Father's Names on Birth certificates: More artifice than fact

Oregon Health Authority

 

The baby may look like his dad, have his dad's  eyes and hair, but unless his parents have done their paperwork, his real dad may never be his legal father. As the chart above attests, Oregon laws, like those of other states, create a labyrinth which unmarried men seeking to establish themselves as fathers must navigate at their peril.

When my daughter Rebecca was born in California in 1966, the Vital Statistics Registrar took

Is it a 'Birth' Certificate or Certificate of Title?

Jane

Birth certificates have become legal instruments, reflecting ownership of children rather than parentage. In surrogacy-friendly California, birth certificates of children created in vitro with “donated” eggs and sperm, born to surrogates identify those who paid for the creation as the parents. In the Brave New World of “assisted reproduction” these children depend on the kindness of their legal parents and surrogacy clinic policies to learn whose DNA they carry.

My (relinquished) daughter talks about adoption

From left: Lorraine and Jane, 1988; same jeans, bought separately

Well before my relinquished daughter Jane died, I did have the opportunity to talk to her about adoption on tape. She knew I was writing a memoir to follow up Birthmark, and that I would include her story. I was visiting her and her daughter Kim in Wisconsin, where they were living with her adoptive parents.

Stumbling through the first mother/adoptee maze

I'm trying to be on vacation with my family who are visiting from Michigan, and so I'm posting as a fresh blog post a comment from an adoptee, Tamara, and my response. 

Lorraine

Lorraine,

Let me begin by saying I have the utmost respect for you, for your truth and your courage and your writing. I have gained unfathomable insights from your blog, and from your writings and insights. As an adoptee who found her mother too late (she had already passed) you and Jane and your contributors have helped me "know" my mother.

Birth Mother? First Mother? Both names are belittling

Lorraine

By Lorraine Dusky  (c) 2011

Shortly after my daughter, Jane—whom I had given up for adoption but had reunited with a quarter of a century earlier—died my husband and a friend of ours were talking about the circumstances of her death at a cocktail party I had chosen not to attend.

If you are an adoptive parent reading this blog, do I have your attention yet? I’ve used words that adoptive parents recoil from: gave up, daughter without modifiers,

The Trauma of being adopted

Lorraine

NOTE: Today's blog is about the impact of adoption on our children, the adult children we natural mothers surrendered for adoption. This is not to diminish the impact of surrender on first/birth mothers or excuse any behavior of this group; that is what First Mother Forum is primarily dedicated to. However, the discussion of last week about post-reunion relationships brought led us to today's subject: The Trauma of being adopted.

The [birth] mother and child reunion, Part 3

Lorraine & Jane, 1983

A comment came in yesterday from our blogger friend and adoptee Amanda* that needs to be widely read:

"One common thing among adoptees and other hurting people (no, not all adoptees are like this) is that they do not believe they make an impact on those around them. This is usually seen in trauma

When birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry, Part 2

Lorraine

Who suffers more, the adoptee or the birth mother? It's like answering the question, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? There is no answer, but one can reflect that first mothers had a time before they surrendered their children, while adoptees have no period of consciousness before they were given away and adopted. Be that as it may, we mothers in reunion have to deal

Why birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry

Lorraine

Someone asked recently if we could report on good reunions--without the hurt and anger and rage that so often breaks out here on First Mother Forum. Well, I wish I had better news to report, but the operating mode seems to be what was first mentioned in a comment at an earlier post: advance and retreat. Reunion is like a huge ocean wave that comes in and thrashes everyone about, and in the process, everyone's emotions are rubbed raw again, feelings are tender, real rage can emerge.

Family Reunions: Distorted by Adoption

Jane

Family reunions are a fine tradition but for me and other natural mothers, they can be a catalyst, bringing our buried grief to the surface, reminding us of the missing unnamed and unacknowledged family member. 

I'm leaving for Maui tomorrow to spend a week with my sisters and brother, nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and their spouses and significant others. We've been holding these reunions every three years since 1975.

After the Mother and Daughter Reunion....

