Adoption Matters (A Reflection on My Mom's Experience)

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan died in April of 2014 from malignant melanoma, eight months after being reunited with her sisters.

This is a picture of my mom and me from some long ago time (the 80s), on a long ago mountaintop, with her arm around me. She loved to ski and mentioned more than once that she would have been a ski instructor were she not a mom living in suburbia. This picture is so old, from so long ago, that I can barely conjure the memories to go along with it. But it matters. The fact that I was there, on that mountain, with my mom's arm around me, matters.

The same could be said about adoption. My mom, born 67 years ago this July 9th, was adopted six months later, leaving behind a 5-year-old sister she wouldn't meet for 63 years. She also left behind a mother, of course, her mother, the one whose heartbeat and voice she first knew, and would never know, save one brief phone call 50 years later in which she told my mom, "I always loved you in my heart." My mom was a secret, though, the fruit of an affair with an older, married man, a "family friend," and therefore could never be known. All she knew of this man, her father, was that he was from Denmark, like her mother, and that he was a pilot. Apparently there was a time when his son and wife were going to adopt my mom, but that never happened. Instead, she was adopted by Betty and Clarence Thomson of Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she joined her older brother, Doug, also adopted through the Children's Home Society of New Jersey. They lived a charmed life, with trips to the beach in the summer, a neighborhood full of friends (one of whom my mom would marry), and lots and lots of love. My mom is gone now, three years (the shock of it beginning to fade), and so are her parents. "No one loves you like your mom," she told me, after losing hers, in April of 2003. How lucky she was to have known a love like that.

But history, even without memory, still matters. There is a truth to my mom's life, one that extends to mine, and to my children's, that begins with how she came to be. Not knowing or being able to know that history, so personal and pertinent, she suffered. She did not die from this, of course. She died from malignant melanoma that presented itself as a tiny spot under the nail of her big toe when she was 47 years old. But the way in which that presentation resembles my mom's experience with adoption itself -- at first, pushed down into the tiniest corner of herself, and then, years later, unleashed with a wildness that could not be contained -- haunts me a bit. Adoption matters. It was a part of who my mom was, and it is a part of who I am. Time passes, but this remains. The truth remains, whether known or not.

The Right to Know -- Perspectives of an Adult Adoptee

                          The impact of genes -- my grandson looks just like his dad!

Recently, Deanna Shrodes on her website Adoptee Restoration interviewed therapist Karen Caffrey, LPC, JD, about the inner struggles many adopted adults have experienced. Caffrey specializes in working with adopted people, and her insights certainly resonate with me, an older adoptee who was relinquished over 60 years ago.

Caffrey says: "The longer ago the adoption took place the more likely the adoption was closed ..., and taking place in a culture when harmful adoption myths were even more prevalent than they are today. Thus most adult adoptees have grown up in a situation where one of their most important human needs, that being the need to know their origins, has been unmet. Basic, factual information is typically missing. (viz. - What is my nationality? What do my blood relatives look like? Where are they? Why am I not being raised by them? ) Even more damaging is that an adoptee’s natural need to ask questions about herself was often responded to by her adoptive parents (and others) with shaming, fear, hurt, judgment or unreality."

My personal experience reflects Caffrey's thoughts. I must have been about seven or eight years old when I asked my adoptive mother where "my real mother was."

Obviously, I didn't have the sophistication then to ask my questions in a politically sensitive tone! I just wanted to know where my first mother was and why she felt unable to keep me. My mother in her response was uncomfortable and evasive, and later that night my father came to me and said, "You know -- that really hurts your mother when you ask where your other mother is. She thinks of herself as "your real mother."

I must have internalized that lesson in a powerful way, because I never asked my adoptive parents -- who did love me, I know -- about my original family again. I didn't know exactly why, but that territory, evidently, was a place where I wasn't supposed to go.

Caffrey says that "adopted children tend to draw all sorts of mistaken conclusions" from such exchanges, such as:


“I am bad.”
“I shouldn’t ask questions.”
“I make people sad or angry when I ask questions.”
“There’s something wrong with me.”
“What I think I need isn’t important.”
“What I need is wrong.”
“My feelings don’t make sense.”

I don't blame my adoptive parents for their inability to delve deeper into adoption issues, because the "professionals" of their era counseled them that an adoptive family is just like any other, and that infants come to the parents as "blank slates."

But what I learned from the closed adoption system is just what Caffrey articulated. I learned that I shouldn't ask questions because I make people uncomfortable and sad when I do. I learned that what I think I need is apparently unimportant and upsetting to others, so there must be something wrong with me. And probably most important, I learned that my innermost feelings don't make sense in this world of adoption, so I better keep them to myself.

