Often when people hear the word "adoption,"
they think of an infertile, childless couple
delightedly gazing into the eyes of their
recently adopted newborn baby. They are thrilled
to finally be parents, and are totally involved
in meeting the immediate needs of the child.
But what about the years that follow? Do the
effects of adoption stop the moment that a
child comes home to the new parents?
Those closely associated with adoption—adult
adopted persons, birth parents, adoptive parents,
and their friends and families—know that
its effects can be felt for a long time, in
fact for a lifetime. Adult adoptees1
often talk about them. For example, Steve
Harris, a 39-year-old program director at
a Dallas radio station who was adopted as
an infant, has been plagued with low self-esteem
throughout his life. Marie Haverton, a 24-year-old
office manager who was adopted at birth, has
always been afraid that people are going to
leave her, whether it is the men she dates
or the people with whom she works. Mary Lou
Roman did not know she had been adopted until
she was 17 and about to be married. Her parents
could not produce her birth certificate, but
instead handed her the legal document stating
that she had been adopted. Suddenly she knew
why she had so many identity problems in her
early teenage years.
Most people at some time in their lives have
feared rejection or have felt badly about
themselves for one reason or another. But
adopted persons have a unique issue that distinguishes
them from their peers—they were not raised
by their biological parents. Some adoptees
spend a lot of time wondering why their birth
parents placed them for adoption, and what
their life would have been like if they had
not been adopted. They wonder if something
was wrong with them from the start that caused
them to be placed with other parents.
Some adopted persons link all of their problems
to the fact that they were adopted. Others
do not make that connection or insist that
having been adopted has not interfered with
their ability to live a happy, fulfilling
life. Others feel very positive about their
adoption experience, but realize that adoption
brings with it certain issues. Just about
everyone who has been adopted consciously
or unconsciously faces issues of identity
and feelings of loss, especially at milestone
events—such as graduation from high school
or college, marriage, the birth of a child,
or the death of an adoptive parent. Adopted
persons may wonder how their birth parents
would feel if they knew their child had reached
these milestones.
Some adopted persons are able to work through
their feelings on their own or with the support
of friends and family; others seek professional
help to deal with the range of emotions they
feel about having been adopted.
"Adoptees suffer from a fear of loss. They
see loss all over the place," says Dr. Marshall
Schechter, a psychiatrist at the University
of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and
a nationally recognized expert on adoption.
"Even those adopted in infancy feel the
loss," he says. "If it happened once, it
can happen again."
Many adopted adults who have been in therapy
with Dr. Schechter have come to him with complaints
of depression, alcohol or drug use, marital
problems, or problems with their children.
Frequently they are having difficulty maintaining
intimate relationships. While Dr. Schechter
warns against making generalizations about
all adoptees—some feel remarkably free
of conflict—he and other therapists find
that many wrestle with the concerns that Steve,
Marie, and Mary Lou identify, including questions
about identity and self-esteem, feelings of
abandonment, and an interest in obtaining
information about their genetic background.
This factsheet discusses each of these issues
and presents some methods for coping.
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Identity and Self-Esteem
Establishing one's identity is the major
task of adolescence. Teenagers, whether adopted
or not, must deal with such questions as,
"Who am I?" "Where do I fit?" "What do I want
to do with my life?" For those who were adopted,
the search for personal identity is complicated
every step of the way by the mystery of their
genetic background. They wonder who gave them
their particular characteristics, and they
want answers to questions their adopted parents
may not be able to provide: "Where do I get
my artistic talent?" "Was everyone in my birth
family short?" "What is my ethnic background?"
"Why was I placed for adoption?" Twenty-four-
year-old Jamie, adopted at age 3, says, "I
feel like a cereal box with no ingredients.
Even my furniture has a tag that says what
it is made of. And written on the tag is 'do
not remove.'"
Often the undeniable fact that an adoptee
does not resemble other family members stimulates
intense feelings of aloneness. Steve Harris,
for example, did not look anything like his
family. "I would go to family reunions and
everyone was tall and thin and I was short
and stocky. They had dark complexions and
I was much lighter. They were good at sports
and I wasn't. I would spend a week with people
who were supposed to be family, but we didn't
have anything in common. I looked different.
My personality and temperament were different.
I would come home feeling like I didn't belong."
In most families, even when a child does
not look like his or her parents, there is
usually someone else to point to—Aunt
Sarah, Grandpa Harry—to make the comparison.
Adopted children may feel particularly or
overly sensitive about the fact that they
do not resemble other family members and believe
"that their parents have settled for second
best," says Dr. Schechter. "No amount of reassuring
can diminish what adopted persons perceive
as a stunning difference (between themselves
and other family members). They may develop
fantasies, both positive and negative, about
their birth family, and it often hampers their
ability to move on with their lives."