Jane and Lorraine, 1983

Other than the disappointment over her natural father's refusal to meet her, you may be assuming that everything was hunky-dory when my daughter Jane* visited--as she did for weeks and then whole summers--and that we continued to bond without issues, that I was generally on Cloud Nine, and that she went back to her adoptive family and home in Wisconsin like a shiny penny, self-esteem restored, LD (learning disabled) classes—what’s that?

Wrong.

Does My Natural Mother Ever Think of Me?

Lorraine

It's the little everyday things in life that remind you of being a natural/birth/first mother. It's noticing how I always look at kids when they are with people I assume are their parents, and make a split-second decision: related by genes, or not? It's being alert to every mention of a celebrity adoption: Denise Richards, Charlie Sheen's ex adopting a newborn when she already has two girls (ages six and seven) with Charlie Sheen, (really?

Corruption in Foreign Adoptions: China, Again

Jane

Once again, corruption in baby snatching in China is in the news: Chinese police rescued 81 children from a major child trafficking ring operating throughout eastern China. The rescued children, mostly girls, were from ten days to four months old. Another raid earlier this month resulted in eight children being rescued. Unless the children were

Mothers of stolen babies demand more than an apology

More on the Catholic apology in Australia: women whose babies were taken and given to others want more than an apology, they want justice. But a few days later, Perth's Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey told a television interviewer in Australia on The Morning Show he knew of little evidence of such practices.

Catholic church apologizes for forced adoptions in Australia

Lorraine

Why was I adopted? That's the question Jane wrote so well about in her previous post,* and while neither she nor I were tied down during delivery, nor did we sign surrender papers immediately after when we were still under the influence of drugs, many mothers endured such a fate elsewhere in the world. Apparently this was common practice

Adoptees ask: "Why Was I Given Away?"

Jane

“Why Was I Given Away? What were the circumstances of my adoption?” are often the first questions adoptees newly in reunion ask. We find that people Google such a question frequently. Lurking beneath these questions is the fear that

Utah rules against natural father. Again. And again. Adoption is big business there.

Nothing to smile about today

Why do I hate Utah?  Let me count the ways:
 a) The Utah attitude towards single parents is "Grab and Go," as in, We'll grab the baby from any state and then make it nearly impossible for the natural parent--either one--to get the child back, even mere minutes after the papers are signed.

Catelynn & Tyler's open adoption will stay open; for other first mothers, not so much

 Lorraine

Breaking News: First Mother Carla Moquin lost her case to have the adoption of her daughter overturned because the adopters, Susan Englert and Demyn Platenberg, went back on their open adoption promises. Carla is planning to appeal to the California Supreme Court.  Now back to the regular programming:

Before we leave Catelynn and Tyler, America's most celebrated birth/first parents, it's obvious that their decision to relinquish their

(Pro) Adoption Special: Dr. Drew encourages teen moms to give up their babies

Jane

“Adoption is a loving and courageous decision.” Dr. Drew (whose real name is Drew Pinsky) parroted these words at least half a dozen times on the MTV (Pro) Adoption Special, an offshoot of MTV’s popular 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom which aired July 12. I think I first read these words in an Ann Landers column in the 1950s.

PS: To the Terri Vanech story

No, we did not find her mother yet.

I posted her guest post (see below, or Adoptee learns to live out loud by finding herself)  late last night but forgot to add how Terri and I became acquainted. After reading another story of hers about her growing need to find her biological parents, I wrote about her in Adopted People Are Not Allowed Ancestry Because It Might Upset Somebody.  She found the blog, contacted me, and thus began a friendship. She was born in 1966, the same year as my daughter, whom most of you know committed suicide. The fact that Terri was the same age as my daughter added a special poignancy to our friendship.

