Adoption study…

I have had a hard time writing this and to me it comes across as choppy but it is now the second day and it still isn’t right - it is what it is…

Adoption is supposed to be in the best interests of the child, when the child cannot stay in their family for whatever reason.  Yet the domestic infant adoption segment of adoption does not seem to focus on family preservation first and adoption if that cannot happen, rather it focuses on people wishing to be parents and finding babies for those individuals.  If adoptees through domestic infant adoption have more problems than non-adopted have as the study below indicates, there needs to be a discussion on fundamental changes to the current practices – in the best interests of the child. 

What would happen though if the domestic infant adoption industry fully informed expectant mothers on the challenges and realities for the child?  What would happen if a study like this one The Mental Health of US Adolescents Adopted in Infancy was talked about honestly and thoroughly in churches, and at adoption agencies, to prospective adoptive parents (would they proceed), and specifically with expectant mothers (would they still choose adoption)? 

Take the time to read the actual study because it shows so much more than what I have highlighted which is just the conclusion and parts of the discussion.

Conclusions: Moderate mean differences in quantitative indicators of mental health can lead to substantial differences in disorder prevalence. Although most adopted adolescents are psychologically healthy, they may be at elevated risk for some externalizing disorders, especially among those domestically placed.

[...] Despite the popularity of adoption, there is a persistent concern that adopted children may be at heightened risk for mental health or adjustment problems.  Previous research has shown that adopted children with a history of prenatal substance exposure relatively late in their adoptive homes are at heightened risk of social, intellectual, and emotional problems. Nevertheless, existing research has not resolved the extent to which those adoptees with a good preplacement history and an early age at placement are at increased risk for clinically relevant mental health problems.

This study focused on adolescents (age 11 to 21) that compares a) non-adopted, b) international adoptees (Korea), and c) domestic infant adoptees, and took the combined results from three different perspectives: teacher, parent, and child.  A study that shows the domestic infant adoptees have statistically significant concerns regarding mental health challenges.  It is a start at an honest conversation, despite my reservations about adoption studies, it appears to be one that wasn’t designed to show everything is fine and dandy.  Granted it only shows us a snap-shot view of one time period of life when the reality is that being adopted is for life, and at different stages there are different challenges and feelings to face.

There are multiple implications of our results. First, most individuals adopted as infants are well-adjusted and psychologically healthy. Nevertheless, there exists a subset of adoptees who may be at increased risk for externalizing problems and disorders. The odds of being diagnosed as having ADHD and ODD were approximately twice as high in adoptees compared with nonadoptees. This excess of clinically meaningful behavioral problems in adopted adolescents has significance for researchers who examine the effect adoption has on individual functioning, for adoption agencies and their workers who counsel and advise members of the adoption triad, and for physicians who are dealing with an overrepresentation of adoptees in their clinical practices.

To address the first statement – you can be well-adjusted and psychologically healthy and still have deep feelings and challenges in regards to how adoption impacts you in ways non-adopted will never have.  That you don’t need to have ever been diagnosed as having one of more of the disorders listed, to have felt the deep loss that comes with adoption.

The study then proposes several of the prevailing excuses regarding why adoptees are over-represented including the adoptive parent is more aware, or the genetic make up of the birth family that may make up part of the reason, but of course that cannot be the only two reasons – they avoided the elephant in the room called adoption.  The study/discussion fails to address the fundamental differences between the non-adopted and the adopted as alluded to in the paragraph above.  We were not kept, instead separated at birth from our mothers, and surrendered which then can create problems of self-worth and identity issues.  We grew up in a home where our genetic structure and all that it entails is different, and there is no roadmap to make us feel normal or like all the others.  There is also, although seldom talked about, the fact that for many, we are the replacement children our parents could not have which for some parents does cause problems in expectations and parenting.  That is what the discussion should have incorporated – the fact that everything related to being adopted can/could also be one of, if not a primary cause of the statistically relevant over-representation. 

What wasn’t covered in-depth in the study was the internalizing done by an adoptee.  To me that is perhaps the most important factor of all because to act out, you must have first internalized, and if you never acted out so others noticed, then you have no concerns apparently - of course who am I to say this as a non-professional.

We need to have hard discussions on what direction society should be taking in regards to domestic infant adoption, and being honest that what adult adoptees are saying is real and needs to be taken seriously, instead of brushed off as adoption is different now than when we were adopted.  Apparently it isn’t, and the conversation about family preservation being the first line of defense, rather than adoption should be happening, but in order to do that the profit and the desires of the prospective adoptive parents need to take a back seat. 