Unfortunately, it took me years and several bouts of depression to recognize that there was nothing wrong with my questions or my feelings -- the problem, rather, lies in the adoption system itself, a system that is still predicated. unbelievably, on amended and legally sealed birth records.

As Caffrey relates, it takes many adopted people a long time to recognize that their struggles may be adoption-related, because "simply put, they've been explicitly or implicitly told that being adopted did not impact them."

When I was growing up, no one ever talked about adoption at all. It wasn't supposed to be an issue, so it wasn't. I was always encouraged to "look forwards, not backwards." When I became a teenager, I started to experience periods of unexplained sadness, but I didn't attribute them to adoption -- I just concluded that I must be hyper-sensitive and not quite normal.

I "succeeded" in spite of these feelings. I married a man who I treasure just as much today as I did on our wedding day in 1971. We have two wonderful daughters -- they, their husbands, and their children are the light of our lives. I have had meaningful employment in the teaching and writing fields, and today, I enjoy watching three of my grandchildren two days a week.

     Genetic links -- this granddaughter looks like her paternal Lithuanian grandmother

But the fact that I am a content person today, blessed in many ways, does not mean that the institution of adoption is wonderful just the way it is. It took me far too long to become comfortable with myself and my own feelings because of a closed adoption system that denied the importance of genetic links.

I didn't reach out to my first mother until I was 52 years old and had already experienced a serious and life-threatening medical problem. Searching presented so many obstacles, and I was discouraged by legal and cultural barriers at every turn.  I would not have had the confidence to do it when I was younger.

I find it beyond belief that even today, people feel compelled to comment in response to adoption articles that "genes don't matter -- your 'real family' are the people who raise you.

Of course genes matter! If they don't, why does every physician I see ask me for a detailed family health history? Why does my younger daughter have the same skeletal and muscular structure as I do and unfortunately have a tendency, like me, to experience chronic back pain?

My younger daughter looks a lot like me; my older daughter resembles my husband and shares many of his character traits. Three of my grandchildren look just like their fathers; one looks like her paternal grandmother, and two look like their mothers. Only in the world of adoption, apparently, do "genes not matter."

    Genevieve, the granddaughter standing in front of me on the right, looks a lot like me!

I always feel compelled to add the information here -- since many people, unfortunately, equate criticism of adoption with an unhappy adoptive family -- that my adoptive parents were loving and responsible people.  No one during the era in which I was relinquished was well equipped to deal with adoption realities because the "professionals" then were simply misguided or just didn't know any better.

But today, there is no excuse for continuing the practice of amended and sealed birth certificates, and for denying full-grown adults access to their original birth certificates.  It is such an archaic and unjust system that it is amazing it continues to have its proponents.  Any institution that is predicated upon secrets and lies is not a healthy institution.  Some will argue that most adoptions are open today, so the problem has been solved.  But adult adoptees' original birth certificates remain sealed in state vaults throughout most of the United States.  Adopted adults continue to have to take all kinds of circuitous routes to obtain even the most basic information about themselves.

There are many reasons why more people don't speak out about the need for equal treatment under the law for adult adoptees.  As I explained, it took me over 50 years to develop the confidence to seek what I wanted, because of the cultural and legal barriers that remain a part of adoption in the United States today.   The laws that govern adoption need a major overhaul, and truth and justice are always values worth fighting for, especially in the complex and emotional world of adoption.


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Ask A Therapist: What Are the Greatest Struggles of Adoptees?

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An adoptee's perspective on love and why truth matters

Sealed Records are Wrong.  Period

Adoption and Magical Thinking

There is a very interesting discussion going on this week over at the New York Times website Motherlode in response to an article entitled Adoption, Destiny and Magical Thinking.   You can read the article and the subsequent comments here.  The centerpiece of the story is a study showing that many adoptive parents feel that fate, destiny, or the will of God has played a part in bringing their adopted children to them.

The story struck a nerve, as many of the comments show.  As a mature adoptee, I concur with many others in saying that entirely too much magical thinking occurs in the world of adoption.  When cold, real facts about adoption are not confronted, the adopted child is likely to suffer because she learns early  on that she must keep some of her deepest feelings to herself.  If her placement in her adoptive family was "meant to be," then how can she freely express her conflicted feelings or explain the desire she may feel to know and understand her original family?

The comments to the article are powerful, and I'll share some of them here.  An adoptive parent provides this eloquent perspective:

"When our cherished adopted children are young, we can hug them tightly every night and repeat the story of the magical journey that brought us together.  But no matter how much we love them, and no matter how steadfast our belief in our shared destiny remains, we need to prepare for a future in which magical thinking is no match for the reality of an independent child with critical thinking skills.

Adoptive parents are only one third of the adoption triad.  It may be best to consider the perspectives of the other people involved, as fate and destiny are in the eye of the beholder."

