To Birth/First fathers: Come out, come out wherever you are, DNA may find you

Amy Dickinson

I was thrilled to read Amy Dickinson's advice to "Burdened," a man in his 70's who fathered a child -- a terrible mistake he said -- when he was 16 with his 16-year-old girl friend. He writes:

"Both sets of parents were supportive and arranged for my girlfriend to enroll in what was at that time referred to as an unwed-mother's home. At birth, the child was immediately placed for adoption and went to a loving home."

Jane

What jumped out is that the birth father writing here notes that the grandparents were supportive--but apparently that support included an immediate, no-questions-asked adoption plan.

Now some fifty years later, Burdened is fearful that the child may show up at his doorstep. While he shared this "sordid part of his history" with his wife, he never discussed it with anyone else. Searching for the child would be a fool's errand, he wrote. He's wondering if he should tell his children about their half-sibling.

Annie Lane's damaging advice: When one child has an open adoption, and the other doesn't

So-wrong-about-adoption
Annie Lane

Annie Lane, a columnist with Creators Syndicate, offered up some noxious advice recently to "Anxious Adopter," who has two adopted children, a girl, 6, and a boy, 4. The boy's adoption is open and he visits his first/birth mother twice a year. The girl's natural mother, however, requested a completely closed adoption. There's the rub. The girl wonders why she does not have another family like her brother has. Lane tells the adoptive mother: "You might want to consider whether these visits would be good to continue in the long run. Are they good for your son? Do they confuse him?" Clearly a not-subtle recommendation that Anxious cut off contact with the boy's mother to spare the girl any disappointment, as well as to make life easier for "Anxious Adopter."

Should adoptees contact their siblings when first parents are reluctant?

Amy Dickinson

"Should I contact my siblings (or half siblings) even though my first mother wants to keep me a secret and hasn't told them about me?' "It's my right, to know them and their right to know isn't it?" Advice columnist Amy Dickinson (ASK AMY)  handled these questions deftly in two recent columns, showing understanding and sensitivity. Her response was a welcome change we must say from those self-designated experts--Joyce Brothers, Ann Landers, Drs. Drew, Phil, and Laura, and Marguerite Kelly with their cookie-cutter, birth-family-be-damned answers to all questions adoption.

An adoptee, identified as DQ, asked about contacting her full birth siblings. Her adoptive parents had told her that her first parents were married but gave her up because they didn't want children. After her adoptive parents' deaths, she found her first parents and learned they had had three more children after she was given up.