When a mother gives up or looses a baby or child to adoption she looses all rights including the right to parent that child. Those who later enter reunion often seem unsure of what their rights are and what their role is to be, what they have a right to expect it to be or ask for it to be. If adoptees and mothers were able to be clearer on what the relationship is to be about there might be a great deal of heartbreak saved.
You may have noted the flurry of information again on adopted children being claimed by their biological parents. I won't quote or post links, as I'm supposing you are all familiar with the cases which have had so much publicity and comment. There seems to be a popular view that all children are better parented by their biological parents and that biological parents have a right to parent those children, even after they gave up those rights or lost them.
Clearly that cannot be so, when you look at the numbers of children who are abused by biological parents or who are born to people who are not able to provide even adequate parenting. I'm not talking about the type of parenting as above by turbo-charged helicopter parents, or the other parenting styles mentioned in books such as Jim Fay's. I'm talking about the type of parenting that most people never see or don't know about, except when things go badly wrong and even then some never reach public exposure.
Real life for many people is not so simple. For many adoptees it has a complexity most people can't even imagine. The children in the cases of disputed custody will have suffered greatly already on many counts. We are told that some of them, after final rulings, appear happy and content! A child who has suffered so much disruption cannot possibly be happy and content and what appears to be in this moment may change in later times.
I know of many adoptees for whom it would have been out of the question that they should be raised by any of their biological relatives.There are those who were given for adoption willingly and with relief at the lifting of a burden of shame and guilt, albeit it temporary. There are others, like myself, who would, despite the disruption, the loss and trauma, not consider they had a 'good 'adoption or a 'bad' adoption, who would be horrified at the thought of having been raised by their biological relatives or at the thought of being reclaimed by them as a child! That is an informed opinion about my own life, coming from having met many of my biological relatives and from being told by the cousin for who I was named, that I had 'a lucky escape'. That is not something to be bitter or angry about or to be pitied for, in case you were going in that direction. It is how it is, a fact of adopted life and what has to be lived with, acknowledged, accepted and learned from. Nor am I complaining, wallowing in misery or expecting sympathy. There are always more sides to the adoption story than two and it is time those other sides were aired.
Parenting with Love and Logic:Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay M.D.
Thank you Von. I myself was raised by both and each of my natural parents before I went into foster care. And I for one also feel like my time in the care of strangers WAS a "lucky escape". It was an unfortunate situation, and totally unnecessary, but for some time I escaped the influence and neglect of those willing to throw children out like trash. And I am greatful that I had the privilege of being surrounded by staff, social workers, foster parents and teachers capable of loving and caring for children who were not their own..that is just MY experience and opinion...there are many.
ReplyDeleteGolly Von isn't it weird the way we 'adoptees' always have to tag the things we disclose about our complex lives with "no sympathy required' and I'm just telling you how it was. OK? To me there is a huge difference between parent/s who lose their right to parent their own children through the processes of our 'CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATIONS' and the parent/s who lost this right to parent us in the 'sealed up tight as a drum' Baby Scoop Era when we infants were a part of a grander eugenics type plot ie 'FORCED ADOPTION' My adoption was "a lucky escape' from my father but total devastation and despair being separate from my mother and siblings.
ReplyDeleteThe children the blog I suspect you are referring to have done extremely, well when being returned to their rightful families. Fathers, for instance, DO have a right to raise their own children whom they never wanted to be lost to adoption in the first place.
ReplyDeleteSelfish adopters deliberately keeping a parent who wants their child from them, so public , media and judicial opinion will be in their favor are better fit to raise someone else's child? I think not. Mother's DO have a right to change their minds when they realize they have made a huge mistake, as well.
Why don't you mention how horrible some adoptive families have treated their adopted children, as well, instead of always demonizing natural parents. Deliberately keeping a child from a natural parent who DOES want to raise and love their own flesh and blood or realized they made a horrible mistake by letting them go falls into that category, as well. Just a thought...
It is hard to generalize in this area. We adoptees who have reunited are in a unique position to compare and contrast our families. Some of us will find that we dodged a bullet and others will find that we would have been better off being raised by our original families. And some of us will find something in between. Regardless, I think that being adopted always causes pain. I think that child who can remain or are returned to healthy, good, loving bio-families are better off than being raised by genetic strangers.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Von, but the term "loosing" is driving me nuts.
ReplyDeleteLOSE is the action, the state of doing something.
LOOSE is the adjective, to describe how untight something is.
And I agree with the complexity of the adoption issues in this post...
http://sherrieeldridge.blogspot.com/2012/01/surefire-way-birth-parents-can-alienate.html for another take.
DeleteThanks for the correction.I'm speaking Aussie English.
Perhaps I didn't make my point clearly enough. Those children who have the trauma of being adopted and then returned to biological relatives appear at this point in time to be doing well.The adopted life is if it follows a normal life-span, a long one, in which there can be many changes of attitude, feelings and experience. It often takes a great deal of time to process trauma, to deal with loss and to recognise damage. A child who appears to be doing 'extremely well' may appear very differently in forty years time!! Adoption is long term for us adoptees. Being sent back to biological relatives does not wipe out that damage that has already been done.In the end it is about what is right for the child not what the adults want.Which is why judges decide and not parents.
ReplyDeleteWe can all quote dozens of cases in which adoptees have been murdered, tortured, abused, neglected, starved by adopters. Why is it that as soon as another point of view is put it is described as 'demonizing natural parents'?
No, I understood your post. For the record, I'm an adoptee who pretty much always agrees with you.
ReplyDeleteYour grammar mistake was just pestering me. ;P