took over. After that agreement had been reached, I was told not to reach out to her. And I don’t know if that was the attorneys talking or Candy saying she didn’t want to hear from me. I didn’t even know if I’d had a boy or a girl. ~Mel
The Challenges of our Time
As our country now dismantles Roe v. Wade and nationwide access to abortion, one thing stands out. How we as a society will treat our unplanned for children will say a lot about us. All of us. We are embarking on a gigantic social experiment now in the United States, and we are all watching to see how these changes will impact our society. Rescuing at-risk children will be needed indefinitely. Sadly, there will always be parents who cannot, or should not, raise children – anyone’s children.
What is clear to me, and maybe some of you, is that all regulations and laws on adoption need to be evaluated with the greatest care. Lives are at stake. And we should be asking ourselves – are we ready? Are our safety networks, social services, and the state of our modern adoption practices up for the task ahead?
Listening to and validating the voices of this often unheard-from triad is the mission behind this work – to tell stories from each of their inspirational, hard, sad, triumphant, troubled, and grateful voices – in their words. I hope you’ll hear them.
