Adoption
and Loss
- The Hidden Grief
by Evelyn
Robinson, Exiled Natural Mother
Presented in New Zealand, the USA, Canada,
England, Ireland and Scotland
April, May and June 2001
introduction | Adoption
and disenfranchised grief | Access to
adoption information | Grief and reunion
| Preparation for mothers considering reunion
| Reunion issues | Current
adoption policy in South Australia | future
| conclusion
Introduction
Although I have lived in Australia for almost twenty years,
I am actually Scottish. I consider myself, in fact, an adopted
Australian. Australia is my home but I have no Australian
blood. Australian history is not the history of my people.
My heritage and my ancestors lie in the hills of Aberdeenshire.
I am also a mother who lost my first child through adoption.
His name is Stephen and he was born in Edinburgh in 1970.
I should like to make it clear that Stephen has been very
supportive of everything that I have done in the adoption
area, especially of my book. In my book ("Adoption and
Loss - The Hidden Grief") I have told the story of my
experience of becoming pregnant and losing my son through
adoption and of the impact of that experience on my life.
As a result of that experience, I found myself joining ARMS
(Association Representing Mothers Separated from their children
by adoption) in 1989 in South Australia and I have been a
member since then. During that time I have spoken with hundreds
of mothers who also lost their children through adoption.
In writing my book I drew on not only my own experience, but
also on the experiences of the many women I had encountered
over the years. Because of my own experience and the voluntary
work that I did with ARMS for many years, I decided to pursue
a career in the counselling field. I returned to study in
1995 and completed a post-graduate degree in social work.
I have been employed by ARMS as their Counsellor/Co-ordinator
since September 1999. Throughout my professional studies,
I focussed as much as I could on grief and loss issues and
how these applied to adoption. In my book I have also described
my research from a social work perspective into the impact
of adoption on people's lives. Towards the end of my book
I describe my views on adoption and my vision for a future
without adoption.
For these three reasons, my personal experience, my experience
for twelve years as an ARMS member and my professional experience
as a social worker and author, I feel that my opinions on
adoption deserve to be taken seriously. Adoption is a subject
that stirs up a great deal of emotion. I am angry at the hurt
that has been caused by adoption, but I am not bitter. Anger
can be a positive and productive emotion. Bitterness is only
negative and destructive.
The naming of those whose lives have been affected by adoption
often causes difficulties. My belief is that it is not the
names that are used that are of greatest importance, but rather
the views and the intentions behind the terminology. The words
that I use and my comments on adoption are not intended to
demean or to offend anyone. I am here to present my personal
opinion on adoption loss and grief in the hope that it
will be of interest to you.
Before an adoption takes place, a child and his or her family
of origin are separated from each other. This separation means
that losses are experienced. Adoption is based on loss and
grief is the emotion that we expect to follow loss. My main
focus has always been the grief experienced by mothers who
have lost children through adoption, although I have also
explored to some extent the losses experienced by adopted
people. Much of what I believe about the nature of the grief
experienced by mothers applies also to adopted people, as
the losses resulting from being separated from their families
and being issued with a replacement birth certificate have
also traditionally not been acknowledged or understood. I
do not address the loss associated with infertility, which
is an issue for some adoptive parents, as this is not a loss
which is caused by adoption.
I originally became interested in the concept of disenfranchised
grief and started to explore how it might apply to adoption.
From there I came to form a view of adoption as a whole. I
was impressed by this quotation in a book called "A Burnt-Out
Case" by Graham Greene. A character says, "I discovered
what seemed only to be a loose thread in my jacket - I pulled
it and all the jacket began to unwind". That is what happened
when I began by exploring disenfranchised grief in adoption.
Eventually, the whole of adoption began to unravel.
Adoption and disenfranchised
grief
What does adoption mean to those involved? Traditionally
adoption has been seen as a tidy solution to everyone's problems,
which suits all of those involved. However, many people are
now beginning to view adoption quite differently. It is now
felt that by creating a replacement birth certificate for
a child, we are saying that we do not value that child's actual
heritage and identity. Otherwise how could we erase them with
an adoption order? In this, the 21st century, we have learned
to value each individual, regardless of gender, race, sexuality
or disability and so how is it that we still fail to value
people's origins? Every time we allow a child to be adopted
we are saying to that child that his or her heritage is so
insignificant that we are happy to wipe it out completely
so that it has no legal standing whatsoever.
Whenever we allow a child to be adopted we are also saying
to the parents of that child that we do not value their parenthood,
because we are willing to eliminate their role and to provide
their child with a new birth certificate, which allows the
false assumption that they as parents did not exist. Most
children have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and often
siblings. Adoption denies that those relationships exist.
The denial involved in adoption devalues the entire family
of origin. This is an insult to the child, to the parents
of the child and to all other family members. How could we
expect people not to be deeply hurt by such an experience?
Adoption creates a permanent legal separation within a family.
