Adoption 101

**This Page is Under Construction**

The college majors of the "helping professions" recognize the importance of including diversity in the curriculum making sure to include unique issues surrounding oppressed and minority communities.  Such knowledge is vital to a helping professional be able to respond to the needs of a client with compassion, empathy, and understanding as well as work to make social change to benefit oppressed groups and individuals.  This page was inspired by my post "Adoption as Diversity in the College Classroom," where I as a woman, an adoptee, and a student made one simple plea to educators to include adoptee and adoptee issues as an element of diversity in the curriculum whether it be just one slide on a PowerPoint presentation or just one paragraph in a book.

Why Adoption as Diversity?
There are 6 million adult adoptees in the United States (adoptee being defined as someone who has been issued a decree of adoption).  When you think about 6 million adoptees, all of our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters, you can see just how many people adoption directly impacts.  It is estimated that 60% of all people are somehow directly connected to adoption (source).  It seems unavoidable that a helping professional will come into contact with someone with an adoption connection where adoption may or may not be a relevant issue in that person's life or part of what they are seeking help for.

It is important to remember that being adopted is not an issue that is exclusive to children.  Individuals adopted as children grow up and adoption continues to impact then in unique ways throughout their lifetime (Brodzinsky, Marshall & Henig, 1993).  As an unprecedented number of children were surrendered to adoption in the post-war to pre-Roe v. Wade era and the adoptees and their parents are or will be entering into the aging population.  Helping professionals will be serving adoptees (and their family members) of all ages, races, ethnicity, religions, gender identities and in a variety of settings.  Basic knowledge of adoption history and issues can assist helping professionals in responding to their clients with compassion, empathy, and understanding as well as work to make social change to benefit those they serve.

Types of Adoption
The experiences of adult adoptees come from a number of different types of adoption.
Step-parent adoption (about 42%) (source)
Foster Care Adoption (about 15%) (source)
Inter-Country Adoption
Transracial Adoption
Domestic Adoption
International Adoption
Private/Infant Adoption
Kinship Adoption
Open Adoption
Closed Adoption
Customary/Tribal Adoption (definition/info)

