Did you speak with her about waiting until she was 18 and searching on her own?
Once she was out of the house and earning her own living with her own mailbox and phone, no one had the power to prevent her from doing jack shit as long as it was legal.
Are you sure that her mother didn’t tell the adoptive parents that she didn’t want to be contacted under any circumstances?
All the time.
Then the woman who adopted my friend should have told her that, so she could work toward closure on the issue.
I’m a birthmother.
My son is 22 years old, and while I would definitely consider our adoption situation a success, it has not been without its troubles. I’ve posted numerous times on this board about our adoption situation and various things we encountered while my son was growing up. Even though it was an open adoption, and he’s been raised with me in his life since day one, we still wound up in therapy with him when he was 8 for separation anxiety. By his 8 year old logic, I had given him up once, and it was a possibility that his adoptive parents could do the same thing. Adoption is not a guarantee for a happy, well-adjusted kid. Nor can it be blamed for a kid that grows up to be a serial killer.
Things went pretty smoothly during his teen years - full of the normal teen drama and angst, but he also had a lot of good friends, a love of hockey and guitars and was a responsible kid… made curfew mostly, didn’t get in to the drug scene, and graduated from high school right on schedule.
Then he went to college. Or, more aptly, he partied for 6 months straight and failed all his classes. This led into about a year of partying, screwing off and generally being a bum. He hooked up with a girlfriend who was absolutely toxic. I’m not blaming his actions on her, but he wouldn’t have been in some of the more f*cked up situations if it weren’t for her.
Then he got a DUI. And I went ballistic. With the full knowledge of his parents, I came over to dinner one night, basically ambushed him and read him the riot act. This kid had never heard a harsh word from my mouth. I’ll give him credit though; he sat and listened while I gave him the long and ugly version of my childhood with my alcoholic father, and how he was disrespecting himself, and his parents and me. But above all, he was disrespecting the decision I had made to try and give him a better life.
That was almost 2 years ago. He had an ugly year dealing with that DUI. It cost him a lot of time and a lot of money, but he got out from under it. The toxic girlfriend is gone. He has 2 jobs now – a regular M-F job and he still works up at the ski hill on weekends. He’s got his own place, and while he still likes to go out and have a good time, it’s not a drunk fest.
I love this child of mine. And I consider my adoption story an absolute success. Doesn’t mean it was peaches and cream every day for 22 years. It was a joint effort at times for all involved.
To the OP – you can throw all the second-hand stories you like, and unless your ‘personal experience and knowledge of adoptive situations’ includes being a birth parent, an adoptive parent, or a professional directly involved in the adoption process, feel free to shut the hell up and stop spouting nonsense.
Newsworthy? Maybe not, but why would I trust a media outlet to tell me my story was a success or a failure? Or you for that matter?
Lastly – it takes a true mother to make a decision as heartrending as to relinquish a child or not, as, for most of us, it comes with the deepest desire to see that child loved and raised in the best circumstances. And recognizing that we may not be able to provide that does not diminish our motherhood. Just means we get to share it with someone else.
Who falls on the floor drooling like an animal and suffers from amnesia when told they are adopted?
Is that story supposed to somehow reflect the “typical” adoption?
Yeah. I don’t exactly buy that “anecdote”.
I’m adopted. When i was searching for my birth mother, I talked to a lot of adopted folks online. Our stories were all over the place. Some, like me, always knew they were adopted. Others didn’t find out until later in life. One found out by accident just by filling out a form with their blood type, and realized that they couldn’t be biologically related to their parents just based on blood type combinations and possibilities. Some of us had happy reunions with our birth parent(s). Some didn’t. Some never managed to find their birth parents. For some folks, being adopted was a big issue in their lives. For others, it wasn’t. For me personally it was never much of an issue other than curiosity, and while I did manage to track down my birth mother (or actually my wife did, she did most of the detective work), she had died about ten years before we managed to find her.
There were a lot of stories about anger. Many adoptees who were told later in life or found out through accident later in life felt betrayed, as if they had been lied to. Some families were broken up by it. Others recovered just fine, or never had much of an issue with it.
But falling on the floor drooling and completely losing it? I never heard anything even close to that. Humans aren’t that easily damaged.
I would have to say that out of the stories that I heard, most of the adoptions worked out very well. There were very few cases where the adoptee would have preferred not to have been adopted. I would have to say there were approximately as many adoptees who hated their adopted parent(s) as those who hated their birth parent(s) for giving them up.
Reunions, on the other hand, were about 50/50. Some birth mothers were happy to be reunited with their birth child. Others were not, often feeling that their privacy had been violated or feeling that an unpleasant part of their life that had been closed in the past had now been reopened.