When family members are separated from each other in this
way, they are lost to each other. You cannot have adoption
without loss. Grief is not only the expected response to a
loss, it is also a positive and beneficial response,
because grieving allows us to process our loss. Community
education programmes are vital, to highlight adoption loss
and grief issues and to increase understanding and awareness
of the need for adoption-related support services. We expect
those who have lost a family member to grieve that loss and
community support is generally provided for that grief. Because
of the lack of community understanding of the grief which
follows adoption loss, however, there has been an unfortunate
lack of community support for adoption-related grief. The
secrecy and denial involved in adoption have contributed to
the difficulties in resolving adoption-related grief. A lifetime
shadowed by sadness is actually exactly what one would expect
for someone whose life has been affected by adoption. For
too long, however, those seeking help have been made to feel
inadequate and have been labelled as having made a "poor adjustment"
to their situation. In fact, they are the fortunate ones who
are approaching the issue with openness and honesty and are
already on the path to healing because of their awareness.
Although obviously each case is unique, some general conclusions
can be drawn from the various studies which have been undertaken
on the outcomes for mothers who have lost children through
adoption. Most of you are probably familiar with Dr Condon's
study of mothers in South Australia and with Winkler and van
Keppel's study of mothers Australia-wide. They found that,
in the majority of cases, mothers reported that their anger
and sense of loss actually increased over time. I found that
very interesting because it seemed to contradict community
expectations of the process of grief. When we suffer other
types of losses in our lives, the sadness generally decreases
as time goes by, which is why people talk about time being
such a great healer.
It seems that the grief which results from adoption loss
more often follows a pattern which is the exact opposite of
what one might expect in the case of other losses. I have
reached certain conclusions on the grief associated with adoption
loss, based on my own experience, the experiences of the women
I have encountered and the books on grief and grief counselling
which I have read. It became obvious to me that the common
models of grief counselling would not work with mothers who
had lost children through adoption. I concluded that the grief
resulting from the loss of a child through adoption was fundamentally
different from other types of grief.
I explored grief associated with abortion, with stillbirth
and neo-natal death and with loss of custody. Although there
were some similarities, it seemed that adoption grief was
unique. I read a book called Disenfranchised Grief
edited by Kenneth Doka. His description of disenfranchised
grief was very interesting, but nowhere in his book is there
any mention of the grief experienced by mothers who have lost
children through adoption. I decided to apply Doka's definition
of disenfranchised grief and see if it fitted with what I
already knew about adoption grief. Doka says that grief is
disenfranchised when the grief is connected with a loss which
cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially
supported. He also says that in many cases of disenfranchised
grief, the relationship is not recognised, the loss is not
recognised or the griever is not recognised.
The loss of a child through adoption is usually a loss which
cannot be openly acknowledged, which is why mothers often
suffer in silence. Losing a child through adoption is seldom
publicly mourned because everyone is so busy pretending that
it has not happened and it certainly is not socially supported.
Traditionally, community support has been very much in favour
of adoption.
Doka says that people who have experienced any type of loss
often feel anger, guilt, sadness, depression, hopelessness
and numbness and that in cases of disenfranchised grief, these
feelings can persist for a very long time. Doka states that
mourners whose grief is disenfranchised are by virtue of this
cut off from social supports and so have few opportunities
to express and resolve their grief and that the result can
be that they feel alienated from their community. Doka also
says that the lack of recognition of their grief often results
in them holding on to it more tenaciously than they might
otherwise have done. All of that sounded very familiar to
me.
Everything that I read about adoption loss from then on was
informed by my conviction that the grief resulting from adoption
loss was disenfranchised. I read about the role of ritual
in assisting productive grieving and the purposes of funeral
rites. These include; announcing the death, recognising the
place which the dead person held in society, assisting the
bereaved through the process of grief, delimiting the period
of mourning, allowing the grievers to express their emotions
publicly and allowing the members of the community to gather
to support each other. Rituals provide the bereaved with a
very public opportunity to grieve.
There is no formal ritual surrounding an adoption loss. There
is usually no public announcement by the mother of either
the birth or the loss of the child; far from it. In many cases
the intention was to keep that information from as many people
as possible. There is no recognition of the place which the
child held in society, because the child who was born becomes
a non-existent person after adoption. Once the new birth certificate
is issued, that original child has no place in society because
society denies that child's existence. Generally, no one assisted
the mother through the process of grief. Most mothers were
not allowed to express their emotions publicly. They had to
hide their feelings after the birth as they had learned to
hide them throughout their pregnancies. In the case of adoption
the community usually does not gather round the person who
is grieving; in fact they often avoid her. There is no public
outpouring of grief. There are usually no photographs, no
mementoes. For mothers who lost children through adoption
there were no rituals to facilitate their grieving and to
provide limits to the period of mourning.
I read about intrapsychic disenfranchisement. This occurs
when the mourner feels responsible for the loss and it results
in feelings of shame and guilt. Because of their sense of
guilt and responsibility, many mothers who lost children through
adoption disenfranchised their own grief. This resulted in
them feeling that they were not as good as other mothers.
They felt that they were not entitled to grieve and so they
suppressed their grief. As a result they cut themselves off
from some possible sources of support.
