Comments - The Adoption Equation

17 Comments:
(by Teguzco on May 6th)
Thank you for your perspective on your experience as an adoptee and your tacit acknowledgement that not all adoptees' experiences are the same.




Those of us who have worked to open Minnesota records view the effort as more than a question of reunion, but of the right of all human beings to know their origins and to be treated equally under the law.  While other bills may affect more people, it is important to understand that sealed records affect one million of more people in Minnesota.  These include the more than 130,000 people adopted in Minnesota in the last 90 years, their 270,000 birth parents, their spouses, siblings, and children. (Only .5% of all birth parents have filed affidavits of non-disclosure, since they were first authorized in 1977.)

The bill in question is the result of months of discussions involving representatives of all interested parties: adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, adoption agencies, and state and local agencies charged with the administration of the laws in this area.  Only one organization continues to oppose the bill, and organization that has consistently opposed every effort to the restore the rights of adult adoptees.  Ironically, that organization advocates for adoption.  Its name is Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). Its reason? The utterly absurd proposition that a woman might abort a pregnancy rather than risk contact from her offspring 18 years later.  That position is rendered even more absurd by two facts: 1. A person adopted after August 1, 1982, has access to a process under which his or her information can be obtained from the adoption agency involved; 2. Anyone can obtain a DNA test for as little as $60 and locate biological relatives with the results.




The barriers under current law are substantial for those whose records were adopted before August 1, 1982, even those whose records were not sealed until decades after their births.  (Adoptees' access to their records was first limited in 1946.  The current system was created in 1977.)

adoptees.  Ironically, that organization advocates for adoption.  Its name is Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). Its reason? The utterly absurd proposition that a woman might abort a pregnancy rather than risk contact from her offspring 18 years later.  That position is rendered even more absurd by two facts: 1. A person adopted after August 1, 1982, has access to a process under which his or her information can be obtained from the adoption agency involved; 2. Anyone can obtain a DNA test for as little as $60 and locate biological relatives with the results.




The barriers under current law are substantial for those whose records were adopted before August 1, 1982, even those whose records were not sealed until decades after their births.  (Adoptees' access to their records was first limited in 1946.  The current system was created in 1977.)




I have recently had the privilege of working with a woman whose father was adopted in 1919, in an attempt to uncover the records of that adoption and his origins.  Our search took us to the Minnesota Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, two district courts, and the Minnesota Historical Society.  Only over the course of many months were we able to obtain the orders necessary to unlock her father's records.  I, an adult who was not adopted, could have obtained the same records with a simple form and the payment of  a few dollars.




I have worked with a number of other men and women over the years.  I look forward to a time when you and they will have the same right as I do.

COMMENT 2 -- by Kindxmax
What a great article.  The feelings of the author are almost in lock step with mine.  I was given up for adoption in June of 1965 and went to the best parents I ever could have hoped for.  Not a day goes by that I'm not thankful for my birth mother for the sacrifice that she made to give me a better life.  I did check in with Catholic Charities to see if my birth mother ever placed anything in my file..but she never did.  And thats ok.  Like the author,  I feel that the most important thing in the process of searching for biological parents is the acceptance of the fact that the biological parents  may not "want" to be found.  Respecting the wishes of the birth parent has to be of the utmost importance in these journeys.   For me...I'd like contact just to say "Thank you.  Never doubt you did the right thing".

COMMENT 3
by Murphy4
This commentary piece beautifully represents many of the views, thoughts, and experiences of adoption we hear at Bellis, a Minnesota nonprofit. I'm the board president and one of about 115 volunteers who tells my adoption story in Bellis teams at high schools and at Adoption Connection meetings. Together, we advocate for greater sensitivity, awareness, and dialog about adoption, while supporting each other. Every adoption story looks and feels different from the next -- and each ebbs and flows over years. But the opportunity to talk openly about the joy, grief, and complexities is something I’ve found very meaningful and helpful. I hope you find us online and join us for one of our adoption connection meetings.

COMMENT 4
If you make a serious effort to track them down, what's the bad that will really happen? Worst case scenario you find out that no relationship will grow from it. At least you still have some answers. The longer you wait the more difficult those answers will be to get. I found my biological parents and build a fantastic relationship with them. a friend of mine track down her mother and she had passed away three years prior. Acquaintance I met track down his mother and she want nothing to do with him. In the end would it have been better if no one went to search? You're still the same person even after you search. You just have a story that's not based on hopes and guesses. I would suggest to any adoptee to seek out the answers.