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Feelings of Abandonment
Adoptive parents discuss adoption with their
children in different ways. Some parents can
talk easily about the subject and encourage
their children to ask questions and share
their feelings. Others, often because of their
own insecurities about their right to be parents,
say little about adoption, or even say negative
things about a child's birth parents. In these
situations, children may feel that there must
be something shameful about their past and,
thus, begin to feel shameful about themselves.
As adults, these individuals may feel they
do not have permission to grieve the loss
they feel from not growing up with their biological
families. According to Lois Melina, co-author
of The
Open Adoption Experience, they may
become "stuck" in their anger and sadness.
However, even when adoptive parents say all
the right things, such as "your birthmother
was not able to care for you and she wanted
you to have the best home possible," some
children who have been adopted have strong
feelings of abandonment. They think that since
their mothers abandoned them, others in their
lives will also abandon them. As a result,
as adults they do not expect much from other
relationships. They fear rejection, have trouble
making commitments, and avoid intimacy. Intimate
relationships, in fact, can be quite difficult
for some men and women who have been adopted.
Fears about abandonment and low self-esteem
often lead them to sabotage their relationships.
They may perceive this as the only way to
insulate themselves from being abandoned again.
According to Dr. Schechter, some adoptees
feel that "being vulnerable is just too risky.
They fear that a person they invest in will
leave them— just like their birth parents
did. It causes them to be wary of how close
they can get to people." For some adoptees,
the scenario may be similar to that of Catherine,
who at 31 had been unable to maintain an intimate
relationship for longer than 2 months. She
would fall passionately in love, become intensely
involved, then suddenly feel dissatisfied
and break off the relationship. It happened
as soon as her partner suggested a more permanent
emotional commitment. "I would panic," Catherine
says. "I always wanted to leave them before
they left me. That way I could be the one
in control and not get hurt."
Some adoptees avoid intimacy because they
are uncomfortable with the openness and vulnerability
that such relationships entail. "Many times,
entering into an intimate relationship will
force someone to admit secrets he has kept
hidden even from himself," say the authors
of Being
Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self.
"For an adoptee in a new, intimate relationship,
this can mean expressing feelings about being
adopted that have previously been dormant
or suppressed.2
Other adoptees may thwart their intimate
relationships by being too clingy. For example,
Steve Harris admits, "As a child, I was always
hanging on to my mother. Whenever she would
leave the room, I would cry. Later, I transferred
the same behavior to the women in my life.
I was always afraid they would leave me, so
I pressured them so that they had no choice
but to back off. I didn't even realize I was
doing it."
This is not to say that all adoptees have
problems with feelings of abandonment in their
intimate relationships. However, many come
to understand that they have an additional
sensitivity to the issue.
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The Interest in Genetic
Information
Another issue facing adoptees is that they
often lack family medical history and other
family information. A visit to the doctor's
office, where one is likely to be asked about
one's family medical history, makes adoptees
acutely aware of how they differ from those
who were not adopted. Thirty- two-year-old
Rena says, "I used to be uncomfortable in
the doctor's office when he would ask me for
my medical history. `Did anyone in your family
have diabetes? Cancer? Heart disease?' Actually,
I never focused on my adoption until I had
to confront the fact that I had this whole
genetic inheritance I knew nothing about.
Every time I read in the newspaper about a
new disease, I wondered, perhaps, if I had
the genes for that one. It made me very uneasy."
When an adoptee plans to get married or become
a parent, his or her need for genetic information
may become more intense. People have different
questions about the child they will produce,
such as what the child will look like, and
if the child will inherit any genetic disorders,
such as sickle- cell anemia. Unfortunately,
the fear of the unknown has kept some adoptees
from having their own children. "I was afraid
to start a family," says 36-year-old Beatrice.
"It is my deepest regret in life." Other adopted
persons who have not had a reunion say that
the birth of a baby provides the first opportunity
to encounter a "blood relative," and it is
a joyously anticipated event. Meryl—who
was 38 before she felt comfortable enough
to become pregnant—says, "I couldn't
wait for my son or daughter to be born. I
wanted to see someone, to hold someone who
was connected to me through blood lines. This
child I was carrying became the most important
thing in my life—my only connection to
the past or the future."
Most people take for granted the fact that
they have access to their genetic and medical
information. For those who were adopted, however,
it is very difficult to obtain updated medical
information unless birth parents have updated
their file. Many States allow adopted persons
to have access to their non-identifying information.