I read about the role of silence in grief suppression. In
many cases of adoption loss, the pregnancy was hidden and
so silence was inevitable. In other cases, people knew about
the baby, but it seemed as if the whole of society was part
of a conspiracy of silence, with everyone pretending that
it had not happened. The fact that adopted children were issued
with a second birth certificate which denied the existence
of their original mothers only added to the communal denial
of their experience. Mothers often joined this conspiracy
of silence because they interpreted this community silence
as disapproval. They did not feel that it would be safe to
express their grief. They felt betrayed; betrayed by a society
which told them to be unselfish and give their children away
for their own good and then made them feel ashamed of it afterwards.
Mothers who have lost children through adoption were never
given permission to grieve. It is not surprising then that
so many of them come to feel that they have never quite regained
their equilibrium. I believe that all of this explains why
mothers tend, in the main, to report that their sadness and
anger have increased with time. Taking into account everything
that we know about grief, that is to be expected. They have
been denied every opportunity to perform grief work because
their grief has been disenfranchised by society.
What are the outcomes of this for mothers who have lost children
through adoption? They experience the same outcomes as other
people whose grief is disenfranchised and suppressed. They
become depressed, they have low self-esteem, they develop
emotional disturbances and sometimes physical illnesses. Sometimes
they withdraw from society or succumb to substance abuse.
Sometimes they have difficulty forming healthy relationships.
Their grieving often becomes chronic. They usually have difficulty
dealing with subsequent losses, because they did not learn
how to grieve productively in what for most of them was the
first major loss in their lives and so they simply do not
know how to do it. This means that when they experience other
losses in their lives, they tend to repeat the pattern of
behaviour that they learned at the time of the loss of their
children and suppress their grief again.
While silence and secrecy are probably less significant for
mothers of younger children who were adopted in more recent
times, for them the stigma associated with having allowed
their children to be adopted is more of an issue than the
stigma associated with having become pregnant while unmarried.
Because they lost their children in a social climate which
is so much more tolerant of single parenthood, they tend to
be held largely responsible by society for allowing the adoption
to take place and so as well as feeling guilty and socially
alienated for that reason, they also feel that they are not
entitled to grieve. Because others usually consider them to
be responsible for the separation from their child, they are
not expected to grieve and so their grief also is often not
openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported.
As with the mothers of older children, their grief is invalidated
if they are told that they have done the right thing.
For adopted people, adoption has usually been presented as
an event for which they should be grateful and it is difficult
for many people to acknowledge that losses are experienced
by a child who is adopted. Because the child may have no memory
of the separation from his or her family of origin, this does
not necessarily mean that the child has not suffered as a
result. Many parents and children who have been separated
by adoption are still suffering because they have endured
a grievous loss in their lives which has not been acknowledged.
Often they also feel guilty and inadequate because they have
not resolved their grief. The central issue in dealing with
disenfranchised grief is to validate the loss. Family members
who have been separated by adoption need their loss to be
validated and their grief to be acknowledged.
Access to adoption
information
There is no justification for preventing those who have been
affected by an adoption from receiving the relevant information
regarding their family members. An adoption is a legal arrangement.
It does not change the actual relationships between people,
only the legal rights and responsibilities. If a couple marry
and have a child, for example and then divorce, the legal
arrangement of the marriage no longer exists but, regardless
of that, each party to the marriage is still a parent to the
child. Likewise, when an adoption takes place, the legal rights
and responsibilities are transferred from one set of parents
to another but the actual relationships between the parents
and the child cannot be altered. Natural parents lost the
right to raise their children to adulthood; they did not lose
the right to know their children, to love their children and
to offer their children the priceless gift that absolutely
no one else can offer them - the gift of knowing the
people who gave them life.
Not allowing those affected by adoption to obtain information
which will assist them to heal goes against my ethics and
values as a social worker. Such legislation perpetuates the
shame and secrecy which have clung to adoption over the years
and supports on-going denial of the truth and suppression
of emotions. As a social worker, I realise that such suppression
and denial cannot possibly be in anyone's best interests.
Legislation which supports people to avoid reality and prevents
healing is, for me, ethically insupportable. It is my view
that a reunion is always beneficial to both mother and child,
as it allows them to confront the reality of their loss and
is a very important step towards addressing their grief.
I find it very disappointing that in countries outside of
Australia, I hear so little of any achievements in gaining
access to adoption information for natural parents. I find
that very difficult to understand. After all, the woman who
is the mother of the child who is adopted will always be that
child's mother, regardless of whether or not she assumes the
legal rights and responsibilities of a parent and actually
raises the child. Likewise the father of the child will always
be the father of the child, regardless of whether or not he
is able or willing to acknowledge that fact. Parental rights
and responsibilities end when a child becomes an adult. Not
allowing parents like me access to information about our adult,
adopted children is patronising and insulting. It implies
that we are not to be trusted with such information and are
not morally entitled to it. In no other area of life is such
basic information withheld from adults who are innocent of
any crime. It is a punitive and outrageous state of affairs
and unnecessarily intrusive. We were considered to be sensible
and responsible enough to sign an adoption consent and relinquish
all legal rights and responsibilities towards our children.
At that time, many of us were young and inexperienced. Two
decades later, when our children have reached adulthood and
we are more mature and experienced, we deserve to be allowed
to make our own choices about our relationships with our adult
children. Adopted adults and their original parents should
have the right to make choices and decisions regarding their
relationships in exactly the same way that the rest of the
population does.
