What if our son's birth mother wants a relationship with him--but not us? Why mothers should be leery of 'open adoption' contracts

Lorraine and daughter, Jane, 1982

In a sign of the times, The New York Times ethics columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah is tackling adoption again, after a recent debacle in a column a few months ago.

This time, the subject is exactly what the first part of the headline reads, for that is the headline in the New York Times Magazine over his column as The Ethicist. The kicker in this adoption story is that the son in question is "about 25" and the contract was a deal which stated that the adoptive parents could somehow can control the adopted person's relationship with his natural mother up until he was 25. The contract stated that he could search--with the adoptive parents' permission--for his birth parents (mother and father) after he was 18, but not search for them without their permission until he was 25.

Clearly this was a so-called "open adoption" contract that relied completely on the agency staying in business, and that fire or flood or other natural disaster did not destroy any records that connected Mother A with Son B. The letter writer goes on to say that the birth mother somehow found the family's home address (quelle horreur!), wrote them and asked to open up the adoption further.

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."

When an adopted teen wants to live with his birth/first mother

Lorraine

Two steps forward, one step back is how I'm feeling about open adoption today after reading family-expert John Rosemond's recent column about a 14-year-old who "now wants to go live with his birth-mother."

The adoptive mother writes that at the onset of the adoption, the first mother was out of the picture even though there was an open-adoption agreement. A few years ago she phoned, saying she had changed her life, and "wanted to re-establish contact with 'her' son." Phone calls led to visits, led to overnights, and apparently eventually the teenager wanted to go on vacation with her last summer. Whether or not he went is not included in the column. The teens grades have taken a nose-dive, he's become difficult to live with and now, the column question is framed:  "He’s told us he doesn’t want to live with us anymore. I think he believes there will be no rules with her and he’ll be able to eat ice cream all day long, figuratively speaking. What should we do?"

Here's how to write good adoption law

Although adoption experts—the Donaldson Adoption Institute,* the Child Welfare League of America,** and others--agree that children should be raised in their biological families if possible, state laws are tilted to increasing the supply of infants for adoption resulting in the unnecessary separation of mothers and children.

These laws allow mothers to consent to adoption before or immediately after birth with little or no opportunity to revoke their consent and with little or no counseling. Open adoptions agreements which may encourage mothers to relinquish are often unenforceable.*** Unmarried fathers have few rights.

Those of us interested in reforming adoption so that it coincides with its original purpose—to find families for children who need them—are faced with well-funded and well-organized opposition from the adoption industry. While adoption is governed mostly by state laws, adoption reform must occur nation-wide. Otherwise, those who put profit before child welfare will simply move their operations to “adoption-friendly” states. Adoption reform organizations throughout the country must come to a consensus about adoption laws so that they speak in one voice to state legislators and the media.

Catelynn and Tyler face the hard realities of adoption--again

Birth mother Catelynn Lowell Baltierra

An anguished Catelynn Lowell Baltierra listens while her husband Tyler denounces Brandon and Teresa Davis, the adoptive parents of their first daughter, Carly.  Seven years ago, as teen parents, their surrender of their daughter was featured on MTV's reality soap opera 16 and Pregnant. MTV has followed Catelynn and three other teen moms who kept their babies, Amber, Staci, and Farrah, as they moved from adolescence into adulthood in a show now called "Teen Mom OG" (original girls).

On the latest episode, Teresa tells Catelynn in a telephone call that she does not want their

How binding are open-adoption contracts?

Jane

Open adoption is the adoption industry's answer to all the woes that beset adoptees and natural mothers by their forced separation. The more we know, however, the less we like about it. Let us be clear: Open adoption agreements (continuing contact agreements in legal parlance) aren't enforceable. They do not lessen the angst of loss suffered by mothers and children, and they may even make it more intense.

FMF has just learned of a new pitfall. Mom has an agreement with her child's adoptive parents allowing her periodic visits, ("designated parenting time" in social work speak). The adoptive parents decide they don't want the kid and plan to pass him on to another adoptive family. Does the mom still get to see her kid?

What is an 'open' adoption?

First weekend with my daughter, at her home

The other day one of my friends commented that a mutual acquaintance had an "open" adoption, which was news to me. I'd heard the son in question talk knowingly about genetic testing, 23 + Me, etc., and I had assumed that he had undertaken DNA testing--or was considering it--to locate biological relatives. Then my friend added that our mutual acquaintance, the adoptive mother, knew the name of the young man's biological mother. Thus, an "open" adoption.