Some Issues Surrounding Adult Adoptees:
  • Feelings of loss: while a family is gained the adoptee's first family was lost.  Many adoptees experience feelings of loss.
  • Lack of family medical history.
  • Lack of knowledge of or inaccurate information about race, ethnicity, and ancestry.
  • Silence, shame, feeling of adoption being an invisible issue.  Some adoptees grew up not feeling they could freely speak about being adopted or ask questions.
  • Reunion: to search or not to search?  Feelings of guilt or disloyalty.  Acceptance/rejection.
  • Stereotypes: the heavy association between adoption and abortion can be very demoralizing.  Adoption jokes and themes on TV can be inaccurate and demeaning.
  • Happy/well-adjusted Adoptee vs. Angry/poorly-adjusted Adoptee dichotomy: adoptees view various aspects of adoption and being adopted as both positive and negative for a variety of reasons.  In reality, there may be five or more phases of processing being adopted that are similar to the stages of grief (Penny, Borders, & Portnoy, 2007).  Adoption issues (or lack thereof) change throughout the lifespan (Brodzinsky, Schechter, Henig, 1993).
  • Discrimination: adult adoptees in 43 states are denied routine access to their own original birth certificates.  This not only treats adoptees differently than those who are not adopted but also causes some adoptees to encounter difficulty obtaining things like driver's licenses and passports.  For more information about Pennsylvania's laws: http://www.adopteerightspa.org/.
Rights and Reunion
  • Though separate issues, Rights and Reunion share history and some things in common.
  • The Adoptee Rights Movement began in the 1950's with adult adoptee and social worker, Jean Paton, who was one of the first adult adoptees to speak out about the shame and secrecy in adoption.
  • The Adoptee Rights Movement gained strength during the Civil Rights Movement.  Florence Fisher authored "The Search for Anna Fisher" (1973) and started the Adoptee Liberty Movement Association (a.k.a. ALMA Society).  BJ Lifton published her first book, a memoir, titled "Twice Born: Memoir of an Adopted Daughter" (1975).  This was still a period in history where adoptees just did not do what these two women did: adoption was to be kept in secrecy.  People generally did not openly discuss being adopted.
  • Adoptee Rights and Adoption Reform advocates have fought for their identity rights as well as right to equal access to original birth certificates.  However, they have also had to fight against the ideas at the time that adoptees who speak about adoption, who want to open their records, or want to reunite are unstable, mentally ill, and poorly adjusted.  Some people still hold these beliefs about adoptees today.
  • The result of these various movements regarding Adoption Reform, Adoptee Rights, and identity rights was legislation in 7 states that allow adoptees equal access to their original birth certificates, several more states that make access conditional with limited restrictions, the Indian Child Welfare Act, Article 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), Australia's open records laws and now senate inquiry into past adoption practices, and other various laws in other countries giving identity rights to adoptees and donor conceived persons.
  • National organizations today are the American Adoption Congress, Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Coalition, and the Green Ribbon Campaign for Open Records.  There are numerous state-based organizations across the United States.
  • Some organizations who support Adoptee Rights are the Child Welfare League of America, Spence-Chapin, the North American Council of Adoptable Children, the British Association of Adoption and Fostering, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and the PA Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
  • Additional issues: due to lack of access to an original birth certificate, many adoptees have difficulty getting driver's licenses and passports.
  • Reunion: Some resources for searching are the International Soundex Reunion Registry and Adoption.com Reunion Registry.
  • Records: Laws for birth certificate and records access differ froms state to state.  Equal access states are Kansas, Alaska, Alabama, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Maine.  Laws in all states can be found here.
  • Support:  Concerned United Birthparents and the American Adoption Congress are good resources to find support groups for adoptees, original parents, and adoptive parents in your area.
  • Support:  Some adult adoptees do not find out until later in life that they are adopted, whether it be when they get their passport renewal denied or their adoptive parents die and they find records pertaining to their adoption.  http://www.latediscovery.org/ is a support source for Late Discovery Adoptees (LDAs).
Recommended Reading for Issues Surrounding Adult Adoptees:
  • Brodzinsky, D. (1993). Being adopted : the lifelong search for self. New York: Anchor Books.
  • Lifton, B. (1994). Journey of the adopted self : a quest for wholeness. New York, NY. BasicBooks.
  • Lifton, B. (2009). Lost & found : the adoption experience. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Penny, J., Borders, L., & Portnoy, F. (2007). Reconstruction of adoption issues: delineation of five phases among adult adoptees. Journal of Counseling & Development, 85(1), 30-41
  • Russell, M. (1996). Adoption wisdom : a guide to the issues and feelings of adoption. Santa Monica, Calif: Broken Branch Productions.
  • Verrier, N. (1993). The primal wound : understanding the adopted child. Baltimore: Gateway Press.
  • Verrier, N. (2003). Coming home to self : the adopted child grows up. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press.
  • Passmore, N. L., Feeney, J. A., Peterson, C. C., & Shimmaki, K. (2006). Depression, Emotional Arousability, and Perceptions of Parenting in Adult Adoptees and Non-Adoptees. Adoption Quarterly, 9(2/3), 23-35. doi:10.1300/il 45v9n02̱02
  • Childwelfare.gov "Impact of Adoption on Adopted Persons"
Recommended Reading for Information on Adoptee Rights:
  • Sorosky, A., Baran, A., Pannor, R. (2008). The adoption triangle: Sealed or open records and how they affect adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents.  Triadoption Publications
  • Wegar, K. (1997). Adoption, identity, and kinship : the debate over sealed birth records. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
  • Carp, E. (2000). Family matters : secrecy and disclosure in the history of adoption. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
  • Carp, E. (2001). Sealed adoption records in historical perspective. Adoption Quarterly, 5(2), 59-62
  • Carp, E. (2007). Does Opening Adoption Records Have an Adverse Social Impact? Some Lessons from the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia, 1953-2007. Adoption Quarterly, 10(3/4), 29-52.
  • Carp, E. (2002). Adoption, Blood Kinship, Stigma, and the Adoption Reform Movement: A Historical Perspective. (p. 433). Wiley-Blackwell
  • Feast, J., & Howe, D. (2004). Open adoption records, the human rights of adopted people, and discrimination: the case of Odièvre v France 2003. European Journal of Social Work, 7(1), 25-42. doi:10.1080/136919145042000217384.