I live in South Australia which has a population of about
two million people. South Australia is the only state in Australia
which was established by free settlers and not by convict
labour. South Australia was the first state in Australia to
grant women the vote and, in 1988, the first state in Australia
to grant adopted adults and their natural parents equal access
to adoption information. Adoption legislation in Australia
is different in each state, but the various Adoption Acts
are very similar. Every other state except one has followed
South Australia's lead in allowing equal access to adoption
records to adopted adults and their natural parents. As our
current legislation has been in operation now for thirteen
years, I think we are safe in saying that overall it has been
a very positive move. When these changes were being considered,
however, there was some scaremongering and suggestions that
mothers would be deterred from consenting to adoption if they
could not be assured lifelong confidentiality and that instead
of agreeing to adoption, they would simply abandon their babies.
Of course, this has not happened. Whatever other fears some
people had when the legislation was changed have also not
been realised.
In South Australia, when adopted children reach the age of
18 years, they are able to access all documents pertaining
to their adoption, including the names and addresses of their
original parents at the time of the adoption and the name
that they were originally given. At the same time, natural
parents are allowed to obtain all documents pertaining to
the adoption of their children, including the new name given
to their child after the adoption and the names and address
of the adoptive parents when the adoption took place. For
most people, I believe, it is self-evident that both adopted
adults and their natural parents are morally entitled to access
to their adoption information. The nature of current adoption
legislation in South Australia indicates that there is a general
acceptance in the community that it is an expected outcome
of an adoption that there may eventually be a reunion between
the separated parties. Regardless of whether or not legal
access to information exists, however, family members who
have been separated by adoption are frequently being reunited
with each other.
Grief and reunion
As a social work student, I studied various models of grief
counselling. Worden's book, "Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy"
is a fairly representative example. Worden says that grieving
is necessary in order to re-establish equilibrium. The necessary
components of grief work, according to Worden, are a series
of tasks. The first is to accept the reality of the loss,
the second is to experience the pain of grief, the third to
adjust to the environment from which the lost person is missing
and the fourth to withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it
in another relationship. According to Worden, grief becomes
repressed or delayed when there are no opportunities to perform
these tasks. It is my view that this is exactly what has happened
in adoption separations. The grief has been repressed because
there has been no opportunity to perform the necessary grief
work. Reunion provides that opportunity. Reunion is vitally
important in assisting mothers and adopted adults to deal
with their grief.
Mothers separated from their children by adoption have been
unable to perform Worden's first task, to accept the reality
of their loss, because they have no concrete focus for their
grief. Many of them never saw their child, never held their
child, never named their child; they received no birth certificate
to prove that their child had really been born. In cases of
stillbirth and neo-natal death, bonding is now actively encouraged,
in order to facilitate the grieving process. In many cases
where a child was to be adopted, however, deliberate efforts
were made to prevent bonding. Even in cases where the mother
has had contact with the child, the loss that she experiences
is the loss of an unknown and undefined future relationship
with her child. For a mother who has lost a child through
adoption, there is also no finality to her loss. As far as
she is aware, her child is still alive. Her loss is shrouded
in uncertainty and ignorance. There is a clear similarity
between women who have lost children through adoption and
relatives of those missing in action during wartime. In both
cases the lack of finality can cause disabling chronic grief
reactions. Although reunion is hopefully the start of an on-going
relationship, it also provides a particular type of finality.
Meeting the lost child again is concrete evidence that the
child does exist and puts an end to the fear and ignorance.
Mothers who have lost children through adoption are unable
to perform Worden's second task, to experience the pain of
grief, because they usually have no appropriate opportunities
to express their grief safely at the time that the loss occurs.
In many cases the pregnancy and birth took place in secret
and was hidden from most people. After the event, the mothers
were told to put it behind them and not to dwell on it. I
have yet to meet a mother who has lost a child through adoption
who was offered useful counselling after her child was adopted.
Mothers who lost children through adoption were usually not
permitted to grieve. Worden says that when the pain of grief
is avoided or suppressed then depression often follows. Depression
is common in mothers who have lost children through adoption
and it sometimes continues for many years. Some mothers, on
the other hand, have been able to pretend that they were unaffected
by their loss. However, apparent absence of grief can actually
be a sign of acute grief, which has been repressed or delayed.
Those mothers who are finally given permission to grieve often
are surprised at the depth of their pain, even many years
after their loss. Reunion confronts mothers with the reality
of what they have lost and allows them therefore to experience
the pain of their grief, which they may have suppressed for
many years. It is a common misunderstanding that reunion causes
grief and unhappiness for natural parents and for adopted
adults. In fact, reunion brings the existing grief to the
surface to allow it to be dealt with, which is healthier and
more beneficial than continued suppression.
Mothers who have lost children through adoption are unable
to perform Worden's third task, to adjust to the environment
from which the lost person is missing, because society never
accorded their child a position in the mother's life and the
environment itself has changed irrevocably. Many mothers had
to leave their employment when they became pregnant and some
moved to a new area. For many of them it was the end of their
relationship with the child's father. The pregnancy also caused
an irreversible change in the relationship between the mother
and her parents and so the birth of the child was often coupled
with other stressful life events. Having had a child made
them feel different from their friends, whom they often resented
for being so carefree and hopeful for the future. These mothers
felt that they had changed fundamentally and they could not
go back to the place they had previously held in society.