I put her in touch with a searcher friend, also Jennifer, who tried, but she could not find the "Jennifer" she was looking for. Later later, Terri wrote a piece for Newsday that I put up as a permanent page: Looking for my birth mother. 
--lorraine

Guest Post: Adoptee learns to live out loud by finding herself

Terri S. Vanech 

I'm up to my eyeballs in work and my right hand is still not cooperating. Seems I've had too many hours at the computer and that led to back and shoulder muscles collapsing under the strain and like the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, et cetera, that has led to a problem typing. So Jane is doing more posts and in the meantime, we have a guest blogger today.--lorraine 
 

By Terri S. Vanech
 

The dutifully recorded D'Nealian cursive words in the baptismal registry at Christ Church in Tarrytown, NY, are among the most beautiful things I've ever seen: No. 34: Jennifer Elaine Clark.

President Obama's mother making an adoption plan? Unthinkable.

President Obama

Before President Barack Obama was born, his parents may have considered putting him up for adoption reports Sally Jacobs, author of The Other Barack, The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father. The senior Obama told immigration officials that he and his wife, Ann Dunham, would “’make arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away.'”

Is there a universal right to know one's heritage? Part 2

Lorraine

Whether or not there is a universal "need" to know one's specific origins, or an inborn natural curiosity that we all carry within our breast, has been the subject of an ongoing debate at the previous blog,* The universal need to know who you are. 

Little children--before they know they are not supposed to ask--all ask the question about the beginning of their lives. How did I get here? Where did I

The universal need to know who you are

Lorraine

"The sperm donors, they agreed, had no place on the family tree."

A couple will have four children: the first was conceived naturally; the second with donor sperm; two are in the process of being adopted. "All four of our children are 100 percent in our family tree....The genetic connection has never mattered." (Emphasis added.)

Unalienable rights of parents

“The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the ‘unalienable rights’ with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims all men … are endowed by their creator.” Justice Anton Scalia

A powerful statement given legal authority in a series of  Supreme Court decisions holding that the United States Constitution protects “the fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child.”

Nonetheless, states treat these basic of rights as expendable, allowing mothers to sign irrevocable consents to adoption within minutes of birth, or, even worse, to sign consents before birth with only a short revocation time. Fathers have even less protection. Unless they can navigate complicated legal procedures before the birth of their child, they may not even have the opportunity to contest the adoption. Once children are adopted, most states deny them the right to know who their natural parents are.

On this Fourth of July, as we enjoy our hot dogs and beer and fireworks, let’s dedicate ourselves to repealing these unjust laws.

RHODE ISLAND ADOPTEES CAN CELEBRATE!

A CLEAN BILL--no vetoes--has been signed by the governor today and now all those adopted on Rhode Island can get their original birth certificates at 25. Let's toast everyone who worked on this bill tonight! Thanks Paul, and the rest of you.

When adoptees change their names back to their birth names

Jane

Thanks to one of our readers, we saw this gem of misinformation in Dear Abby’s column of June 27.

ADOPTED SON'S NAME CHANGE CUTS REAL DAD TO THE QUICK

“DEAR ABBY: My wife had an unhappy five-year marriage to her high school boyfriend. They divorced when their son, "Noah," was 20 months old. Then she met me, and we have been married for 34 happy years.

The difference between the gay marriage movement and adoptee rights

Lorraine

Jane, while I personally applaud all that you say (see previous blog*), in New York and New Jersey I believe we have tried everything we can do at this point--until huge numbers of adoptees and fellow travelers (first parents, adoptive parents, friends and relatives) come out in numbers. Big numbers. Like the gays did for the marriage equality bill. But here are some of the disparities between our population (of first mothers and adoptees with a small smattering of adoptive parents) and the gays:

Gays have political clout; bastards don’t. Lessons from New Jersey and New York.

Jane

Last week New Jersey’s Governor, Chris Christie, sank a bill which would have allowed adoptees to access to their original birth certificates. The New York legislature tabled a similar bill after New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent a lobbyist to Albany to oppose it. Meanwhile the New York legislature passed a bill to allow single sex couples to marry, a measure which would have been unheard of a few years ago.

What Does Christie's veto really mean?