Some have mutual consent registries that provide
identifying information to the parties in
an adoption only if all have agreed that they
wish to be found. Alabama, Alaska, Kansas,
and Hawaii are the only States with an open
record policy. Some adoptees are quite angry
at the obstacles placed before them in trying
to recover what they consider their birthright—full
access to their adoption records, including
identifying information. "It is outrageous
that society should decide that I have no
right to my records," says Florence Fisher,
founder of the Adoptees
Liberty Movement Association (ALMA). "Why
should I pay taxes to a country that won't
give me my birth certificate?"
"I was told I would need my adoptive parents'
permission before anything could be released
to me," says 45- year-old Bonnie, who was
similarly outraged at being unable to obtain
her birth certificate. "I have two adult children
of my own and they are telling me that I need
my 68-year-old mother's permission to find
out my history." Adoptions arranged 45 years
ago never included a provision for ongoing
contact between adoptive and birth parents.
Over the past 10- 15 years there have been
a number of changes in adoption practice.
Nowadays, even if there is not full openness
in an adoption there is often a mechanism
for willing parties to communicate with one
another through the agency or attorney who
arranged the adoption so that updated medical
and other non-identifying information can
be shared.
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How Adopted Persons Cope
"Being adopted," says Marie Haverton, "is
a lifelong issue. Even if it doesn't haunt
you, even if you have a job and a family
and a good self- image, the fact that the
family that you grew up in is not the family
whose genetics you share never goes away.
Some of us live in denial. Others of us
make an uneasy peace with our situations.
Some seek kinship in support groups. Some,
like me, have to find our birth families."
Support Groups
National organizations such as ALMA
or the American
Adoption Congress, or local support groups
such as Philadelphia's Adoption Forum, offer
solace, sympathy, and an opportunity for those
who have been adopted to exchange feelings
and information. For many, it is one of the
few places where everyone understands the
unique aspects of adoption and feelings can
be expressed openly. It is an environment
in which adoptees can tell their stories and
hear about other people's experiences. "People
in your life try to be sympathetic," says
Barbara Bucharis, "but there is no way you
can understand what it feels like not to know
where you came from. No matter how many books
you read on the subject or how much research
you've done, you can never understand—unless
you've lived it—what it feels like to
have this mystery in your life."
"Support groups help validate your feelings,"
confirms Marie Haverton. "You see that what
you are feeling isn't crazy. There are a lot
of people in the same boat and they are there
to help you along." Hearing in support group
meetings how others have coped with their
feelings of abandonment, rejection, and loss
can inspire troubled adult adoptees to work
through their own issues. They might decide
to talk to a counselor about these issues,
possibly going to one that someone in the
support group found helpful, or they might
decide to search for their birth family.
Counseling
Some adult adoptees find individual counseling
with a counselor who is knowledgeable about
adoption issues to be very helpful. An experienced
therapist can help adult adoptees untangle
which of their concerns are adoption-related
and which are adjustment issues that many
people in their stage of life go through.
According to Detroit-area adoption therapist
Linda Yellin, MSW, who is herself an adoptee,
"Therapy can assist adoptees in a number of
different ways. It can help them with their
interpersonal relationships; the integration
of their adoption experiences; their struggles
around adoption issues; and with their healing
process. Therapy can also assist adoptees
in sorting through the decision about whether
or not to search for birth relatives. If a
search is undertaken, the counselor can assist
in preparing an adoptee for a possible reunion,
and in understanding and integrating the new
information and newly found family of origin
as well as the upheaval of emotions that often
accompanies a search and its aftermath."
For instance, some adoptees' reunions go
very well. They find their birth family, and
they like them very much, and everyone is
happy to have been found. For those adoptees,
the issues in therapy may be the grief and
loss they feel at not having been able to
grow up with that family. For those who were
adopted at an older age from the foster care
system, therapy may help them deal with the
consequences of the abuse or neglect they
endured when they were younger. Even if they
are happy with their place in their adoptive
family, they may still be dealing with the
effects of their early life experiences. Therapy
is a resource that adoptees, adoptive parents,
and birth parents can use to help them handle
whatever emotions they are feeling.
Occasionally, therapists who are knowledgeable
about adoption issues offer therapy groups
in which all of the participants are adopted
adults, or are touched by adoption in some
way. Participants could be adoptive parents,
birth parents, or perhaps a sibling of an
adoptee. These groups go into more depth than
the type of support group described above.
They actually combine the best elements of
a support group and individual counseling:
members of the group all have the adoption
experience in common, and the group is facilitated
by a skilled mental health professional.
The Search for Birth Parents
In the past, it was assumed that a healthy,
well-adjusted adopted person would have no
desire to delve into his or her birth history.