Expecting a woman who has carried a child for nine months,
given birth and then had her motherhood denied, to carry on
as if nothing has happened is cruel and unrealistic. Reunion
allows mothers to create a new environment - one which includes
their lost child.
It is impossible for mothers who have lost children through
adoption to perform Worden's fourth task, to withdraw emotional
energy from the relationship and reinvest it in another relationship
because the relationship has not ended. The child still exists.
Many women, almost half of those who lose children through
adoption, are unable to have any further children. They are
unable to invest any emotion in another similar relationship.
In some cases their physical body refuses to co-operate and
in other cases they feel a sense of loyalty to their lost
child which prevents them from producing what may be seen
by some as a replacement child. Reunion allows them to invest
emotional energy in becoming re-acquainted with their lost
child.
For adopted people, grieving often begins at the time of
reunion, if there has previously been no recognition of the
need to grieve. If there has been no preparation and this
is unexpected, it can be very confusing. Adopted people sometimes
feel that the reunion has made them sad and feel a sense of
disappointment. In fact, the reunion has allowed them to experience
the grief which they have suppressed since they were originally
separated from their families. Reunion allows this grief to
surface and be felt. This is a positive experience as it is
the end of suppression and denial and should be acknowledged
and worked through, not avoided.
Reunion frees up the emotional energy which parents have
secretly invested in the relationship with their lost child
and which adopted people have secretly invested in their relationship
with their missing parents and therefore allows them to relate
more honestly and openly with other significant members of
their families and social circles.
Preparation for mothers
considering reunion
ARMS is fundamentally a support group and I believe that
the most important service that ARMS offers to mothers who
have lost children through adoption is the support of their
peers. This is provided both in a group setting and by volunteer
telephone support. My role at ARMS is as counsellor/co-ordinator.
I know that, for many mothers, informed, professional counselling,
provided in a safe environment, in a non-judgmental manner,
preferably prior to reunion, can also be very helpful. My
aim in counselling mothers is to support them to explore the
experience of losing their child, to understand it and acknowledge
it and to validate their feelings about it. I believe that
for most women, their feelings of sadness and grief are actually
the expected outcome of having experienced a loss, which has,
for the most part, been unacknowledged or misunderstood. My
view is that they are entitled to grieve. I believe that their
grief will always be with them and that it is up to them to
choose how to address that fact. If they try to repress and
deny their grief, I believe that it will force its way into
their lives, in ways that may be uncomfortable and distressing.
If they do not take an active part in addressing their grief,
I believe that there is also the danger that it will engulf
them and prevent them from enjoying a productive life. Both
of these outcomes are undesirable, as they are disempowering
to the mother. In my work with mothers I encourage them
to acknowledge that their grief is legitimate and will always
be with them, but to recognise that it can be managed and
incorporated into their lives. The feeling of anger and
the sense of loss associated with this grief will vary in
intensity at different times in the mother's life. I do not
believe that it is possible or useful to state that at a particular
point in a mother's life, her grief has been resolved. The
notion of grief resolution has different meanings for different
people and, for me, it is not a useful goal, as it implies
that some people have succeeded, while others have failed.
In fact, I believe that it is much more productive for mothers
to be supported to respect their experience and acknowledge
it as a permanent, but manageable, part of their life.
It is my view that many adoptions took place because the
mother, her parents, or other authority figures, believed
that adoption would be the most beneficial outcome. When I
am counselling women who have lost children through adoption,
I begin by asking them to describe to me the era and the families
in which their parents grew up and the situations which led
to their marriage. The reason for this beginning is that the
values and beliefs which the mother has absorbed growing up
usually have been learned from her parents, who, in turn,
have learned their values and beliefs from their parents and
from their life experiences. We then explore the mother's
childhood and her childhood experiences. It is important that
the mother understand the meaning of those experiences for
her and how she felt as a child. We explore issues such as
communication, or lack of it, in the mother's family, her
feelings of self-worth, approval-seeking behaviour, religious
and cultural influences, the relationship between her parents,
relationships with siblings, gender issues, her sense of security
and safety as a child, family expectations and priorities.
We then proceed to the adolescent years and how the changes
of puberty were approached in the family, moral standards
and expectations during the era in which the mother was a
teenager, her role models and her first sexual experiences,
if they had not already taken place. Again, the emphasis is
on how the mother experienced this period in her life and
the impact that it had on her sense of her own value. We explore
whether or not the mother feels that she had a need for approval
at this period in her life, whose approval was important to
her and why this might have been.
Next we proceed to the relationship between the mother and
the person who became the father of the child who was lost
to adoption. Some mothers were raped, some were taken advantage
of by older partners, some had become what was viewed at the
time as promiscuous, perhaps as a result of previous sexual
abuse and some were involved in loving relationships. We discuss
to what extent the mother understood the connection between
sexual relationships and pregnancy, the use of contraception
and how awareness of the pregnancy occurred. We discuss how
news of the pregnancy was disclosed and what the immediate
outcomes of that disclosure were.