The final question is why is this the first time I have seen this study talked about within the adoption community when it is already four years old?  I don’t think I missed it, and if it wasn’t talked about, what does that say about the industry as a whole regarding transparency, integrity, and honesty.  I did find the study talked about in adoption circles in Quebec, France, even Japan, the Washington Post, CNN, and other news outlets, but no US adoption agencies or the NCFA came up in my search. 

Below is the link to the Washington Post article about this study back in 2008, and I wanted to note that both in the study and the article they speak to the 120,000 adoptions each year, but fail to break down that the domestic infant adoption portion is somewhere between 10,000 – 20,000 – a very small portion.

 Adolescence Can Sting Adopted Kids

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News from Ireland that is making the rounds isn’t what it seems to be…

There is only one authority in Ireland who can approve international adoptions and where those adoptions take place.  That is the “Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI)“. Below is their most recent notice with any real information, in the previous notice they advised against signing any new agreements in Florida (that was dated Sep 13, 2011) because they wouldn’t get the consideration or approval needed for “Article 17″.

NOTICE- FLORIDA- 20 OCTOBER 2011 (excerpt scroll down linked page to get to this notice)

In this regard, there are a number of critical and crucial aspects of routine adoption practice and procedure within the State of Florida which need to be examined by the Adoption Authority. It is noteworthy that these aspects appear to be common to virtually all inter-country adoptions by Irish adopters from that jurisdiction.

Following a request to the US Central Authority a delegation from the Adoption Authority will be travelling to the United States at the earliest possible date to meet with the Florida authorities and with the US State Department in Washington.

The matters in question are briefly:-

1. Birth mother consents – the circumstances around and situations within which, and the legal parameters governing, the securing of legal consent from natural birth mothers to the adoption.

2. ‘Subsidiarity’- an underlying tenet of best international practice within inter-country adoption holds that the option of intercountry adoption should be examined only after all other precedent options for the suitable care of the child within his/her country of birth have been examined and evaluated e.g. foster care with relatives or with strangers, domestic adoption by relatives or strangers in the country of origin etc.

3. Monetary consideration – it is a core tenet of Irish law and practice, and of Hague, that only reasonable levels of professional legal fees etc and provision of justifiable levels of reimbursement of expenses may be permitted.

4. Matching – the concept of professionally supervised and mediated matching is a core, fundamental and essential aspect of the Hague Convention. This requires that each child available for adoption should be carefully matched by qualified social care professionals with a suitable prospective adoptive parent(s) through the joint collaboration of the two ‘National Central Authorities’ of the respective ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ countries, or in the alternative, through the joint collaboration of two registered and accredited adoption mediation agencies, one in each of the respective countries, either working with each other directly or through the medium of the NCAs.

5. Birth father notification and consultation.

This was the last notice that on the “Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI)“ site other than we are still working on it type notices, i.e. no outcome of the trip or whether or not families from Ireland could adopt from Florida.

In November 2011 this article came out in the Irish Examiner: Adoption practises – Children are not sale items which covers the concerns the “Adoption Authority Ireland (AAI)“ has in the above notice regarding Florida.

This NEW article making the rounds from the Irish Herald: Couples flock to Florida in adoption rush appears to just be more a less just fluff designed to look official.  Look closely – bolding mine…

The International Adoption Association (IAA) said the proven track record of “transparent and ethical” processes in Florida has made the state a popular choice for couples.

A spokeswoman said: “There are many reasons for this but primarily because other families have effected legal and transparent adoptions from this state and the children are very young when placed for adoption.”

It is easier to travel back and forth to Florida from Ireland than the west coast of the US, she pointed out.

There is also an agency in the state which works with Irish parents and in which the applicants have confidence.

The “International Adoption Association (IAA)” sounds so official doesn’t it  -  it’s JUST a support group kind of similar to JCICS or NFCA…just that – nothing more – read who they are here.  Of course they are going to say that the adoptions have a proven track record and transparent etc…

The “Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI)“  has not changed its position since the September 13, 2011 Notice (see link at top of post) that stopped any new agreements by PAPs with either agency or birth parents in Florida. 

2. All other prospective adoptive parents who propose to adopt from Florida should not enter into any arrangements with adoption agencies or individual birth families until further advice has been provided by the Authority. Prospective adoptive parents who proceed after the posting of this notice will not have an application for an Article 17 considered until the Authority has clarified the matter further.  

