Joy’s post got me thinking about this…..
http://joy21.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/not-all-adoptees-feel-this-way/#comments
I do agree that all adoptees must feel a loss. I too don’t why so many adoptive parents either completely dismiss this or just don’t want to focus on it.
I wonder if it has something to do with the way grief itself works. You know the whole stages of mourning thing. Anybody who has lost someone knows that grieving is a strange thing. First you are consumed, then it comes and goes. When you’ve lost somebody you do get to the point that you can function, you don’t think about all the time, life does go on to a degree. You appear to be normal, observers would tend to think that you are getting over it, whatever that means. But at any moment grief can grab you and it’s like you’ve just lost that person. That’s normal, it’s the way it works. Eventually you just get better at hiding it. And by doing that sometimes you can even convince yourself that you are over it.
But everyone who has ever lost anybody knows, you never really get over it. Pretending that you have only makes it worse. That grief is going to come back and bite you in the ass at some point.
Infants can’t express their grief. I’m certain that they can feel it and process it to some degree. I wonder if the time between experiencing the loss and being able to express that loss brings many adoptees to the point that they can appear to be functioning normally. Combine that with the message that everything is as it should be, and you’ve got a real problem.
Think of it this way, you’d never tell a person who had lost a close family member that everything is as it should be two years after their loss. You know that in their world, as good as it may be, they will still miss someone. You know they miss these people on holidays, you know they think about them on birthdays and anniversaries of their deaths. Most of us do the same thing. Once we reach a certain age, it’s something that we all sadly share.
So why would you deny that an adoptee feels a loss? Think that one can replace the ones that you have lost? I’m sure that you have lost someone. You have other relatives, other friends, but none of them are that relative or friend. Things will never be the same without them. The ones lost to you are unique. So are the ones that the adoptee has lost. As an adoptive parent you may fulfill a role, you may do it well, but you are not that person the adoptee lost. They, and you, are unique.
Loss doesn’t always show. Can you tell immediately if someone that you meet parents are living, can you tell that they are widowed? Would it be much harder to ever know if society told them that they had lost nothing?
According To Addie 
Thank you for posting this, Heidi.
“Information is power, the saying goes.”
Which is one reason, among others, why adopted people deserve to have the right to information about their origins restored to them – and I use the word “restored” deliberately, because that right was eroded and eventually lost during the middle of the 20th century.
I would also like to include the opinion of Margaret Somerville, Canadian ethicist and academic. She is the Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Founding Director of the Faculty of Law’s Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University. She is a remarkable woman and someone to be taken seriously even where one disagrees with her.
The excerpt (below) is from a 2007 panel discussion about ethical problems relating to assisted reproductive technology, but she also relates to children’s human rights in general:
“Recently I’ve been working on children’s human rights with respect to their biological origins and biological families.
In that work I’ve argued that we must recognize that children have human rights with respect to knowing the identity of their biological parents and, if at all possible, their immediate and wider biological families; having a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents; and to come from natural biological origins.”
She also says that “It is one matter for children not to know their genetic identity as a result of unintended circumstances.
It is quite another matter to deliberately destroy children’s links to their biological parents, and especially for society to be
complicit in this destruction.”
You can read more here:
http://www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/files/pdf/The%20Intersection%20of%20Freedom%20-%20Margaret%20Somerville.pdf
She also believes that emphasis should be placed on the rights of the child, so that if an adopted person seeks disclosure of their adoption records, that information should be disclosed *whether the parent who placed the child consents or not*, because everyone has the human right to know their origins.
The reverse, on the other hand, wouldn’t necessarily hold true. In her opinion, a parent would only be entitled to information about a child who’d been placed for adoption if they consented.
“For those of you who are new to this, mandated open records ”unseal” original birth certificates of adult adopted children..”
Also for those who are new to this it might be worth noting that adoptees do not remain children all of their lives. They do become adults. For perspective should those not adopted be referred to as adult biological children, adult natural children, adult unadopted children? Sounds rather silly, doesn’t it?
I would think that even those who are new to adoption would realize that children (by definition) grow up.
It was a simple typo. Thanks for pointing it out.
Kippa:
“…having a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents; and to come from natural biological origins.”
With regard to reproductive technology, I’d have to say that Professor (?) Sommerville is arguing against invitro and other forms of artificial reproduction, which is consistent with traditional Catholic teaching. And I fully agree that, if mandated open records becomes the norm, donor records must also be released as well. That would be simple justice — the same standard for both mother and father.
As for the final paragraph, it’s important to distinguish between “rights” and “desires.” As “Addie” pointed out, these individuals are no longer children, but adults. “Mutual consent” would seem to be the logical middle ground.
Nice try fuckwit.
here’s the second comment she refused to put up…
Comment:
Please do not presume that I would think that mutual consent would be a logical middle ground. I do not. My biological history belongs to me, just as yours belongs to you. I have as much right to know what that heritage is as anyone else.
There is no middle ground. Something that is so uniquely mine cannot be denied me, it is my right to know this.
And the response..
Frankly, it’s not my concern whether you think this is logical middle ground — you are entitled to your opinion, and the express it … on YOUR blog.
As I’ve said to Kippa, I’m not interested in prolonging the discussing about open records on my blog at this time. There are strong points of view, and frankly because each of us has formed an opinion from which we are unlikely to budge, further discussion is pointless. I’ve deleted your comment, in keeping with my comments policy.
Feel free to link and respond as you see fit … but at EMN, I get to moderate and direct the conversation as I see fit. I’m sorry if you disagree with my viewpoint.
Heidi Saxton
Author, “Raising Up Mommy” and “Behold Your Mother” (http://www.christianword.com)
Founder, “Extraordinary Moms Network”
(http://extraordinarymomsnetwork.wordpress.com)