While the mother describes the experience of being pregnant
and the events that surrounded the actual pregnancy, issues
of control and power are explored and the disempowerment of
the mother is often highlighted. Motives and beliefs are discussed
as well as expectations and priorities. It was often during
this period that plans for the future were made. These plans
were often made by others and the mother's views and feelings
were not always considered.
Description of the birth itself can often be traumatic for
the mother, especially for those who have never been invited
to describe it before. Many mothers are unable to describe
the experience of giving birth, however, either because they
were not conscious during the event or because they have since
lost the memory of it. For many mothers the outcome of the
trauma experienced at that time has been loss of memory. For
some there are moments which are clear and others which are
completely lost to them.
It is often difficult for mothers to recall events which
occurred shortly after the birth of their child. Most report
a feeling of numbness and a sense of emotional distance from
what was happening. Some can recall nothing for some time
after the birth. It is useful, however, to explore the on-going
impact that the loss of the child has had on the mother's
life. For many mothers, secrecy has been a major factor in
their lives since the birth of their child and this has had
a noticeable impact on their relationships with other people
and on how they view themselves. It is also helpful to examine
the impact of the loss of the child on how they have dealt
with subsequent significant events, especially losses. Once
a mother has a deeper understanding of her past, plans can
then be made for the future, based on the strengths and strategies
which she has already displayed.
At this point in the counselling the issue of reunion is
raised. If reunion has not yet occurred, the mother can be
supported to take steps towards reunion. After completing
this course of counselling, mothers feel much more prepared
for the issues which might arise after reunion. Mothers who
seek help after they have been reunited with their lost child
also benefit from counselling and as a result of the deepening
of their understanding of the issues, are often able to re-establish
contact where this has broken down or to improve the relationship
with their adult child.
The purpose of this counselling work is not to apportion
blame, not to justify or make excuses, nor is it to explore
the events in terms of "rightness" or "wrongness". Its purpose
is to assist the mother to make links and connections between
her life events and the values, beliefs and motives that give
them meaning. For many mothers it is the first time that
certain patterns have become obvious and this often leads
to empowering moments of clarity and acceptance and to a reduction
in feelings of guilt and shame. Considering that many mothers
have come to me feeling guilty and ashamed about having become
pregnant, about having allowed their babies to be adopted
and also about the fact that they were still suffering from
their loss, this is a huge achievement. It is very satisfying
to watch mothers grow in confidence and to see their feelings
of self-worth increase.
Ideally, adopted people will also have been able to prepare
themselves for reunion. In some cases, unfortunately, their
adoption has been ignored and denied and their losses unacknowledged.
In other cases, adoptive parents who are aware of the losses
experienced by their children and their need to grieve have
been in a position to help their children to prepare for reunion
and to support them through the process and assist in creating
a permanent place for the original family in the life of their
child.
Reunion issues
When a person who has been separated from another family
member by adoption decides to seek out that family member,
this is, in fact, an acknowledgement (albeit sometimes an
unconscious one) that there is a recognition of a loss having
been experienced. Not everyone who is involved in a reunion
has had appropriate preparation, however and this can result
in stresses and strains in relationships. If the respective
losses have been acknowledged and addressed in the intervening
period, this makes the experience of reunion less traumatic
and more satisfying for all concerned. The moment that an
adoption takes place is the time for preparation for reunion
to begin. However, owing to the grief experienced at the time
of adoption separation being disenfranchised, for adopted
people as well as for natural parents, their grief is often
unacknowledged and therefore repressed.
Although reunion between such family members can be very
therapeutic because it allows those involved to confront the
reality of their loss, in many cases the damage wrought by
the adoption in the first place is so great, that those affected
have difficulty relating to family members with whom they
have become re-acquainted. In fact, in some reunion situations,
it is easier for family members to build relationships with
those who have joined the family after the adoption eg siblings
or grandchildren. It is very important to stress that the
difficulties which are sometimes faced after reunions are
caused by the initial separation of parent and child and not
by their reunion. The impact of loss and grief will not
be avoided by avoiding reunion. Reunion is, however, a
deeply emotional experience and can be expected to give rise
to a variety of strong reactions. On-going support can be
very useful for many people.
Each party to an adoption reunion brings to the reunion not
only his or her grief, but also his or her personality, values
and beliefs, expectations, intentions and life experiences.
When you consider all of these factors, it is not surprising
that there are sometimes difficulties forming relationships
when family members are becoming re-acquainted with each other
after being separated by adoption. We are all born with our
own personality. There are certain aspects of it that we are
probably unable to change. First of all we need to understand
and accept ourselves and then try to understand and accept
the other party also. We have all absorbed values and beliefs
throughout our lives, although these may change as we mature.
If we expect our values to be respected then we must be prepared
to respect the values and beliefs of the other party, although
this will not always be easy. Preparation for reunion should
involve exploring our intentions. Those who plan a reunion
in order simply to fulfil their own needs perhaps should stop
and consider the impact on the other parties involved. Reunion
often causes a resurgence of the feelings which the mother
experienced at the time of the adoption of her child and this
can be very distressing for the mother, especially if she
is not prepared for this happening. Mothers often have difficulty
relating the adult child to the baby which they lost. Adopted
adults often have difficulty with the reality that they are
meeting the person who brought them into the world, as they
have no memory of this event to call upon.
