Should parents push openness in international adoptions?
Nov 6, 2009 Adoption
Skila and Tatjana both asked about openness in international adoptions in regards to my Roundtable post. Specifically, should adoptive parents push for openness? Tatjana said:
This is very much the predominant point of view re searching for birth families of internationally adopted children here in NL due to *very vocal* adult adoptees who fight for adopters to leave this up to their children. I’m very sceptical but very alone with my view … Most adopters seem very impressed by the adult adoptee stories.
Skila added:
I struggle with this because on a personal level all three of our adoptions are closed. (Closed because they were international adoptions and open adoptions weren’t an option.) As much as I’m in favor of open adoptions, I’m not sure about opening a closed one. I see both the pros and cons of this and can’t make up my mind about what is really best for all parties involved. My searching for their first parents now could cause a great hardship in the lives of the parents and of my kids. (It could also bring a lot of peace as well. But I just don’t know.) And so I’ve deferred to “I will let the kids decide to search for them when/if they want to.” But I still waver on this.
When it comes to international stuff, I look to Amber most of the time. I know how much research she does (the blog doesn’t tell you half of it!) and I trust her. So here’s part of what she said that really resonated with me (I emailed her to ask her to blog this further sometime this month if she runs out of daily topics!):
There are people who disapprove of our decision to search. Some people strongly believe that we should leave searching for L to handle on her own, years from now, when the trail may be cold. I can’t in good conscience make that choice for L. In this case, doing nothing is making a choice to make things more difficult/impossible for L in the future, should finding her family be important to her.
So here’s my thinking on it as influenced by Amber and some other internationally adoptive parents who have searched: It depends on a whole lot of stuff.
Some questions I think parents ought to ask (not by any means definitive):
- What are the circumstances surrounding my child’s relinquishment as I understand them?
- Do I have reason to believe that searching could in any way hurt the family or my child long-term?
- Can I do anything now to make my child’s search easier later?
- If I don’t do anything now, will it impede my child if s/he does want to search later?
One of the things Amber said (and I can’t find that post — rats!) is that China is changing very very very quickly and some of the information she could get for L. now will be gone if she waits much longer. Therefore, she’s getting it now, period. I think that makes sense. I think that it makes sense to get as much as you can while the proverbial trail is still hot. I think this is helping make way for a possible search without stepping on your child’s agency.
But I think it’s much like any other closed adoption (including ones that are technically open but where the first parents have disappeared for whatever reason), our job is to do what we can to give our child access bearing in mind the reality of that child’s particular story. So for us? I’m not going knocking on Madison’s first dad’s door AT ALL but I do track him. I do have what information I can get (not much but I have it). There are a million and one reasons — none of ‘em bloggable — why I’m not forcing openness there but I’m gathering the info I can to give Madison agency when she’s older.
I’d love to hear from international adoptive parents on this though (it’s a question that comes up at Open Adoption Support and I always value the folks that share there).
I have some thoughts about this, but I haven’t had any time to write them down. I will try to get to it soon, because I think it is part of a conversation that adoptive parents of internationally adopted kids need to have more often. I will trackback here when I get it.
Funny, I just blogged about this because a stupid Winnie the Pooh movie of all things got me thinking about it.
Perhaps there’s not one easy answer, but in our situation I feel like we have to try, because I don’t want my daughter to feel like we didn’t try because we don’t care–I expect that at some point, on some level, she will care. What I feel beyond that is almost irrelevant; she deserves as much of the truth as we can gather (though in our case finding it may be impossible).
This one here:
If I don’t do anything now, will it impede my child if s/he does want to search later?
That’s probably key in my mind. I’d expand more but medicine head just has me nodding and thinking, “Gee, Dawn is smart.”
Not that I’m not brilliant and stuff but that one’s Amber’s! I’m sorry you’re so sick, Jenna.
I wrote about our experience meeting P’ito’s firstfamily in Guatemala here.
I am *so* glad that we not only searched but made contact. I would not say that the adoption is completely open in U.S. terms – we work through an intermediary who helps us to negotiate the challenges of language, culture, class, distance and literacy, to name just a few issues – but M. can make contact with us through C. and vice versa.
We decided to search and make contact before he was old enough to give consent for all kinds of reasons.
-The intersection of mobility, poverty, and mortality – would we have a chance of finding his mother if we waited?
-Our own anxiety about whether anything unethical had gone on with the adoption.