Piggybacking on this, I think the main thing StG was asking for cites for was the incarceration part. I completely believe that many women were forced to give up their children, and sadly, it probably still happens to this day. However, I’ve never heard of anyone in my almost 46 years being put in jail for it. So, is there a cite for that?
And to the OP, I grew up with a young woman who was adopted and she’s never been anything but well-adjusted and content. I’m also close enough to witness some adoptive children while they are growing up (from toddler age into their mid-twenties) and no problems there, either. This is especially true for adoptive sets of two siblings in one family. Between the four of them, they’ve seemingly done incredibly fine and are happy.
>sigh<
I didn’t say they were in jail, but their freedom was greatly restricted. Young pregnant women were shipped off to “homes”, to special “schools”, to convents, and other places where their movements were very, very strictly controlled. It was not formal jail but in regards to the restrictions it might have well been.
A few minutes search on google reveals several book titles on relevant subjects:
The Girls Who Went Away
Delinquent Daughters
Salon article
The situation in Britain
This isn’t secret stuff, but for some reason many people just don’t want to look at what’s out there, they don’t want to hear the stories of the women who lived those stories.
Let me preface this by saying that my daughter, my amazing wonderful albeit 12 year old nasty to her mother even as she is sweet as can be to me daughter, is adopted. One of my practice partners is adopted. I know many many wonderful successful people (by almost any definition of the term) that were adopted. “Recipe for failure?” Don’t be ridiculous. That said statistically there is long history establishing a possibly slight increased risk of mental health issues for a variety of reasons. From the last cite as an example:
Is it possible that people who got pregnant without wanting to might be statistically a bit more likely to have lower impulse control than those who are able to stop and plan ahead with contraceptives? That such might be a marker that correlates with genes that place additional risk for a variety of mental health conditions from ADD to Bipolar? That that subset with poorer impulse control might be at increased risk to abuse substances from tobacco to more during pregancy as well? And of course that some who are adopted had to endure a less than optimal initial phase of life?
“Predisposition”? Too strong. But we do need to honestly appreciate that there is, looking a statistical analysis of large populations, a slight increased risk of certain issues. Of course with my family gene pool dealing a hand from another unknown deck was not a bad idea (love my bio kids too mind you) … a fair amount of ADD, depression, and anxiety disorders on both sides.
This a thousand times.
I know several people who are adopted or co-adopted, including some who found out when they were grown-up; those stranger-adopted at later ages tend to have more issues than the younger ones adapting to the new environment but I’ve never met a case where they didn’t grow out of it and you know, moving to a strange country where you don’t know the language or anybody except the baby which came in the same package is kind of harsh, nobody was thinking it would be roses and violins.
Re. relinquishing maternal rights, it hasn’t been so long since in many societies a teenager had NO rights to relinquish, their parents (specifically the father) did. I guess I should count it a triumph of social advancement that so many people can’t believe stuff that’s part of my life and direct memories - c’mon, I’m only middle aged!
In my parent’s group of friends, there is a higher than average incidence of adoption. Perhaps after the first couple adopted, others realised it was possible and were encouraged to do the same. So I have grown up with about five other family friends who were also adopted as well as meeting other adopted people throughout my life.
There’s no doubt that we have experienced difficulties in our lives, with some people relating them to the concept of being adopted, but I wouldn’t say our lives have been any more or less difficult/successful than the non-adopted.
I think it’s very difficult to pin any particular problems on ‘being adopted’. For example, I was a short fat child in a family of tall thin parents and siblings. I always felt like this singled me out, and I would often wonder if my biological parents were more pre-disposed to overweight and therefore might have treated me more sympathetically with regards my weight. So you could argue that my problems with my weight were exacerbated by my adoption. However, at high school I was best friends with a girl who had five other siblings (all biological). Five of them were tall and slim, one was very obese. So she felt very much the same as I felt, without the explanation of adoption.
Also with regards to the Bad Old Days, even if her parents were prepared to be accommodating, a pregnant teenager was *required *to drop out of high school.
My closest friend in high school was adopted. She’s a tenured professor at a major university.
My wife and I adopted the Firebug from Russia five years ago. He’s a smart, creative, goofy kid.
My friend always knew she was adopted. And the Firebug’s known from day 1 as well.
Prior to the 1960’s, few young women (the source of most infant adoptions) had access to ANY form of contraception. The usual one was condoms - which were under male control by and large. Given that what evidence we have between WWII and the 1960’s points to about two thirds of young women having sex before marriage I don’t think your hypothesis holds water, at least for that time period. Which ones got pregnant and which ones didn’t was probably more random chance than anything else. Given that contraception, such as it was, was largely under the control of the men you might argue that the impulse control issues were at least as much, if not more, coming from the fathers who were failing to plan ahead and guard against bastards offspring… except, of course, society largely let men simply not care about by-blows.
