This week I read "The Adoption Triangle: the Effects of the Sealed Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Adoptive Parents," authored by Arthur D. Sorosky, M.D., Annette Baran, M.S.W. and Reuben Pannor, M.S.W. and published in 1978 (I think there's a more recent edition that I don't have). The Adoptee Rights and Adoption Reform community recently lost Baran almost a year ago. Baran was a psychotherapist. Sorosky is a child psychiatrist and professor. Pannor was the director of social work and research at the Vista Del Mar Child Care Service in Los Angeles, at the time. I don't have any more recent information on Sorosky or Pannor.
It is a study, a look at history and adoption practice, an examination of the closed records and secrecy in adoption, and it yields the conclusion that secrecy is the cause of many of the problems in adoption. The authors maintain that secrecy is not helpful to the adoptee, the first parents, or the adoptive parents. It gives excellent insight into the practice of adoption. It covers both the right of the Adult Adoptee to receive their Original Birth Certificate as well as points out how information-sharing in adoption, such as from the adoption record itself, had been inadequate.
As it covers this issue from the perspective of the first parents, adoptive parents, and Adult Adoptee themselves, I will quote a bit from each perspective.
First Parents
It was at this time that the "sealed record controversy" was being discussed as violating the privacy and promises made to both the first parents and the adoptive parents. Yet, Sorosky et. al. point out on page 50 that "a number of studies have explored the psychological factors involved in illegitimate pregnancies and the relinquishment process, no follow-up studies of birth parents exist." They point out how agencies have been speaking for the mothers, saying they want to be left alone and point out that their study has shown them:
"What is becoming increasingly obvious to us is the fact that everyone else has spoken for and about the birth parents. Giving them an opportunity to express their own feelings and needs was a primary goal for this study.....The response was enormous and the revelations affected our attitudes profoundly. We received hundreds of letters from birth parents of all ages. They clearly welcomed and opportunity to tell their stories and express their feelings."
The study covered a lot of feedback from first parents, including the desire of the overwhelming majority to update their adoption files, that the adoptee be able to have their information, and that the first parents desired reunion.
Adoptive Parents
What is excellent to gain from this book is the history of the sealed records argument. Indeed, while not heard about very much today, an enormous argument in the past has been that sealed records violated the privacy of and promises made to adoptive parents. Some adoptive parents in the study were open to their sons and daughters having information. Some were angry with the study, claiming anonymity was explicitly promised and that they did not want their sons and daughters reuniting. The notion that an adoptee's access to their information pre-adoption would threaten the adoptive bond was prevalent in their concerns. Sorosky et. al. point out how thus far agencies have decided what to tell adoptive parents about their sons and daughters, based on what the agency thought was best for the adoptive parents to know. They discuss how this selective information sharing, sealed records and secrecy has not benefited the adoptive parents:
"In withholding and distorting truth, adoption agencies, have become watchmen and censors of truth. The results have been negative, largely because the information given by adoption agencies was recognized by the adoptive parents as shadowy and unreal and left questions and doubts of its authenticity. The withheld data, rather than protecting the adoptive parents, often left them with feelings that the unknown information concealed 'awful truths' which could grow and fester into potential problems" (Sorosky et. al., 1978, p. 85).
Adult Adoptees
The section in the book on adoptees begin in childhood and how children have been told of and about their adoption, asserting that lack of information has been detrimental in adequately answering the questions adoptees have. Thus has resulted in a lot of myth (and in their description of some of the myths, I would then point out that they lead to many of the adoption paradoxes I've recently discussed). The book talks about the psychological perspectives of adoptees going through the stages of development without the same information about themselves that the non-adopted have about themselves.
The authors write in the chapter about Adult Adoptees:
"The adult stage of an adoptee's life has not previously been studied in depth. Adoption agencies have no made an effort to maintain contact with them and the mental health profession has minimized the role that adoption plays after the adoptee has grown up and left home" (Sorosky et. al.., 1978, p. 120).
My own interjection here, imagine how it feels like to have never been asked and to now be told that your adoption was "too long ago" for your opinion to matter any more anyway (OK, off my soapbox). They go on to say that their study has brought them into contact with thousands of Adult Adoptees to provide them with insight. Quoting Jean Paton, who was an Adult Adoptee, Social Worker, and is known as the Mother of Adoption Reform on having the court system decide if she should have information about herself pre-adoption:
Concluding...."The law still refers to me as a child when they refer to 'in the interests of the child.' I resent that because in my opinion, I am twenty-one years old and I feel I am quite old enough, mature, and responsible enough to be making my own decisions" (Sorosky et. al., 1978, p. 120).
I want to point out that this book largely makes a case for open adoption and why the secrecy in law and in practice should stop. It also provides historical perspective on why those from adoptions past should have the right to receive their Original Birth Certificates restored. Despite the book being 33 years old, I think it is an important read today. It is vital to see what the arguments and issues have been in the past so that we can accurately work for change in the present and future (and realize things aren't all that much different now).
Photo credit: jscreationzs
Thank you for sharing this resource.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that 30+ years on, there is still so much speaking for nparents and adoptees. The industry doesn't allow for dissenting points of view, especially those that say nparents don't need protecting from--and might actually want to be in contact with--the children they placed. Or that adult adoptees really are the best people to speak about and to our experiences. While a multiplicity of experiences certainly exist, those of us who register pain and sadness are still silenced, more often than not, by those who know someone who was adopted who is "just fine." As if other points of view cannot exist!