Many mothers who have lost children through adoption have
gone on to marry the father of the child and the loss of the
child has often created tensions in the relationship of the
couple over the years. In other cases, it is often at the
time of reunion that the father of the child re-enters the
life of the mother and the child. This has the potential to
disrupt current relationships and often the feelings experienced
by the two parties at the time of the child's birth, sometimes
affection, sometimes anger, return. Again, if this is unexpected,
it can cause a great deal of confusion.
Our life experiences and the way we interpret them and respond
to them are what can create depth and sensitivity in our characters.
Natural parents need to remember that they are the parents
and therefore have had more opportunities to foster understanding
and empathy. In my view, the most important factor in an adoption
reunion is acceptance. It must be remembered that there is
no obligation to be in touch. Communication, time, affection
- all of these must be given freely and unconditionally, in
order to have any value.
Current adoption policy
in South Australia
One of the reasons that I am so confident that we will see
an end to adoption is that we have gone a long way towards
that goal already in South Australia. In South Australia,
the recognition of the impact of past adoptions has resulted
in changes to current adoption policy, which mean that there
are no longer any adoptions of older children, no adoptions
by family members (including step-parent adoptions) and no
adoptions without consent. In fact, there are very few adoptions
at all in South Australia at the present time. There are also
no orphanages and no abandoned babies. Over the last thirty
years, numbers of adoptions have dropped dramatically and
in the last few years there have been only three or four Australian-born
children adopted per year in South Australia. Numbers of children
adopted from other countries into South Australia have also
reduced and are expected to decrease further in future.
If a mother approaches the relevant government department
in South Australia and states that she is expecting a child
and has concerns that she may not be in a position to raise
that child, she will be asked what it is that would prevent
her from providing a home for her child. If her need is housing,
then housing will be sought. If her need is financial support,
then financial support will be sought. If her need is parenting
skills, then the teaching of parenting skills will be offered.
If there is a problem which is likely to separate a mother
and her child, it is that problem that needs to be tackled.
The child is not the problem. It is the social situation into
which the child is arriving which may pose problems. A mother
and child constitute a family. If adoption is even being considered
then it means that there is a family in difficulties.
In the rare circumstance where the mother decides to proceed
with an adoption, the selection of prospective adoptive parents
does not begin until after the baby has been born, after the
consent to adoption has been signed and after the revocation
period has expired. Only then is an approach made to prospective
adopters. This is in recognition of the fact that it is considered
unprofessional and unethical to expect a mother to make a
decision regarding the future of her child during the pregnancy
and also to ensure that the mother's vulnerability is
not exploited at any time.
In South Australia there are no private adoptions, there
is no money changing hands during adoptions and there are
no meetings between expectant mothers and prospective adopters
during the pregnancy. I believe that most people in South
Australia find these practices unacceptable. In fact, any
person who tried to arrange a private adoption, who offered
to pay money with regard to an adoption arrangement or who
approached an expectant mother with a view to discussing the
possibility of adopting her child would, I am sure, as a result
of those actions be deemed not a suitable person to be
considered as a prospective adopter.
In South Australia, if a child has to be removed from a family
for reasons of safety, this never results in an adoption.
Other arrangements are made for such children which provide
the necessary protection but do not dissolve their family
relationships. This means that we have no children who are
"waiting to be adopted". While children no doubt suffer by
being separated from their families, without adoption they
do not have the added trauma of loss of identity and
denial of reality. Our energies are directed towards providing
support and assistance in problem areas. We understand now
that whatever the problem, adoption is not the solution. If
there are difficulties in a family, adoption will add to those
difficulties, not resolve them.
I believe that social workers have a moral duty not to support
the denial which is inherent in adoption and to take steps
to ensure that their clients recognise the reality of their
situations. In my view it is not appropriate for a social
worker to support a mother in believing that she can relinquish
her parental responsibilities and will then be "free" of them.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth and such
pretence is certainly not in the mother's best interests.
Unfortunately, in many countries, parents who find themselves
in a variety of difficult circumstances are still being punished
by having their children taken from them and adopted by others.
What are their crimes? Their crimes are poverty, youth, inexperience,
lack of parenting skills and lack of social support. What
is their sentence? Their sentence is a lifetime of loss and
grief after their children are taken from them. Sadly, adoption
is still being used as a permanent solution to what are, for
the most part, temporary situations. After all, most parents
are young, inexperienced and poor when they have their first
children. Generally, however, only the unmarried ones are
invited to consider adoption as a solution to these "problems".
Adoption can also be seen as a punishment to the child. Adoption
is a terrible insult to children who must leave their families
of birth. What we are saying to these children is that who
they are is not important. Their heritage, their reality,
their identity, their history, their life's experiences up
to that point - none of those things matters and to prove
that they do not matter they will be blotted out completely
as if those children never existed before that time. It must
be very confusing and distressing for a child to try to understand
the denial involved in adoption. How could we expect an abused
or neglected child not to be further damaged by being treated
in such a way? If children are having problems, adoption will
add to those problems, not solve them.