Prior to WWII there seems to have been less voluntary premarital sex because young women were typically under stricter controls and more chaperoned. That would be involuntary sex, that is, rape was likely to be a much larger proportion of per-marital sexual episodes… in which case you might lay impulse controls at the feet of the fathers, not the mothers.
But rather than blame one gender or the other how about we just realize that evolution has favored young and healthy people who start humping like bunnies when they hit physical maturity? Even when society objects.
Many of the studies are more recent than that - you are talking about pretty much a 20 year gap between “chaperoned” and “birth control.” Studies run in the 80s about adults would have some of the population you are talking about in it, but studies in the 90s about young adults wouldn’t at all. And studies about KIDS done post 1980 wouldn’t at all.
Adoption has changed DRASTICALLY over the past 100+ years - from orphan trains where adoptees were often little better than indentured servants, to international and multi racial adoption, to open adoptions now - and that creates highly varied populations to study. So you need to read each study and figure out what their population criteria is before you can make any generalizations about it at all. But if you go into an adoption agency in 2013, what they will tell you is the most recent studies on American birthmothers show some higher tendencies to ADHD…for parents looking to adopt now, that is far more important than what life was like between WWII and the Summer of Love.
I’ll preface this by saying I’m an adoptee that was “chosen” in 1958. I’ve been searching for answers to these questions since I was 20ish. My story wasn’t bad or good, probably more success than failure, and as far as I can tell I’m functioning well in society…
The adoption triad is always a complicated matter. The adoptee may not know the exact circumstances of his/her situation but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. The “Chosen” baby story works well but it can be disconcerting when you mature enough to realize that to be “chosen”, first you had to be given up.
Nature vs nurture is an obvious question. Genetics *are *involved, you can’t escape it anymore than you can escape blonde hair or blue eyes. I don’t believe the process of adoption is failure in itself. There are a couple of factors that can lead to the adoptee’s emotional well being though.
Timing of getting the news/ as evidenced in your friend’s case is critical. I have known for as long as I can remember. It was never concealed from me, but many other people found out when they were adults. It always comes as a shock to them and their reactions can range from Paul’s melt-down to a calm “I knew it all along”.
Identity is a major deal as well. Knowing your heritage is a basic human need. Most people take it for granted but not knowing one’s heritage or even looking in the mirror and wondering who you look like is more important at an elemental level than you’d think. Most adoptees want to search their roots but are afraid of hurting their adoptive parents. This can cause conflict in their psyches as well…
The woman relinquishing her child, no matter how well intended, will always wonder (at least) what became of her child. And this follows throughout her life, whether or not she has other children. In the 50’s and 60’s they were told they’d forget and would move on. Social studies have definitely proved this to be untrue. Attitudes were very different back then. The posters that mentioned this before were spot-on. Not to mention the birth father, that may or may not even know about the pregnancy and finds out later.
The adoptive parent/s will have grandiose visions (and surely much love) that may not materialize. They want the best for their children as any parent does but it may manifest in ways that over indulge leading to self centered behaviour; or smother and shield to the point of instilling anti social behaviours. The parents may have an obsession with the child being taken away and cause fear in the child…
The bottom line is that we are all predisposed to behaviours based on our nature and personality. We all have circumstances that we were born into. Adoption in itself can be an excellent choice but the secretiveness of it is often what will lead psyches “astray”.
Just my 2 cents…
I do not mean to have sounded like I was blaming one gender. I did struggle with how to phrase it (and failed) because the woman becomes pregnant, not the couple, but the people who did not have the impulse control to plan to use contraception were the couple involved. Both of them. Yes, fathers contribute genes too. Almost half of them!
The 1950s had a much higher rate of teen births than now. And a much lower rate of unmarried teens giving birth. In that era the girl getting pregnant most commonly resulted in the couple getting married before the child was born.
Since the 60s teen pregnancy rate has gone down and unmarried teen birth rates up. The more recent dramatic decreases in teen birth rates are clearly a function of more teens choosing to wait longer, more using contraception when they have sex, and to a lesser degree abortion as a more avaialble option. Sex ed works. Given information teens have tended to decide to wait longer and, being aware of contraceptive options, use contraception when they do have sex. Across all demographics. (Sheesh. Kids today. :))
So in this modern era context (in which kids typically wait longer than before and have enough control to get contraception, which they all know about now, before sex) do you not think that those couples who are more likely to have unprotected sex are slightly statistically more likely to have one, or more likely both, participants to score low on impulse control measures?
More factoids if that link was not enough. Lower teen birth rate now than even in the 40s, that era of chaperoning you referenced. Abortion rates declining over the past 20 years.