Those who insisted that they needed this information
and access to their birth records were considered
to be ungrateful at the least, and seriously
disturbed at the worst. It was startling,
therefore, when the May l971 issue of the
Pediatrics journal printed the following:
"There is ample evidence that the adopted
child retains the need for seeking his ancestry
for a long time.3 Later in the 1970's, a research
group in California led by Arthur D. Sorosky,
M.D., a clinical professor of child psychiatry
at UCLA, and social workers Annette Baran
and Reuben Pannor revealed that by late adolescence
and young adulthood, just about all adoptees
in their study felt a sense of "genealogical
bewilderment," defined as "psychological confusion
about their genetic origins." The researchers
found that adoptees search for their birth
family because of both a sociological and
a biological need.
Indeed, recent research indicates that it
is normal and healthy for adopted persons
to want to know more about their genetic background.
"There is a significant difference in the
way adoptees perceive themselves when they
have some information about their birth family's
background," says Marcie Griffin, an adoption
counselor at Hope Cottage Adoption Center
in Dallas, Texas. "When adoptees learn something
about their birthmother's education or special
talents or are given some explanation of why
they were placed, they begin to have greater
self-esteem and a better idea of who they
really are."
Nonetheless, adoptees thinking about searching
hear many voices. One voice tells them not
to open Pandora's box—they may be devastated
by what they find. Perhaps they will experience
rejection or find a birth parent who needs
emotional or financial support they are not
prepared to give. What about the rights of
the birthmother who may have carved out a
life for herself and does not want the intrusion?
Adoptees must also consider their adoptive
parents and the grief that a search may bring
them. Adoptive parents may feel unloved, unappreciated,
and hurt by their child's need to find his
or her "real" parents.
Experienced adoption therapists say that
while adoptees may want to take other people's
real or imagined feelings into consideration,
their own feelings are also important. In
most cases, they did not have any control
over whether they were placed for adoption,
or with whom. Searching is a way for them
to get back some of that control, fill in
missing pieces, and move on. If adoptees have
a strong urge to seek out the people to whom
they are biologically related, most therapists
say they should follow it. In addition, adoptees
planning to search for their birth parents
and hoping to have a reunion should have a
support network in place while going through
the process. The support network can be the
adoptee's spouse and children, adoptive family,
good friends, therapist, support group, or
a combination of several of these.
"One of the misconceptions that adoptive
parents have," explains Dr. Schechter, "is
that they have done something to make their
child want to search. They haven't. Everyone
needs to feel that they are part of a continuum
of a family. It represents a normal need in
people to know, for instance, why they are
artistic but their family isn't, why they
are gregarious and their parents are quiet.
As more is learned about genetics, scientists
are discovering that many talents and personality
traits have a genetic basis." Steve Harris
talks to prospective adoptive parents and
tries to prepare them for the questions and
concerns that their children may face as they
grow up. He reassures them that their children's
curiosity about their identity has nothing
to do with poor parenting. "Just because your
son or daughter wants to find a birth parent
doesn't mean you did something wrong. It is
just information we need to feel like a whole
person for the first time in our lives," Harris
says.
In fact, a successful search, with the support
of adoptive parents, often makes relationships
between parents and adopted persons closer.
That was the experience of Mary Lou Roman.
"I think, in the beginning, my parents worried
that I would find my birthmother and love
her more than I loved them," says Mary Lou,
who searched for 14 years before finding her
father and brother. "I explained to my parents
that I had been happy in my adoptive home,
but I had to know who my birth parents were.
I felt like a lost person, that I belonged
to no one, that I had nothing to contribute.
I told them how I looked in the mirror and
started to cry, yearning for someone, somewhere,
who looked like me, maybe walked like me.
They understood, supported my search, and
I found that we got closer and spent more
time together once I felt like a complete
human being. My parents live with me now,
and I love them more than ever before."
Dr. Sorosky and his research team found that
almost all adoptees in their study wanted
to know about their genetic past. Perhaps
some did not focus on their adoption and were
able to resolve issues surrounding it on their
own, or had enough information about the circumstances
of their adoption to satisfy them. Adoptees
who are basically curious and questioning
may decide to undertake an active search.
In either case, their decision is not necessarily
related to the quality of the relationship
between them and their adoptive parents.
For those who do search, the goal should
be the truth. They must be willing to accept
whatever they find. "I pictured my mother
being everything from Madame Curie to a 42nd
Street hooker," says Mary Lou Roman. "It didn't
matter what I found. I just wanted to know
the truth." Even for those adoptees who have
searched for birth parents only to experience
rejection again, the result is still viewed
positively. Many believe that searching helped
them to finally achieve adulthood, lay aside
childhood fantasies, and accept themselves
as a whole person.4
Marie Haverton agrees, "Searching for my birthmother
wasn't something I wanted to do. It was something
I had to do. Even though things didn't
always go smoothly for everyone involved,
I would definitely do it again. I got the
answers to my questions."