COMMENT5
Felt like I had to wright on this one. We have  friends who adapted at birth 3 little ones and ended up with 3 adorable little girls and now they are 13, 10 and 8 They come to our house once a year and we go to theirs. They just love driving my side by side gator. We take them to church and they look so cute all dressed up in those bright colored dresses. There life wouldn't be the same and neither would ours because of three little girls. Oh yeah they now live 150 miles from us.
COMMENT6
Also please consider: in 1967, girls were stigmatized and blamed.  An unmarried pregnancy was the font of great shame, but only for the girl and her family. Many girls faced with that situation were not supported by their families, but were crucified by their families and communities.  Many would have been good mothers with a little support, and never made the decision to "give up" their children (which implicates an affirmative volitional choice), but whose children were involuntarily simply taken from them to feed a lucrative adoption racket.  The catholic church was a great one for that.  There was no background screening of adoptive parents except they had money to pay the "fees."  Some adoptive parents were psychotic (google the Dennis Jurgens story sometime).  If you were adopted then, it was equally as likely that you were forcibly taken from your mother who loved you with everything she had, that her life, and your chance to be raised by someone who loved you that much,  was ruined by those people
COMMENT7
@JMarvin wow, those are pretty significant charges you throw around.  Anything to back them up?
COMMENT8
@aarghmebucko @JMarvin I think there is some truth to what he says. Abortions weren't legal then, and girls were shamed well into the 80's for unwed pregnancies.
COMMENT9
But again, maybe you're totally wrong. Anything else you want to vent about?
10
Some fathers may not be aware they ever fathered the adopted child.  Read about DNA findings and one son and father found each other.  His mother was from Viet Nam and the father never knew about the pregnancy until the DNA tests
11
Lots of hard choices
12
I was adopted in 1953, a very different time from now.  I placed a note in my file at the adoption agency for contact but have not had any.   I respect my birthmother's privacy.
13
I will argue that there must be some deep desire to know your biologic parents, if still alive, and have seen many adults very interested in doing so once they learn the adults who raised them as Mom and Dad, aren't in the way that the child hopes for.




On the other hand, are either you, yearning to know, in the position to accept that (usually) the mother gave you up for a reason at the time, and this may only slice open a wound that she's been healing shut all this time?




Just knowing that the child they gave up has now through technology and it's use by family members even if you chose not to put your DNA in a public search arena, has pretty much figured out who you are and wants to meet takes all the choice and decision from the past and smashed it apart.




I don't know the answer, but I do know that for many people the storybook ending of being relieved and fulfilled by your child finding you doesn't always happen.
14
@reid Please remember that that if a birth mother gave a child up for adoption, in the vast majority of cases she did that with tremendous pain but hoping that the child would have a better life in another family. That is a very selfless act of love. (I was adopted in 1964 and had the luck of having a a great mother and father who adopted and raised me and getting to know my amazing birth mother 30 years later. I know I was lucky.)
15
@woodpec @reid I graduated from high school in 1970 and abortion was not viewed as an option in the small town where I grew up in.  Pregnant teens either got married or gave the baby away.  Times have really changed so birth mothers are likely to be more receptive.
16

reid


May. 6, 18
9:43 AM






Indeed, your comments reflect a changing time from my youth and upbringing.  I based my comments on the local culture, but I also have had discussions with women who do fear that they will be found out as having given up a child for adoption.  Those were some interesting frank discussions, with no clear right answer, but for some they have felt the closure brought by meeting someone who they now know is their child has the possibility that curiosity alone motivates them, and the history of walking through life together will never be theirs.




For this to work well, acceptance on both parents' and child's part, along with a mature enough person on both sides to accept a wonderful ongoing relationship, or be prepared for meet, greet, hit the street type of response for whatever reason.




For some, it works well and is a rewarding story we hear about.  I've been around friends who the outcome was far from a Hallmark Special movie.




Again, thanks for the open and enlightening discussion; I will be more receptive to the good ones, and hope that perhaps I've been unfortunate to have friends have bad ones.  Think positive.


17

@reid Your comment "this may only slice open a wound that she's been healing shut all this time" is wrong. The reunion of a birth mother and her "surrendered" child, grown or otherwise, is in most cases the only thing that can heal the wound you speak of. Unwed mothers in the 1950s and '60s did not really have a choice in the matter. Read Ann Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away," then listen to John Prine's song "Unwed Fathers."