  • Rhodes, J., Barfield, W., Kohn, M., Hedberg, K., & Schoendorf, K. (2002). Releasing Pre-Adoption Birth Records: A Survey of Oregon Adoptees. Public Health Reports, 117(5), 463.
  • Samuels, E. (2004). Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives. Edited by E. Wayne Carp. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35(1), 155-156.Samuels, E. (2001). The idea of adoption: an inquiry into the history of adult adoptee access to birth records.  Newark, NJ: Rutgers Law Review
  • http://www.bastards.org/bq/bq14/trends.html
  • http://www.declassifiedadoptee.com/2010/04/amandas-guide-to-introducingdefending.html
Documentaries/Videos:
Adoption & Illegitimacy in History
I believe it is important for helping professionals to have an understanding of adoption's history in order to understand their client's experiences as well as be able to identify ethical issues in the present from ethical issues they've learned of in the past.  As adoption has been thought to be a solution to illegitimacy, the history of the treatment of "illegitimate" individuals is pertinent to include with adoption history.
  • A long history of unequal status for individuals born to unmarried mothers exists.
  • Babies born to unwed mothers in maternity homes have been used in drug trials without their mother's consent (source).
  • The Orphan Trains, where children were put on trains to be auctioned off as workers, were the beginning of the United States foster care system.
  • Children in U.S. orphanages were once used as "Practice Babies" in home economics classes (source).
Recommended Reading:
  • Carp, E. W. (2004). Adoption in america : historical perspectives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Small, J. (2006). The adoption mystique : a hard-hitting expose of the powerful negative social stigma that permeates child adoption in the United States. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.
  • Witte, J. (2009). The sins of the fathers : the law and theology of illegitimacy reconsidered. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press.
Women's Rights/History
  • Unmarried women who became pregnant were often given mental health diagnoses.
  • Adoption was seen as a redemptive act.  By surrendering to adoption a mother could attempt to "fix" her "mistake" and was valued for what she could contribute to a married couple who wanted a child.
  • Expectant mothers who were not married were often "banished" to maternity homes.  There was a great deal of shame as unwed motherhood was seen as an assault to the institution of family where a woman's sexuality and childbearing was deemed acceptable only within legal subordination to a man (marriage).
  • Unmarried mothers were often threatened with homelessness, the inability to return to their jobs, a lack of resources to parent, and scorn from society and their families if they did not surrender to adoption.  Many mothers were pressured to sign surrender documents shortly after birth or during birth, while under the influence of medication, without knowledge of their rights, or while under duress.
  • While the coercion and pressure faced by unwed mothers during this time period was in practice in multiple countries across the globe, Western Australia is the only nation to issue an official apology to the mothers and adoptees of this era (source/information).
  • African American unmarried mothers were often not permitted to chose adoption or even gain entrance into maternity homes for pre-natal care.  White unmarried mothers were seen as able to be redeemed through adoption while black unmarried mothers were labeled as a financial burden on society.
  • It is unknown how many mothers surrendered babies for adoption between 1945 and 1973.  Some authors give conservative percentages (e.g. 19%, source).  Women's historian, Ricki Solinger, states 70% of white, unmarried mothers surrendered (Solinger, 2000); some advocates for Mother's Rights will say that Solinger's estimate is conservative.  It is believed that less than 2% of unmarried, white mothers surrender to adoption each year, currently (source).
  • Nearly 1 and a half million babies were surrendered for adoption (Fessler, 2007) between 1945-1973.  It is estimated that in 2003, 14,000 babies were surrendered for adoption (source).
 Recommended Reading for Adoption/Women's History:
  • Solinger, R. (2000). Wake up little susie: single pregnancy and race in the decades before roe v. wade. (2nd ed., p. 344). Psychology Press
  • Fessler, A. (2007). The girls who went away: the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before roe v. wade. Penguin.
  • Andrews, I. (2010). Secondary Infertility and Birth Mothers. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 30(1), 80-93. doi:10.1080/07351690903200184
  • Higgins, D. (2011). Unfit mothers … unjust practices? Key issues from Australian research on the impact of past adoption practices. Family Matters, (87), 56-67
Documentaries/Videos:
First Nation's History
  • The Indian boarding schools were just one attempt at forcing the First Nations tribes to assimilate into white culture.  The Indian Adoption Projects, initially supported by the Child Welfare League of America, forcibly removed First Nations children from their families and placed them in white adoptive families.
  • Despite the Indian Child Welfare Acts' clear requirements that children are to be kept within their tribes and that tribal leaders should have a say in adoptions, hundreds of children are removed off of reservations and into foster care each year and placed in White/non-First Nations foster and adoptive homes.
Recommended Reading:
Issues of Race:
  • Reunion: language barriers and cultural differences between the adoptee and their family of origin.
  • Lack of information: adoptees may have difficulty obtaining information about their identity and life pre-adoption.
  • Amending and sealing: cultural information for children of color may be lost or even be purposely changed to state the race/ethnicity of the adoptive parents.
  • Transracial Adoption & Racism:  possible issues relating to being raised with parents of a different race, gaining skills to deal with racism, and maintaining a positive self-image.
  • Acceptance:  issues not knowing the customs or language of one's multicultural group of origin.
  • Immigration: over 5,000 children are in the U.S. foster care system whose parents have been detained or deported.
  • Intercountry Adoption & Immigration: some internationally-adopted adult adoptees who grew up in the U.S. and identify as American and with American culture, whose parents did not follow the appropriate steps to have them naturalized as legal citizens, have been deported to their birth countries.
  • Race/Gender/Age:  Desireability for adoption and cost of the adoption directly relates to age of the child, gender, and color of their skin.
Recommended Reading on Adoption and Issues of Race:
  • "Reuniting" (Modderman) an adult adoptee discusses race, appearance, culture, and reunion with her Korean mother.
  • "Adopted" (Lee)
  • "I Love my Hair" and "Change the World" Sesame Street clips by a White adoptive father inspired by his daughter.
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