Lorraine, when smiling

Governor Chris Christie's veto of the adoptee reform bills to give adopted people their original birth certificates memo is a suggestion that goes back to the Senate for POSSIBLE passage next session. It sets up an intermediary system, plain and simple, with all the power in the hands of the birth parents who wish to stay in the closet. Here is the press release language:

CHRISTIE Vetoes Adoptee Rights in New Jersey and other legislative news

Lorraine

Deflated. That's how I felt when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's threw out the adoptee-rights bill (some 30 years in the making) with a massive, unconscionable, cave-to-the-closet statement on Thursday:

"The decision of any biological parent to seek adoptive parents for a child is an enormously complicated choice. The emotional struggle preceding any adoption is unlike any other step facing a parent, with ramifications for the mother, father and child that will endure throughout their lives."

Jessica Lost: The meaning of motherhood when adoption steps in

While my hand is still incredibly weak, and typing anything is laborious, I asked Linda, a first mother who used to blog regularly at First Mother Forum, to review a new first/birth mother memoir, (Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood). See sidebar for news re legislation in New York and Rhode Island--and of course, New Jersey. --lorraine

Linda's review:

Since my  five-year, on and off roller coaster reunion ended six years ago,  I moved on without my daughter—again—

First Fathers Matter

Jane

It’s easy to understand why first fathers think they don’t matter to their children. The fact is that they do matter in spite of efforts by law makers to obliterate them. Many states prohibit vital statistics registrars from including the names of unmarried fathers on birth certificates unless both parents file affidavits of paternity, something they are likely unaware of.

Jennifer Lauck's "Found" reveals the painful truth of adoption

Jane

“This is your mother,’ my mother’s voice is weak and broken, a frail warbling. ‘I want you to know not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you.’” Thus begins 44-year-old Jennifer Caste Lauck’s reunion with her mother Catherine as recounted in her new memoir, Found.


As she hears Catherine’s voice, Lauck feels "a rise of love so pure and utterly familiar. It is the same feeling I have for my children, which began sprouting the moment I knew I was pregnant with them.…I know I have been waiting--for my true mother, for Catherine—in order to finally release this universal love in the other direction. Love has always been in my heart waiting for the right person to trip the code.”

Want to "star" in reality TV? Sign up to give your baby up

Lorraine

Decry the adoption culture all day long, but from the Adoption Option (see sidebar) to a casual comment the other evening about adopting a child instead of raising a chimp in one's home (who later goes berserk and chews up a neighbor's face), it's with us everywhere. Today's New York Times has a story about gay adoption and how it is on the rise. That story featured Matt and Ray Lees of Worthington, Ohio, who adopted eight

Cultivating a Culture of Adoption

Jane

“Adoption is the natural result of our redemption.” I came across these words when I Googled “Culture of Adoption” looking for follow-up materials to my article “Does Adoption Run in Families?. The words came from an article by Carolyn Curtis, “Cultivating a Culture of Adoption”* in the Presbyterian Church in America’s web magazine.

Does adoption run in families?

Jane

Are adoptees more likely than other mothers to surrender their children for adoption? In 1966, a new social worker at the Florence Crittenton Home in San Francisco told me that many of the pregnant girls at Crittenton were adoptees, hinting that perhaps adoption was not the panacea for unwed pregnancy that it was made out to be. However, she added, other workers assured her there was no correlation between being adopted and subsequently giving up a child; it only seemed that way.

Demand for babies leads to adoption abuses

It is the rare adoptive parent who, after adopting from overseas, can wrap her mind around the idea that "her" baby might have been stolen, sold or bartered to fill the huge demand for adoptable infants in wealthy nations, of which she herself was a part. 

Is Scott Simon Angry with us?

Scott Simon, author of Baby We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption is upset over three posts* critiquing his memoirs and media appearances.

The gist of our posts was that while Simon found adoption to be “a miracle, the work of divine agency,” it is catastrophe in someone else’s life that led to the child being available to be adopted, and that this aspect of adoption is once again ignored by pleased-as-punch parents, which he and his wife claim to be.

Newsday and the backlash.......'More Adoption Information may not be good'

Help adoptees reach first parents

Published: May 12, 2011 7:10 PM in Newsday
By LORRAINE DUSKY

Photo credit: iStock | Adoption

Lorraine Dusky of Sag Harbor is the author of the memoir Birthmark.

