The Effects of Adoption on Your Baby
Sat, 2006-12-23 00:46 - Kerry
It always amazes me... to be so Understood by The Other Side. WHY would We be led to believe differently???
http://www.exiledmothers.com/adoption_facts/adoption_damage_to_children.html
If you surrender your baby to adoption, you will be condemning him or her to suffer these proven harmful effects:
- The severe trauma of being separated from you will radiate throughout every aspect of your baby's life. Your baby will experience your loss as the psychological death of his mother. There will never be closure.
- Your baby will know the difference between you and his female adopter because he has bonded with you during your pregnancy. He knows your scent and your heartbeat. He seaches for the smell of your milk - not hers.
- Your baby will feel abandoned by you, often resulting in a lifelong inability to trust anyone.
- Your baby will always wonder why you didn't keep him and will blame himself for not being lovable enough to keep - a todder's realization that they were adopted. Many adult adopted people find they still carry this feeling inside - and it influences adult relationships (see Relinquishment and Intimacy)
- As your baby grows up, your child may (always) feel like a misfit and will suffer from low self esteem.
- Your child may think about you constantly. This may cause your child to have difficulty concentrating on his schoolwork. Your child will be labeled a "dreamer" and a "bad student," further harming his chances for success in life.
- Your child's adopters may not understand his lack of concentration and he could easily be misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). If misdiagnosed, they will force your child to take drugs that he doesn't need.
- Your child will lose (or not be allowed to discover) his true identity while his adopters try to force him to be like them.
- Your child will have no sense of his past which will make it difficult for him to envision his future.
- Your child may suppress his true feelings and live an emotionally-numb or overly sensitive life in order to survive the tragedy of his separation from you compounded by his adoption.
- As your child becomes an adolescent he will have great difficulty establishing a sense of self because he will have no sense of his true history or heritage.
- As your child becomes an adult he may have difficulty choosing a career and a mate due to his fear of commitment and abandonment.
- Your child's adopters will probably not acknowledge that raising an adopted child is different from raising a child of their own. They will further burden him by telling him that he should forget about you and be grateful that they adopted him and gave him a home because you did not.
- Nothing anyone does or says can ever make up for the loss of your child's first family!
- You will never be able to change the past and undo the lifelong adverse effects of adoption as only the two sides of the Seller's Lie can tell. on your child!
How do we know this? Because we are a twenty five reunited mothers who have consistently witnessed first-hand these consequences in our found-children and the children of several hundred other natural mothers.
Comments
Hrm of adoption
The effects of adoption stated here are overly exaggerated and far too generalized. Exiled Mothers is not an original source of any of this.
I have researched adoption related issued for 30+ years. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of adoptees live relatively normal, well-adjusted, productive lives. Yes, there is a higher rate of learning disorders, emotional problems, criminal behavior and suicide among adoptees. Yes, a disproportionate number of adoptee adolescents are in residential treatment (as reported in The Dark Side of Adoption, 1988)
HOWEVER, none of the studies have weeded out age at adoption. We do not know for sure the effect on someone adopted as an infant as compared to someone adopted after multiple foster placements.
We also have no way to do a double-blind study and compare what WOULD HAVE happened to the same child is not adopted but raised by his birth parents. How many of the problems have a genetic component?
I have researched this both on an intellectual basis and also a very personal one. I began my research after relinquishing my firstborn and forming a support group and seeing what appeared to be a high percentage of mothers finding their children in FAR LESS than the "better” homes we were promised.
My research intensified after my daughter's suicide. I would like nothing better than to conclude that adoption was responsible for her death, but the fact of the matter is that life is never black or white; either or. Human beings are complex and our lives, emotions, and behavior the result of a combination of nature (genetics) and nurture (environment and upbringing). No ONE factor alone makes or breaks anyone.
Adoption follow ups do not exist. Statistics are very hard to come by. Studies are few and incomplete.
The Primal Wound is a THEORY written by an adoptive mother.
We cannot make broad brush generalizations. There are things wrong with adoption, but if we try to fix what is wrong, we need to stick to facts not outlandish overgeneralizations or we will not be taken seriously.