I love this writer's statement that "magical thinking is no match for the reality of an independent child with critical thinking skills."  Most adopted children do think about their original families once they are able to comprehend how most babies become a part of the family unit.  And as one adoptee writes, "Even children in very loving adoptive families must confront the fact that their birthmother decided, for whatever reason, to relinquish them, and no amount of "magical thinking" can wish that very real pain away."

Separating a child from her mother often causes intense pain for the relinquishing parent, as many original mothers have come forward to tell us.  And the fact that she has been relinquished often causes pain for the adoptee who allows herself to explore that part of her past.  Naturally, these mothers and surrendered children as adults often feel a need to reconcile their feelings about each other, and they should not be prevented from doing so by archaic state laws that obstruct so many and "protect" a tiny minority.

I cannot tell you how much I resent the law that tells me, as an adult, that I cannot explore my own genealogy.  I know my original mother's identity, and my original father has long been deceased.  The adoption agency knows his name but will not share it with me.  Who in the world is there left to hurt?  As some adoptees who are thwarted in searching for knowledge about their own history say, "I feel as if I were born in a file cabinet."  Talk about magical thinking!  Denial is forced upon many of us, whether denial is a natural coping mechanism for us or not.

What many adoptees find when they do discover their biological relatives is that the stories they were told don't quite fit with reality.  One commenter who was able to find her original family shares the story that the relinquishing parents had requested pictures and updates but had never received them.

"I do think of my adoptive parents as my parents, and I don't blame them for anything," she writes.  "But they and other adoptive parents would have benefited from a framework of thinking about adoption that was less adoptive parent-focused and more empathetic towards birthparents."

And as another adoptee says, "Bring in any child into your home with love and compassion, but do not strip them of their sense of self or identity."  The adopted child comes into a family with its own DNA and its own genetic predisposition.  As one commenter says, "She is not a Cabbage Patch doll."

For me, the problem with adoption is that for too long, it has been defined by adoption agencies, adoption attorneys and adoptive parents.  Many of those entities promote "magical thinking" in order to sell adoption.  The voices of the original parents and the adoptees themselves have, in many cases, been silenced.  I'll give you an example.  The adoption agency that won't reveal my original father's name to me and that has stood on the sidelines for the past 30 years as adoptees have lobbied for equal rights in New Jersey, does not have one adult adoptee on its board -- just attorneys, hospital executives and social work "experts."

The result of all of this is that many adoptees become angry -- and then determined to change the antiquated laws that certainly don't promote a child's best interest.  I want to make it very clear that I am not angry with my adoptive parents, whom I loved, nor am I angry with the original family I've been prevented from knowing.  I am angry with an unfair system that prevents full-grown adults from knowing their own genetic history for no good reason.

Not one legal document has ever been produced to show that relinquishing parents were promised confidentiality.  Presumably, adoptees always had the right to petition the courts for their records if they could show "good cause."  So how could any surrendering parent have ever expected that she would remain forever unknown to her offspring?  The opposition's arguments are ludicrous, especially given statistics that show the vast majority of relinquishing parents are open to contact.  It would seem that the adoption industry opposes giving full-grown adults the equal treatment under the law to secure their own birth certificates for one reason, so they can continue to promote the "magical thinking" that sells adoption.

I'll save the most potent comment about "magical thinking" for last:


 As an adoptee, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard and been told magical things such as "she loved you so much she gave you away" and "you were chosen." Spin, rationalization and magical thinking are quite the trends in adoption.

One could argue that engaging in magical thinking allows adoptive parents to avoid acknowledging the very real, and rather unethical, aspects of the adoption industry. If one believes it is fate or a higher being that brought a child to you, it is much easier to ignore such facts as 1) every single state government falsifies the legally-recognized birth certificates of adoptees so that that adoptive parents are listed as the natural parents; 2) the heavily promoted open adoption agreements are not legally enforceable in any state; and 3) adoption agencies are allowed to charge thousands upon thousands of dollars to transfer a human being from his or her natural family to other people. 

Something tells me that those checks written by adoptive parents while obtaining a child are not made out to "Fate and Destiny." Those checks are written out to a government or private agency in exchange for a human being. As such, the real danger with the magical thinking of adoptive parents is that adoptees are often expected to buy into it. As an adoptee, I can tell you that the healthiest thing for adoptees is to, at the very least, actually be allowed to live an existence grounded in reality--not magical thoughts and fake birth certificates.

Adoptive parents, I know you love your children, just as mine loved me.  For that reason, please join us in the state-by-state efforts to restore adult adoptees' access to their original birth certificates.  When adoptees are treated like second-class citizens, the entire institution of adoption is diminished.   Sealed records are ludicrous, insulting and unnecessary, and they do not serve your children well.

You might also like:

Sealed Records are Wrong.  Period.

The Media and Adoption Issues