Ask the man on the street if people who were adopted as babies should be able, as adults, to find out the identities of their original parents, and the typical answer is: Sure, isn't that their right?

Sperm donors in the news again

looking to mate

In case you think that all sperm-donor daddies want to stay behind a closed closet door...a father in Australia is doing his best to do just the opposite: he is fighting to keep his name ON the birth certificate. The gay partner of the mother wants to put her name on the birth certificate in his place. We say, if birth certificates were not so critically important as both a real and symbolic document of identity, this would not be happening.

In the current dust up Down Under, Neil Richards, 58, of Sydney, answered a gay couple's magazine advertisement more than 10 years ago for a sperm donor and provided sperm to Jesse Star, 49, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. This is a man who wanted to have a child:

Kudos to Walmart

Walmart's Robin Morse

Thanks to Walmart for selling hope and opportunity to teen moms. In a series of ads in the Portland, Oregon area, Manager Robin Morse tells us that as a single, 19-year-old mom, she took a job at a Walmart electronics department. She worked her way up the ladder becoming Manager of the Walmart in Hood River, a town of 7000 50 miles east of Portland. She met her future husband there.

Anonymous baby making in British Columbia is outlawed

Lorraine

Sperm donors will no longer be allowed to be anonymous in British Columbia if a decision from a Supreme Court judge there today stands. Judge Elaine Adair wrote that anonymous donation, "is harmful to the child, and it is not in the best interests of donor offspring." The ruling found sections of the B.C. Adoption Act and Adoption Regulations unconstitutional. Anonymous sperm and egg donation is already outlawed in Great Britain.

Sympathy for the Other Woman

Lorraine

Why do I feel sympathy for the women caught up in sex scandals? Because they never get over it. It will be a long time for the woman to have a second act. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have a movie career apparently. Patty Baena will always be "that woman." I hope the boy can have some kind of meaningful relationship with his father.

'Love child' is preferable to 'adopted child'

Lorraine

I admit to a certain sympathy for the women who bear the children of married men, famous or otherwise. Arnold Schwarzenegger's revelation that he fathered a son with one of the household employees, Mildred "Patty" Baena, more than a decade ago is making front-page news, even in gray lady of journalism, The New York Times.

Abandonment issues in adoption on America's Next Top Model

Lorraine

America's Next Top Model is not the place where you would expect adoption issues to be discussed but this season features Molly, a young woman Tyra Banks told repeatedly that her mean, sourpuss demeanor when the camera wasn't on her would lose her bookings--even though she took totally fab pictures. Molly is one of the two finalists, the winner to be revealed on Wednesday.

Then, a few weeks ago in her talk-to-the-camera segment the 22-year-old from Charleston, South Carolina, comes out with:

"I think I have a couple of places where the anger comes from. I've had a lot of sadness, a lot of hurt. You know I think being adopted gave me some issues, you know, abandonment issues

Help Adoptees Reach First Parents

By LORRAINE DUSKY

Lorraine

Ask the man on the street if people who were adopted as babies should be able, as adults, to find out the identities of their original parents, and the typical answer is: Sure, isn't that their right?

Only for the fortunate few. In all states but six -- and New York isn't among that half-dozen -- individuals adopted at birth are still denied the unrestricted right to even look at a copy of their original birth certificates. Without that piece of paper, it's hard to have that longed-for mother-and-child reunion.

Adoption: Aussies and US

Jane and Evelyn Robinson

 Australia puts the United States to shame when it comes to domestic adoption. By removing profit from adoption and implementing reforms demanded by Australia’s ugly past, domestic adoption rates have plummeted to near zero benefiting both mothers and children.

OPEN RECORDS FOR ADOPTEE BILL PASSES IN NJ!

It's not over yet, but this afternoon New Jersey took one step closer to allowing people adopted as infants to obtain their original birth certificates, and with that the right to know their true identities.  We congratulate our friend Pam Hasegawa and Judy Foster and the others in New Jersey who have fought so hard and worked so long for passage of this bill--31 years.  We hope that the passage of this bill may lead to similar action in our neighboring state of New York. (See blog post of May 8.)

