Adoption Week e-Magazine Article

Birthparents---allies or enemies?

Bonnie L. Quick

As a birth mother who placed children with adoptive parents during the 1960's and as a social worker with 25 + years experience, I have come across a variety of responses to that question.

This is an attempt to explore the relationship between adoptees and adoptive parents, and birth parents, the three parts of the adoption triad.

The first thing I would like to address is the anxiety many adoptive parents feel about their children meeting birth parents. The most common answer I have gotten to the observation that adoptive parents seem to feel afraid of birth parents is "You can't blame them now can you?"

Frankly, the word blame never entered my mind. I thought that the people who bonded, raised, and nurtured a person to adulthood would not feel threatened, but I was wrong. I have read studies that say adoptive parents do not mind that their children are looking for their birth parents. But, the dynamic may change if the birth parents are actually located. Few adoptive parents and birth parents become friends or even meet each other.

Adoptees' wanting to meet their birth parents is no doubt one of the most difficult issues an adoptive family may have to face. Whether the child was placed and adopted by the family at birth, or joined a new family later for a variety of reasons, it is rarely a worry free event.

The birth mother is often seen by the adoptive family as a threat or as someone who is trying to take away their child. Adoptive parents live through the everyday tasks of parenting. They soothe the colds, they kiss the hurts, and they provide transportation and support. They help heal a damaged child.

They change the dirty diapers, literally and figuratively, and feel like they are handing the clean and fresh smelling baby to a total stranger with no say in the outcome, despite the age of the adult child who wants to meet and confront their roots.

When the child wants to meet with his/her glamorized "birth mom", it can often strike panic into the hearts of the adoptive family because they see it as a contest between two factions. It may seem like there are two sides vying for a prize, when in reality it is more like learning to live with two sets of grandparents, or a set of parents and step-parents. Now, we all know that can be difficult at times but it is usually accepted as non-critical to the primary relationship, which in my opinion is between adoptee and adoptive family.

I have observed this push-pull dynamic between two parents in the throes of divorce. For the child it is not a matter of who the best is or who the "real mother" is. Most of what the adoptive adult wants is information to help them define themselves.

When either the birth family or the adoptive family asks the adoptee to make a choice, everyone loses emotionally.

I have looked at this issue for a long time and have experienced the gamut of emotions that come with such a complex situation. Several of the women I spoke with were secretive and would not meet their children, even though the loss was still a painful episode in their lives.

One woman cried to me on her daughter's 35th birthday but remained afraid to make any attempt to find her adult child, or register her whereabouts if she was being searched for. One of her fears was the girl had not been raised in the mother's faith.

Another woman's situation I found out by accident because she was one of my children's teachers and her daughter happened to be a member of the same adoption forum as my older birth daughter who found me through the encouragement of that group. Although I knew the woman (birth mom) well, we never spoke of it and I kept her secret because she had never even told her husband and never had another child.

I remember when my daughter found me. It was almost 16 years ago. She contacted me by writing a letter that started out "this is the most difficult letter I have ever had to write..." For me it was the most difficult letter I ever had to read.

I discovered at that moment that the decisions we make in our lives are made way before we actually are faced with them. I mean, subconsciously I had dealt with the issues on a daily basis. Not that I thought about it each day but there were definitely times when I thought of my lost children. Halloween was never good since Cat had been born early morning on November 1st. I recalled answering the door to "trick or treaters" the night before then being in a hospital room, feeling lonely and empty.

Most of life went forward. I went back to college and finished school determined to be a social worker who could work with people who had pain in their lives.

Not only does the pursuit of a reunion forever change the relationship between adoptive parents and their adopted child, it changes the life of the birth parent too, no matter whether he or she chooses to reopen the old wound or not.

I have spoken to many birth parents since I choose to meet my own children First my daughter, who was 24 years old and then my son who was about to turn 40. It is never an easy decision. Never leaves you unscathed.

I found that every birth mom I spoke with had real strong feelings about the choice. Especially those who gave birth during the early 70’s or before—the era of the Crittendon homes for unwed mothers. For the middle class white woman there was little choice. Marry or give up for adoption. The whole thing about being pregnant without marriage was shrouded in secrecy and shame.

So when a grown child wants to find his or her roots, it opens a whole new area that is both happy and sad for the birth parent. Most of the birth mothers I have spoken with do not have the idea or expectation of replacing the adoptive mother and dad. They recognize that as a huge fantasy. But the adoptive parents I have spoken with seem to have the fear that once the child meets the birth family they will have to make a choice.

I have an enormous sense of gratitude for the two families that raised my children. I do not feel I have the right to interfere in anyway with their relationships. However, I do not see that it has to be a negative for the adult birth child to want to find out about their roots.

The sense of loss never totally goes away as anyone who has experienced the breakup of a relationship or the death of a loved one can understand. The dynamic is similar. I cried and mourned the loss of my children, never to forget. During my pregnancies with the son and daughter that I raised, I had nightmares and awoke in cold sweats fearful my babies would be taken away from me.

It hurt to do what I thought was the right thing for my children. I do not regret giving a child to a deserving family. I do resent having people think I abandoned them.

Sometimes I think the adoptive families forget that life goes on for the birth parent, but they still do exist out there somewhere. The birth mother may have freely chosen adoption as the best option for the child, and continue to suffer in silence the rest of her life or until the adult child knocks or pounds on the door.

One of the most consistently true things I have found in my 30 years as a caseworker, social worker and domestic violence counselor is that every woman who has endured the loss of a child by violence, poor choices or other circumstance grieves the loss.

Some people fall apart and their lives are ruined. Some are determined to overcome and "make up" for their sin. Others decide to hang themselves out in public in order to bring understanding to the adoption community. Giving up a child, whether voluntary or not, is a traumatic event.

Adopting a child is a life changing moment for each party involved. Some adoptees never seem to care about their biological background. Others seem haunted by the need to know where they "came from."

I think it is important to understand that whether or not an adoptee wants to look into the face of a sibling or birth parent, it has very little to do with the quality of life given to them in the adoptive family.

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