"She told him [her son] that if he wanted the name, she would give it to him."  I flashed on the remembrance of hearing that she knew the natural/birth mother was from the area where we all lived that I 'd heard a few years earlier, and was anxious that the boy's original mother would want her child back. Worried is the word I remembered. I had not assumed that she knew the woman's name. That had not come up.

So she knew her name all along? And the son knows all about DNA testing, as if he has no other route to his biological family?

Kohl's adoption-reunion video sparks debate. Of course.

At last a company has made a video clip that celebrates reunion--rather than relinquishment!  It's the first time I've seen a commercial company focus on reunion between mother and child rather than separation! So I'd like to salute Kohl's for doing so. This popped up today on Lavender Luz's open adoption blog and I had to share this immediately.



It has over 300,000 views at this point, so this is not exactly breaking news, but still--it's a feel good

How to arrange an ethical adoption

Dear First Mother Forum:

My spouse and I are moving forward with plans to adopt in the U.S. We are hoping for an infant adoption, using a non-profit agency with many years of experience. The agency only does open adoptions, which is what we want. The open adoption agreement would be legally enforceable, and we have no intention of betraying it in any event.

I am looking for resources/information that will help us ensure, to the fullest extent possible, that we (and our agency) are respecting the rights, concerns, perspectives, and needs of the birthparents and adopted children. And I want to make sure we solicit those resources not just from people who are cheerleaders for adoption, but also from people who are critics of the adoption system. That's why I'm writing you.

Also I noticed that you used the word "real" in the tagline for First Mother Forum.  Does that necessarily mean, in your view,

Hoping for tough questions

Daughter Jane and Lorraine in the 90s

Okay, I am focusing 24/7 on Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption and so the poor ole' blog is taking a back seat. I'm being interviewed on Monday, July 20, on Bonnie in the Morning, on Long Island's NPR station, WPPB, 88.3 FM sometime after 9:30 a.m.  Hoping that I get the tough questions that make for an interesting interview that leads to more, etc., I wrote up a few questions and answers for Bonnie Grice, who is a great interviewer and host. I'm sharing them here;

We think of the Sixties as a wild and crazy time, when sex came out of the closet and birth control was readily available.

That is the late Sixties, and the Seventies. I

'Open' adoption letters released in Texas...with redactions

Protesting at a Gladney event--in Texas 

Boxes and boxes of letters from first mothers to the adoptive families and vice versa that were left unattended when a major San Antonio agency shut down in 2012 will be forwarded to the people to whom they were intended, the state of Texas announced yesterday. However, though the agency, Adoption Services Associates, had promised "open adoption" to the unsuspecting and naive women who gave up their babies through ASA, all the identifying information in the letters will be blacked out.

We reported earlier a reputable agency in San Antonio, Abrazo (that only handles fully open adoptions), had stepped in and tried to help the first mothers who counted on continuing

Open adoption--does it really solve all the problems?

Lorraine

When I gave my daughter up in 1966 all I really wanted—or thought I could ask for—was to be able to know her one day. That bare concession to the mother and child bond would not have made leaving her behind any easier, but it would have calmed my mind about the future. As I write today, open adoption is touted as the panacea for the pain of a closed adoption., or at least mute the anguish of mothers like me. Perhaps it would have been so—to know that she was safe and protected. But I don’t know how I would have reacted to other people being there for her, to be present but unable to make the decisions I thought best for a child of mine, a child related to me by blood, a child who shared my genetic makeup and family history.

Considering an open adoption? What you should know

Jane

Although we at First Mother Forum don't think of ourselves as the Suzy Orman of the adoption world, we recognize that much of what takes place in this world is similar to financial transactions. We've written the following piece to help mothers who have decided on adoption protect their and their child's rights to the openness they need and deserve.

This is a draft. We ask our readers to add their thoughts. We'll incorporate their ideas and post this as a permanent page.

About 14,000 to 18,000 voluntary infant adoptions take place each year and virtually all of them have some degree of openness. We at FMF have learned, however, that mothers surrendering their infants often have little idea of the different kind of open adoptions and are unaware that they can negotiate the terms of open adoption agreements. Often mothers are

The promise of 'openness' lures vulnerable mothers-to-be

Jane

Promises of openness is a common gambit used to separate a mother from her newborn.  We at First Mother Forum believe that if an adoption has to happen, a fully open adoption in most cases is better for all than a closed or semi-open adoption. Unfortunately, too often an open adoption is offered as a panacea to persuade a mother who would otherwise nurture her child to give her/him up.  Too late the mother learns that promises by prospective adoptive parents for openness are not enforceable.