For many, searching can be an important step
toward resolving questions of origin. However,
even meeting one's birth family will not magically
restore self-esteem or erase the sense of
rejection that adoptees may have felt through
the years. Post-reunion issues themselves
take a lot of work; for instance, deciding
how involved to be with birth family members
after finding them and how to combine those
relationships with adoptive family relationships.
Gaining the birth family as an adult cannot
make up for the years that were not spent
together on a day-to-day basis. But it certainly
can bring an added dimension to one's life.
Steve Harris remembers, "The night I spoke
with my birthmother for the first time—we
spent about 3 hours talking on the telephone
about our likes and dislikes—closure
was brought to a part of my life. I can remember
waking up the next day feeling great. It was
the most peaceful night's sleep I had ever
had."
Conclusion
Adoption brings with it certain core issues.
As adopted children grow into adulthood, they
carry their thoughts and feelings about being
adopted with them. Adult adoptees may have
no, some, or great difficulty dealing with
these thoughts and feelings. Some will struggle
with the added dynamic that adoption brings
to their life, and for others there will be
little or no struggle.
We hope this factsheet has been helpful in
at least pointing out to adult adoptees that
they are not alone, whatever their feelings
about being adopted. There are many helpful
resources available to them, among them the
National
Adoption Information Clearinghouse.
The Clearinghouse can help adult adoptees
in three ways. First, the Clearinghouse publishes
a related factsheet called "Searching for Birth
Relatives." In addition to discussing
the issues, the factsheet also provides a
State-by-State list of all the known national
and local adult adoptee search and support
groups in the United States. Second, the Clearinghouse
provides referrals to a growing list of adoption
experts, some of whom are psychotherapists
(counselors) who specialize in working with
adult adoptees and others who are touched
by adoption. Third, the Clearinghouse can
supply bibliographic information on many other
books and articles on relevant topics. For
any of these resources, contact National Adoption
Information Clearinghouse at 330 C Street,
SW, Washington, D.C. 20447, (703) 352-3488
or 1 (888) 251-0075.
Written by Gloria Hochman, Anna Huston,
and Mady Prowler of the National Adoption
Center for the National Adoption Information
Clearinghouse, 1994.
Internet links added by Adoptions.com
2000 and updated in 2008.
Bibliography
American Academy of Pediatrics Committee
on Adoption. "Identity Development in Adopted
Children." Pediatrics, vol. 47 no.
5, May 1971, pp. 948-949.
Brodzinsky, David M., Ph.D.; Schechter, Marshall
D., M.D.; and Henig, Robin M. Being
Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self.
New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1992.
Griffin, Marcie, M.S. "The Adult Adoptee:
The Biological Alien." Adoption Therapist,
vol. 2 no. 2, Fall 1991, pp. 8-9.
Herman, Flory G. “I Have
Roots and Branches” Personal Reflections on Adoption, May 2004
Hochman, Gloria. "Mom Finds Daughter She
Gave Away 27 Years Before." Family Weekly,
August 10, 1980, pp. 1, 19.
Klunder, Virgil L. Lifeline:
The Action Guide to Adoption Search.
Cape Coral, FL: Caradium Publishing, 1991.
Lifton, Betty Jean. Twice
Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter.
New York: Penguin, 1977.
_______________. Lost
& Found: The Adoption Experience.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988.
_______________. Journey
of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness.
New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Melina, Lois Ruskai and Roszia, Sharon Kaplan.
The
Open Adoption Experience. New York:
Harper Collins, 1993.
Rosenberg, Elinor B. The
Adoption Life Cycle. New York: The
Free Press, 1992.
Small, Joanne W. "Discrimination Against
the Adoptee." Public Welfare, Summer
1979, vol. 37 no. 3,pp. 38-43.
Sorosky, Arthur D., M.D.; Baran, Annette,
M.S.W.; and Pannor, Reuben, M.S.W. The
Adoption Triangle: The Effects of the Sealed
Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Adoptive
Parents. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/
Doubleday, 1978.
Strauss, Jean A. S. Birthright.
New York: Penguin, 1994.
Zeilinger, Richard. "The Need to Know vs.
the Right to Know." Public Welfare,
Summer 1979, vol. 37 no. 3, pp. 44-47.
Notes
For more information, contact the National
Adoption Information Clearinghouse at info@childwelfare.gov.
