Adoption Spin

I see private U.S. adoption as a legalized form of child trafficking with a better PR campaign. Of course, this is not politically correct to say out loud.  And it can garner you a lot of hate on the internet.  Saying it can make you wildly unpopular.  I still think it’s true.

“It was a big disappointment to the family when you were adopted” my grandmother non-chalantly said to me while sitting side-by-side on the couch.  I glanced up from my Nancy Drew mystery, frowned quizzically at her, and went back to reading. I never felt unwanted by my adoptive parents, so her words did not land on my heart.  Grandma had hell to pay later when both my parents lit into her.  How dare she point out the obvious?  She wanted a blood grandchild and these two stand-ins weren’t cutting it.

Adoption is beautiful.  A better life.  A selfless act. While the adoptive parent is given public admiration, the adopted child is frozen in time.  Their bodies grow, yet their voices become dimmer.  Once an adopted person reaches adulthood, it’s as if the whole world has their fingers in their ears saying, “La La La . . .I can’t hear you!”

In the media and in certain Christian circles, the only acceptable adoption narrative is the party line: adoption is to be celebrated and encouraged.  Some people even believe that adoption has the power to magically abolish abortion.  It’s as if the whole world is saying, “Please don’t ruin the fantasy for us!” 

Even other adoptees can’t agree on adoption’s reputation. For every three adoptees who had wonderful parents, there is that fourth one who wants to ruin the party for everybody else because of their “bad experience”.  Because they are “bitter” and “angry” and “can’t move on with their lives.” 

Truth is the enemy of adoption’s PR campaign.

Adoption didn’t always have such a pristine reputation.  Many of us were just seen as illegitimate. Being illegitimate meant basically the same thing as being a bastard.  Both terms were derogatory and meant your parents were not married to each other.  Sometimes these words were stamped on official documents.

In my grandmother’s time, it was shameful to “have to adopt” because it meant you couldn’t get pregnant and have your own biological child.  Some adoptive mothers went to the trouble of faking a pregnancy to family and friends.  It was common to be hush-hush over something seen as scandalous, such as a teen pregnancy or proof of sex before marriage. Back in the 1960’s people did not air their dirty laundry.

Many children were not told they were adopted or other important details about their families to ensure their silence. I asked my mom recently why she didn’t tell me something pretty significant in my childhood.  Her response?

“You would have blabbed it all over!”

As soon as I came out of the womb, I was seen as a problem, an inconvenience to my original family. My mother never held me. In fact, I have no idea who did.  I was adopted through a secular private agency that served the middle-class white community.  The only form of adoption at that time was closed, meaning the parents were not aware of each other’s identity and would have no contact.  This was seen as being a good thing – wiping the slate clean.

A large majority of adoptions today are open. This does not mean that children have contact with their birth families – just that adoptions today are more transparent. Our records are still being sealed, but thankfully with the rise of genetic genealogy, secrets about identity are unsustainable. 

In addition to the rainbows and unicorns flowing from the media, you will occasionally hear of a story about an adoptee who was murdered at the hands of their adoptive parents.  Statistics show that children being raised in the home of a non-biological male puts them at greater risk for abuse.  Adopted people are more likely to need mental health treatment and often have problems with addiction.  Many have depression and anxiety and suicidal ideation.  Adoptees are four times more likely to attempt and complete suicide than the non-adopted population.  

If you look behind the glitz and glamour, you will see adoption’s underbelly.  Children can swiftly lose their birthrights and sadly, it is often due to the lack of financial resources of their parents.  Adoption law as it is practiced in the United States allows parents to relinquish their rights by the signing of one document. Adoption finalization severs legal and cultural ties to the family of origin, including those of inheritance, religion and surname.  And there is no shortage of attorneys and adoption agencies who use unethical practices to coerce women to relinquish their babies.

A child who is removed from its family of origin is thrown into fight or flight. Especially when relinquished before memory takes hold, a child’s mind frantically tries to make sense of something they are not developmentally prepared to process:  a loss of self.  Attachment is put at risk as well as potential for complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depending on genetic propensities and their family’s ability to attune to their needs.  When the system fails them, children can suffer compound traumas which lead to poor outcomes for their future health. (See ACES for more information).

Some adoptees have been outright stolen from their countries of origin through the creation of “paper orphans” – a way for poverty-stricken countries to sell children who have an intact biological family.  The family is tricked into believing their child is coming back to them after they are educated abroad.

Many children get abused secondarily by the system.  It is an impossible task to perfectly oversee foster parents, relatives, and adoptive parents who promise to give a child a safe and permanent home.  Some adoptees get rehomed after their first set of adoptive parents realize that they are not committed to parenting a traumatized child to adulthood.  These children are then advertised in adoptive parent circles.

I have always been deeply uncomfortable with pictures of children available for adoption being posted publicly. And adoption picnics are just weird to me. These picnics are a social event held by child welfare agencies allowing prospective adoptive parents to check out a child they may be interested in adopting.  These practices and the reference, “Gotcha Day” are objectifying to a child.

Once relinquished, either by choice or by force from the parents who created them, a child is left metaphorically speaking, floating through the void, without tether until gravity pulls them back down to earth with a permanent home.   Some adoptees will experience a double whammy when the adoption lottery provides them with unloving parents.  But for others, fate smiles on the child and he is given the gift of trust, love, and safety. This is the adoption the masses cheer for, I along with them.   When done well, adoption can improve the lives of children. 

Being placed for adoption is no indication of whether a child is good or bad.  Yet many adopted people believe they are bad, unlovable, and a mistake.  They believe the initial rejection by their birth families was a reflection on them as a human being.  For me, this was not a conscience belief, it was akin to looking daily into a broken mirror.  The pain was denied and compartmentalized.  In the words of Brene Brown, we can spend our lives hustling for our worthiness. 

Losing one’s parents at the beginning of life is deeply fascinating to the general public and it is portrayed in very black and white ways.  In orphan mythology, we become God-like, and possess magical powers.  Or like “the bad seed,” we possess evil inside of us.  Some of us become chameleon-like, people pleasers.  Others are independent and rebellious.  Some of us deny ever caring about what happened in our families of origin.  Others of us knew from a very young age that we would search.  What we all have in common is that something traumatic happened to us at the beginning of our lives. This trauma has been spun into the myth of a better life and a collective head-in-sand reaction, leaving adult adoptees to fend for themselves.