-The belief that he was better off growing up with and knowing his Guatemalan family throughout his life, rather than suddenly trying to connect as an adult.
-Wanting to be able to give real answers to his questions about his origins and his story as he grows up
-The knowledge that we might be able to help provide much needed assistance to his family
-The fact that our adoption agency had gone out of business, taking the possibility of sending letters/photos through them off the table (unlikely that they would ever have gotten to her, as it turned out). As it turned out, she was immensely relieved to learn that he was okay – growing – thriving – happy – there are all kinds of dreadful rumors that circulate about adopted children being used for body parts, etc. etc.
Watching P’ito and his brother play together was amazing. They connected instantly despite not sharing a word of language in common. And being able to have those images to refer back to – to show him that yes, his smile looks like his mothers, and his great uncle carried him in his arms as if he’d been carrying him since he was a baby – that was beyond priceless for all of us. There are some pictures on my flickr stream – most of the ones with faces are friends only (so friend me) – but I encourage anyone thinking about opening an international adoption to take a look at what it looks like.
P’ito is not a kid who talks about his feelings a lot, but the pride in his voice when he talks about MY brother and MY Mama M. is unmistakable.
You list pretty much all the reasons why I don’t agree with the general opinion here (to wait and leave the search up to the children)!
I’m part of a first family, too, and gathering as much information as possible and working towards reunification are such integral aspects of my life. I’ll be heading to your blog to read your story
and a postscript –
The questions you pose are important, and there are definitely cases in Guatemala where searching could endanger the firstmother. We didn’t have any evidence of that in our paperwork and the social worker that we hired was very careful in how she approached the situation and what information she shared while looking for M.
The last two questions we answered very easily – searching now might facilitate contact that would be impossible later. Also, searching now would give siblings an opportunity to know each other growing up.
There are some great listserves for those interested in making contact with their kids birthfamilies in Guatemala and I highly recommend joining them if you’re even thinking about it.
this is a really interesting issue.
our friends recently adopted from taiwan and they were given the birth mother’s name and home town, plus they have a photo of her actually choosing them from a binder. thought that was pretty cool to have for their daughter, considering most int’l adoptees don’t have much to go on.
When I chose international adoption, I knew it would be a closed adoption. I came to terms with that first, before filling out Page One. I do keep in contact with other parents who adopted from the same orphanage, and very, very luckily in my case one of the moms is Chinese, has family living nearby the orphanage, and she has an intimate relationship with the orphanage director. I belong to groups (private as well as public) that routinely donate to the orphanage’s improvement. I have procured the ‘extra’ information that is readily obtainable (e.g., the finding ad from the newspaper) and if one visits our orphanage, one can take photos of the child’s file (will do when I can get back to China). My daughter, at 7, is not currently interesting in searching and I have always told her it would be possible but not probable that we’d find any more information.
I can’t see myself going back to China now to start digging around for her birthparents when I knew that this (closed adoption, NO information, a country where odds of finding any info would be slim to none) was what I was signing up for from the beginning. If my child wants to search when she is older, I would help her, of course. Keeping in close contact with her orphanage is the part of the “trail” that I am keeping warm… I never went into international adoption thinking I would somehow try to circumvent the closed nature of the adoption so that’s what feels right to me.
I have NO idea what the “PC” answer is so I’m putting myself out there with my honest comments since it was you who asked, Dawn
This sounds totally reasonable to me and this also sounds like an “open” adoption within the limits of the reality of your daughter’s adoption. I mean, we can only control so much and really what it comes down to is whether or not we have a sort of attitude of openness (respect for our kids’ origins, understanding of their losses). I think when we make decisions from that place of respect and understanding that we make good decisions.
oh, and PS: I also think that having my daughter learn Mandarin is part of the “trail warming”. I feel that if she is able to speak the language, she will get more and better information for herself if she does choose to search. I also think that if she searches and is successful, it will be so helpful to speak the language of her firstfamily. This is not an easy task, however, yet she is currently interested and doing well with becoming more fluent. So, while this may not be an obvious correlation to conductivity to finding, it is part of my motivation for encouraging her language lessons.
I’d add a question:
Could searching endanger my child’s birth family?
artsweet mentions it in her second comment. All I know about international adoption and openness I learned from Adoptive Families magazine. But I remember them discussing that birth families in some countries could face criminal charges if they’re found by the government.
[...] subject of international birth parent searching has also recently been discussed on This Woman’s Work and today on American Family. Let me know what y’all think, [...]