In 2004 first mother Cindy Jordan killed herself after the woman who adopted her child, psychologist Susan Burns, wrote a book on how she and her husband Scott, had conned Jordan into giving up her child with false
promises of openness.

Why not choose adoption? The longterm effects of relinquishing on first mothers

Lorraine

In the last post,* we dealt with the corrosive effect of secrecy in adoption, and some wrote about the secrecy that many first mothers cling to even years later. Some are so far in the closet they cannot tell their families about a reunited son or daughter, thus denying them knowing their siblings, grandparents, the family to which they were born. Unquestionably, that is sad and continues the trauma of the initial separation from the natural mother. Today I write about the trauma that makes birth mothers who have been in the closet so long stay there.
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Adoption is trumpeted today as a universal good thing. For infertile couples who wish to have a family, it is a solution. For religious organizations and fellow-travelers, agencies that use the mantle of religion, it is a business. For liberals who want to do good and keep the sense of family about them, it is a way to keep population growth down. Celebrities adopt and get on the cover of magazines, thus

Today's new mantra: My Baby, Not my Child

Lorraine

The heart-breaking, or heart-warming, depending on your point-of-view, story of a 25-year-old first mother coed at the University of Iowa is making news as she decided to photograph and write about her decision to give up her baby. Though the woman, Callie Mitchell, cries a lot, though she cried a lot in the months leading up to the birth, and was ambivalent about giving up her son, at this point she seems quite at peace with her decision, and she and the adoptive parents, according to another report, are in touch much more than their original agreement called for. But first, the back story:

After she learns she is pregnant, Mitchell and her boyfriend plan to marry and raise their child. Her parents are overjoyed--she is 24 or 25, after all, she is not a teen. But things go bad between the couple after he learns that he may not be the father, and that she has lied to him. She thinks about adoption, calls an agency,

Former Bethany "recruiter" speaks up

First Mother Forum received this anonymous comment today, but it is too heart-breaking and revealing to leave to a comment that few will ever find. As I can hardly type for the time being* I thought I would post it because what this first mother writes about that occurred in the Eighties--when she relinquished--is still certainly happening today, as we have learned from following the Catelynn and Tyler story. So I am just posting this here today:

I relinquished through Bethany's "counselor" in the 80s. Just weeks later, I was recruited to speak on their behalf (on Q&A panels for potential adoptive couples).

What are the happy birth moms celebrating?

Note: For those coming here from Tyler Baltierra's Tweet, we have answered his rant against us and published it at a current post:   Tyler of 16 and Pregnant Tells FMF Off!

 (Below is the original post that he first responded to)

 November 18, 2012 8:39 AM

Lorraine

Open adoption or keeping the baby? We know that while overall very few teens--around one percent*--give up their babies for adoption anywhere anymore, the United States is far ahead of other developed nations in this regard. This is not a statistic to be cheering about--even if the impact of giving up a child in a fully open adoption does not lead to the depth of sorrow that we mothers from closed adoptions have dealt with. This is the perceived wisdom of those who compare the effect of closed adoptions versus open adoptions on the mothers who relinquish their children.

In the recent Donaldson report, Openness in Adoption, the authors state that the degree of openness generally does not affect their level of behavioral or socio-emotional adjustment [to being adopted]. The Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project study found, however, that higher degrees of collaboration in the adoptive kinship network [emphasis added] were associated with better

No Matter How Adoption is Done, Grief Remains for Mothers

“Putting an end to secrecy in adoption does not erase the grief or loss embedded in the adoption experience” according to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute March, 2012 report, Openness in Adoption: From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections. With that caveat, the institute strongly endorses openness in adoption because "ending secrecy empower(s) participants by providing them with information and access so they can face and deal with facts instead of fantasies.”

IF adoption is necessary, we at First Mother Forum concur that openness is not only better but essential in voluntary infant adoptions.

'Fessing up and running straight into a fresh adoption...

Lorraine spills the beans

Last week in Virginia I met a woman whom I immediately liked and as we were together over the course of several hours, I ended up telling her my involvement with the Big A. You know, it's always a question: to tell or not to tell. And stay silent and avoid the slings and arrows of misfortune that may come your way when meeting new folks. When she first asked what I wrote about, I said, "feminist issues," as I have a long history of writing about women and the glass ceiling and gender bias in the legal system.

As we were in Virginia, just as the nutty bill to invade women's vaginas with an ultrasound probe before they may have an abortion was the issue de jour, she was eager to hear more. She herself had been at a protest rally the morning before. Incidentally, Gov. Bob McDonnell (who initially said he would sign the bill) and the anti-women Republican-dominated legislature backed down.