Nor has the AAI publicly stated that they feel any different from the notice published on their site in October 2011 in regards to concerns that Florida may not meet Hague requirements (birth parent relinquishment time line, first option is home or care within country first, expenses, fees, birth father notice and consultation) – if they had, it would be on the government site “Adoption Authority Ireland (AAI)“.

Remember that Ireland exported babies to the US during the BSE and the US has been a sending and receiving country for a long time although most seem to go to Canada.

 

Apparently it is fine to have things both ways if it suits your purpose…

The Catholic Church has, to put is nicely, a checkered past in multiple countries when it comes to adoption.  They participated in the Baby Scoop Era (a grand-scale social experiment if there ever was one, that they have apologised for in Australia), The Orphan Trains (another social experiment) with both experiments having mixed results for the children involved, let alone the mothers and fathers.  Yet it seems that now they are using the “we can’t use children as a social experiment” card, which would be wonderful if they came to that conclusion solely for the child’s sake, and increased their efforts at family preservation.  Sadly, that isn’t the case, it is only because they are against a specific group of individuals being parents. 

Archbishop Gomez has an article here where he speaks to Gay or Lesbian adoption as a social experiment and how the children will bear the consequences…

“In every society in every age, marriage and family have always been about children. Because our children are our society’s future,” the Los Angeles archbishop wrote in his May 18 column for the archdiocesan newspaper The Tidings.

“Until just a generation ago, American institutions — schools, media, industry and government — all agreed. Our policies and values encouraged strong marriages and supported parents in their efforts to raise healthy, virtuous children,” he said, lamenting that this has changed.

Many modern debates, Archbishop Gomez observed, are “focused only on adults and their desires for relationships.”

The child-centered culture of the past has no been replaced with “a radical individualism that defines sexual freedom as the source of real happiness,” he said.

“We can’t govern our society on the basis of our self-centered wants. As adults and as citizens, we have a moral obligation to look beyond ourselves. To think about the common good of society. To think about future generations.”

In fact, it is children who will be the subjects of “social experiments” and will bear the consequences of new definitions for marriage, parents and family, Archbishop Gomez noted.

Notice how he states that it can’t be about the parents wanting to be parents and how that is wrong.  Yet his colleague, Rev. Larry Snyder, President of Catholic Charities USA, just last month used that as one of his main rebuttal points to the Dan Rather Reports – Adopted or Abducted.

“We must not lose track of the tens of thousands of adoptive parents who will be forever grateful to birth parents for the sacrifices they make to ensure that their children’s lives will be filled with the love and opportunity they may otherwise not have received.”

Getting back to the first article by Archbishop Gomez further down he states:

But children have the right to grow up with a mother and a father and a right “to be born in a family founded on marriage,” he wrote, explaining that this helps them discover their true identity and dignity and allows them to “learn in love the meaning of truth, beauty and goodness.”

Yet adoptees don’t qualify for that same right of truth, and must not need to discover their true identity and dignity, because Catholic Charities actively fights legislation that would allow adult adoptees to receive their original birth certificate.

In my opinion, using of whatever convenient excuse you can come up with to justify your position (while also holding an opposite position), is just plain wrong.

 

April 2, 2012…

A day I have looked forward to since 2005 when I learned my father’s name and after I found out he did not want contact.  A date when I could start exploring my family history by learning the names of my paternal grandparents in the 1940 census.  The starting point I needed to start my final family tree.

The day I was counting down to in this post.

Well, that day has come and gone.  That day I logged on and was disappointed.  The next days and the following week were disappointing too.  Seven weeks later I am still disappointed.  The hype leading up to it and after as a paid subscriber of ancestry.com was intense.  The lack of specifics that the census would be released but not searchable, must have been hidden deep in the advertising because I did not see it.  The ongoing lack of any projections on when states would be searchable is not visible to me on the site.  To date they have the following states - NV, DE, DC, ME searchable – seven weeks later this is all they have done.  Any other state you need to at least know the district and then must scan through each page individually from that district.  I don’t know the state, let alone the district.  I have an idea of which state they may have lived in, but other than an idea I have zero information except my father’s name and age at the time of the census.  My grandparents could have lived in any state for all I know.  That’s a lot of districts in a lot of states to search each page from the 1940 census.  What good is having that subscription if it does nothing for me? 

It is excruciatingly painful to be so close and yet so far…after waiting so long.