B. J Lifton's Mother's Day card

Jane

In my earlier post today, I wrote about adoptee Betty Jean Lifton's negative reaction to a Mother's Day card her birth mother sent her shortly after their reunion. A reader commented that "it's kinda byzantine for a (reunited) mother to send a Mother's Day card to her own daughter." 

In trying to be brief, I did not do justice to the Lifton's account. Here's the full quote:

Adoption Reunion: The Gift/Card Quagmire

This Mother’s Day I was truly blessed. My first daughter, Megan, whom I surrendered at birth, sent me a beautiful plant – actually four beautiful plants all together in a basket. My youngest daughter, Julie, sent me wonderful treats and flowers. I had brunch with my two middle daughters, Amy and Lucy, and two grandchildren who gave me charming cards. I am thrilled with everything! More important than the gifts and cards, though, was being recognized and remembered.

From Megan

 

Our calendar is filled with gift-giving/card-sending days --- Mother's Day, Christmas, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, many others--promoted by purveyors of candy, flowers, jewelry, clothing, cards, gadgets, nagging us to do what we want to do, remember those we love. These occasions can send those of us separated by adoption into a tailspin.

NYC Press Conference for Open Records for Adoptees

Press Conference for the Bill of Adoptee Rights from Flower City Media on Vimeo.
If you can get through this without getting a tear in your eye, you're a stronger person than I am. If you are in any state that has a bill in the works get involved!

I'm going to email both David Weprin and Richard Gottfried and thank them for their support. And by the way, Unsealed Initiative is collecting money (and size donation welcome, and we mean any amount) for Weprin's election campaign. He is a staunch supporter and we need him in Albany. If you have any NY connection with your adoption, please contact Joyce Bahr at unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com. 

We have around $400 at this point; I'd love to see us get to a thousand.  And check out UI's page too: Unsealed Initiative.  

On another note, I just read a blog by an adopter looking for a second child and she writes she feels
incredibly "sad" for me. Argument going on under earlier blog: Why I'm not celebrating "Birth Mother's Day"

It was weird to read, I admit. --lorraine 

Mother's Day: The Holiday from Hell, Part 2

"Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother."

Ah yes, Mother's Day, the drumbeat continues: On the way back from my morning Starbucks, I am tuned into the local NPR station, Peconic Public Broadcasting, and hear Bonnie Grice on The Eclectic Cafe after she makes some remarks about the upcoming holiday from hell, Mother's Day, say:  Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.

Why I'm not celebrating "Birth Mother's Day"

A really bad idea

The world's worst "holiday" is just days away--Mother's Day. For many mothers who lost their children to adoption, it is a day of miserable reminders of the children we do not have, and we approach it with all the joy of someone on her way to her own execution.

Writing a letter to the child you gave up for adoption

Lorraine

How do you write a letter to the son or daughter you gave up for adoption? Before you know her/him? How to begin, what to say? It's a question first/birth mothers are faced with if they must make contact through a confidential intermediary. At the end of my memoir, Birthmark, I have a letter to the daughter I did not know yet--she was thirteen at the time the book was published in 1979, and as many of you know, I did reunite with her less than three years later. No letter was necessary, I made a phone call and spoke to her adoptive mother, and then her adoptive father, and within ten minutes or so my daughter was on the line. Yep. That was, in a sense, the easy part.

But what would I say today if I had to write such a letter? How would I introduce myself?

Angry Someone attacks adoptees and first mothers!!! She/he is very very mad

Comment left today: 
Vroswell has left a new comment on your post "Adoptees to Get their Original Birth Certificates ...":

"The so called first mother's on this site get no sympothy [sic] from me. If you wanted to know your child you shouldn't have been too lazy too raise it. As for the idiotic adoptees on this site you should be grateful you weren't aborted, which is what's happening to a lot of other babies because selfish people like you keep pushing at these laws. Stop trying to invade and destroy the life of the very woman who chose to save yours!!!"