In one sense, every adoption is a tragedy, as it means that
a child has been separated from his or her parents and family.
However, because adoption has for so long been presented as
a positive event, this has added to the confusion and guilt
which have made productive grieving so difficult, for natural
parents as well as for adopted people. Because of this, there
are many still living with ignorance, denial and unresolved
grief.
The pain of adoption grief has been caused by the legislation
which allowed adoptions to happen. Legislators, therefore,
have a responsibility to provide services to assist people
to work towards resolving that pain. There is a community
responsibility to fund co-ordinated, comprehensive, appropriate
post-adoption services, because they are required now
only because of the uninformed policies of the past, which
created the suffering in the first place.
The future
As for the future, everything that I have learned about adoption
has led me to believe that it is not an appropriate response
to a family in difficulties. I therefore look forward to a
future without adoption.
What I am proposing is not "adoption reform" nor is it a
"new approach" to adoption. I should like to make it clear
that what I am saying is not that I want to see a change in
the way adoptions are currently arranged. I am emphatically
not saying that we must find a BETTER WAY to conduct adoptions.
What I am saying very clearly is that we must find a way to
care for children who are unable to remain with their families
of origin that is BETTER THAN adoption. What is wrong is not
the way that adoptions are managed. There is something wrong
with adoption itself. Those opposed to capital punishment,
for example, would not be concerned with the competing merits
of hanging versus the electric chair. Similarly, I am not
concerned with how adoption is managed or whether it is "open"
or "closed". I wish to see an end to adoption in any form.
I believe that the end of adoption will come and that it
will come as a result of the following process. First of all,
there is a need to increase awareness among those whose lives
have already been affected by adoption of the fact that adoption
is based on loss, that grief is the expected outcome of such
a loss and that this grief will have a long term impact on
people's lives. Then there is a need to spread that awareness
throughout the community in general, which includes professionals
in the health and welfare sectors. From there, this knowledge
then needs to extend to the politicians who have it in their
power to make the necessary legislative changes. When politicians
begin to understand the impact of adoption, they will do three
things. They will change existing legislation to allow unrestricted
access to adoption information. They will see that they have
a responsibility to provide appropriate support services to
those whose lives have already been affected by adoption.
Finally they will also realise that adoption can no longer
be tolerated and that more humane and ethically acceptable
arrangements need to be made for children who find themselves
in genuine need of alternative care. In short, society
will stop punishing people for their misfortunes.
Eventually all of the energy, talents and finances that
are currently being expended to arrange adoptions will be
harnessed and used instead to create programmes which support
family preservation and to provide appropriate support to
those whose lives have already been affected by adoption.
Many people simply accept adoption as part of the pattern
of our culture, as if it were inevitable, but adoption is,
in fact, a social construction, shaped by historical and geographical
factors. Adoption has not always existed and it does not exist
everywhere. Adoptions occur mostly in affluent, Western societies
and as a widespread practice, adoption is a fairly recent
historical phenomenon. Attitudes and values in Western society
are changing rapidly, however. In just over a hundred years
we have seen the fight to end slavery and the struggle towards
universal suffrage. More recently, in the 1960s and 1970s,
we saw successful demands for equal pay for equal work and
the outlawing of discrimination on the grounds of gender,
race, sexuality or disability. The reasons these changes have
come about is because, first of all, someone drew attention
to the situation, then it was examined and found to be unacceptable
and finally legislative change followed. I believe that this
is what is happening with adoption. I should like to make
it clear, however, that I am not criticising those who have
been involved in adoptions. After all, I was involved in an
adoption. I am evaluating the practice of adoption itself,
not the individuals concerned. This is not about blame or
responsibility for adoptions which have already taken place,
but about whether or not we wish adoption to occupy an on-going
place in our social structure. The grief caused by adoption
loss is not inevitable because adoption is not inevitable.
I see the end of adoption as a part of the natural
progression of increasing social awareness.
I am drawing attention to the fact that adoption is unnecessary
and damaging, we are already devising better methods of offering
support to children who are unable to live within their families
of origin and I believe that South Australia is now on the
verge of abolishing adoption. Legislative change comes about
as a result of changes in society's values. History shows
that politicians do eventually respond to grassroots opinion.
Conclusion
Adoption has caused a great deal of pain in the past and
the losses associated with adoption have led to much grief.
We can work to find ways to manage that grief but I believe
that we must also learn from the past and plan for a future
which does not include further adoption-related losses. It
is time for us to show that we value family relationships
and that we are committed to recognising and preserving them,
instead of destroying them. In my opinion, South Australia
is heading in the right direction as far as adoption policy
is concerned and I believe that in the near future, there
will be an end to adoptions in South Australia. I sincerely
hope that the rest of Australia and ultimately the rest of
the world will follow our example.
© Evelyn Robinson, April 2001
The author gives permission for this document to be reproduced,
providing that it is reproduced in its entirety, without alteration.
Evelyn Robinson is the author of
Adoption and Loss - The Hidden Grief
Published in Australia by Clova Publications in 2000 (ISBN
1740530004)
You may contact Evelyn Robinson through:
Clova Publications
PO Box 328
Christies Beach
South Australia 5165
or via http://www.clovapublications.com/
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