It makes me angry that I still don’t know the other 50% of who I am…

I’m getting downright snarky…I just want to know and really don’t think it is too much to ask to know when they expect to have each state, by state, indexed and searchable.  Is that really so much to ask?

 

Choosing to use adult adoptee advice when it suits you…

Over the years I have watched parents pull out the “adult adoptees said” card when trying to justify their decision. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. The current discussion I have been reading and thought it would make a good post, is on whether or not the parents should search and exactly what the means.  The discussion seems to hinge on the fact that adult adoptees have told them it is up to the adult adoptee to do the search.

Up front, I do want to say the adult adoptee needs to be the one who does the actual journey of the search, but like any topic, there are so many shades of grey and questions that must be considered before you can apply it to your situation.

Part of the confusion I see is what the statement actually includes or means.  That seems to cause a lot of confusion, with some taking it literally in that the adult adoptee needs to start from square one, with not one iota of additional information, other than what the parent was given at the time of adoption (which can really be nothing).  I read the statement quite different in that if the adoptee has grown up in a closed adoption, when they become adults, it has to be their choice and their journey, to take, or not. One would hope that up to the point of becoming an adult, the child has been told and shown that their parents have dealt with any fears, and are willing to back their child in either choice, and be there if they are invited.

As far as any advice given, the parents need to dig down into what that advice means to the adult adoptee giving it. I would encourage them to open the dialogue and delve into understanding the parameters, what it includes, or excludes. Explore the different layers by understanding the intent. Seldom is a single statement of advice a good fit for all situation’s or interpretations because it is lacking in context and content. It would be like someone telling you to turn on Broadway to get where you are going, when you have to get to Broadway from the other side of the country. The advice of any single statement can’t be nicely packaged as either/or, and here is the line in the sand where the parent over steps.

Below are just some different thoughts that are intended to show how many layers there to that single statement of advice that adult adoptees are the ones to search, for parents to consider from my standpoint. These only scratch the surface. Each situation is different.

In either domestic or international adoption if you search with the intent to open the adoption when the child is young, and you have the intention after deep consideration to make the openness ongoing – then that is pretty cut and dried – you are the parent. The adult adoptee choice to search is not relevant to the conversation.

In international adoption if you search with the intent of compiling all the information you possibly can before the trail goes cold, so that if/when the day comes that your child wishes to go on that journey, then all you have done is what many parents do at the time of the adoption if it is domestic – they keep the information to give to their child when they become adults, because it is their child’s information. To refuse to create the paper trail when you know that in twenty years there will not be anyone who has kept records, and you used the justification that adult adoptees said it was not the parents place to search, then you are just using their advice to give you the easy out.

You really need to understand your stake in choosing to follow or not follow the advice. Tough to do, but delve into your motivations and determine if you are making that choice based on your own desires and needs, or genuinely in your child’s best interests over the entire course of their life. You have to understand the need to search some/many will have, and the likelihood of success with what you have now for them to start their journey, and assess if you can do more now.  The long-term risk if there are any genetic diseases that can be mitigated with early knowledge, or the risk if your child needs a bone marrow transplant, and the chances of a match on the registry. The generational impact on their children if they didn’t search, who may choose to take that journey because of their desire or need to search out their roots. The underlying right for your child to know where they came from and how they may feel being denied that right. There are so many more aspects you need to explore, that if you can make that decision quickly and easily, and it falls in-line with how you felt when you first decided to adopt, you can probably assume you are thinking about your needs only, and using the advice as justification.

Far too many parents whose job it is to make all the everyday decisions for children and have no problem making big or little decisions, fail when it comes to adoption decisions. They use whatever excuse to justify not doing something because it is out of their comfort zone. If they ask the child about something adoption related in such a way as to illicit the answer they want, when they wouldn’t ask the same question when it comes to anything else similar (but not adoption related), then they have simply done it to justify their needs and desires.

Hope that made sense…I believe parents should acquire all the information they can for their child so that if/when they are adults and decide to go on that journey of search they have the best fighting chance of success.

 

May 12, 2011…

Over a year has passed since Hana died – no trial has happened yet.

I had read the articles last fall, but just now read the sixteen page probable cause document and it took my breath away, and I am at a complete loss for words.  Horror stricken.

This should never have happened.

Regardless if the parents are eventually found guilty or innocent, a child is dead. 

Read the probable cause document linked at the bottle of the article below from September 2011 - click on the probable cause link to actually read it.

No child should suffer like this.

Skagit County couple charged with death of adopted child

*

PS…comments are closed…