We need to focus on the FACTS of what is wrong with adoption and must be foxed, i.e. falsified birth certificates. By focusing on this it:
1) is based on an incontrovertible FACT
2) is a clear fraud committed by the government
3) would engender much public support, and finally
when you do away with falsified bc’s you wind up with…viola!…TRULY open adoption or the exact equivalent of guardianship!
The other FACT s that today adoption is big business and this encourages people to think of children as possessions and not human beings. We need to get the money out of adoption and thus reduce the number of adoption/guardianships greatly.
At the same time, focus of family preservation you ameliorate all of the above-mentioned problems that are a result of feeling rejected and abandoned.
Preservation of the Human Spirit
the fact of the matter is that life is never black or white; either or. Human beings are complex and our lives, emotions, and behavior the result of a combination of nature (genetics) and nurture (environment and upbringing). No ONE factor alone makes or breaks anyone.
Given the fact that adoption was not an optioned choice for me, and the given shrewd Mother of choice refuses to withold HER end of the contractualized agreement (that she would Love and Care for the life born from Another Woman), I can say there does indeed exist a world of Black or White issuance. My Birth records are sealed. My Past is a black void of Unknowns. Facts, as seen by the written documents made in black and white copies have been made completely unavailable to Me -- the one in most need of the recorded facts, sentencing me to a life where I must adapt to Ignorance, Denial, and Refusal. There is no Great White Hope for those who lost (a child's) innocence, thanks to the washed hands of a selfish-greedy Stranger. For those who say life is not Black or White, remember, there are Facts and Falacies, Truth and Lies, Certificates of Birth and Death... surely the writing on the wailing walls of Reality is not all MINE...
I imagine the only gray in my life is the envisioned facial coloring I see my Unknown Mom to have IF she were to meet me and learn of my life After-The-Fated Facts I have inherited through the system Others claim to have virtue. Sorry, I don't see it for MYSELF, but I'm told I need to buy-into-it because life is not as Simple as I have been forced to accept it's rejecting nature.
It seems to me Adoption is one social order that seems to keep the Child in a constant state of Defense - especially if that Child-within is not agreeable to Generalities made about Life Experience. NO ONE should ever have to adapt to the realities of Child Abuse. Until that fact can be adopted by ALL humans, we will ALL Lose to a darkened future fitting of a cold culture of UN-Acceptable Behavior.
Effects of Adoption
I was adopted as an infant, to a very good home, with two "parents" who were together until the day they died. I was provided everything I needed, and my entire education paid for. I still have the scars of abandonment. I am a registered nurse, and I work in a psychiatric unit. I can recognize the patients who had been adopted before I even complete the interview, and there are many in the "Psych Ward".
I have had a very successful career in Nursing. We "adoptees" who can make a relatively productive life, usually choose careers where we can care for others, because we were never really "cared for". But, not without emotional and personal relationship problems.
Please read some of the other information on this site before advocating your conclusions.
I was adopted as an infant,
I was adopted as an infant, to a very good home, with two "parents" who were together until the day they died. I was provided everything I needed, and my entire education paid for. I still have the scars of abandonment. I am a registered nurse, and I work in a psychiatric unit. I can recognize the patients who had been adopted before I even complete the interview, and there are many in the "Psych Ward".
I have had a very successful career in Nursing. We "adoptees" who can make a relatively productive life, usually choose careers where we can care for others, because we were never really "cared for". But, not without emotional and personal relationship problems.
Please read some of the other information on this site before advocating your conclusions.
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Adversity builds character and strength. The experience of being separated in order to create the opportunity for an adoption can be a source of inner strength if we learn to deal with it. Many adoptees are devastated by being seaparated and others grow with it. Why that happens is something we should pay attention to. Resiliancy is hardwired and some people just deal with it and move on while others struggle forever. A society that invalidates the problems caused by separation only make matters worse. Often adoptees cant transition or will have incomplete transitions to their adoping families. art of the reason are false expectations from the new mother, lack of understanding of what the infant is dealing with, and the inability of the new mother and the infant to communicate.
Bob
Robert Allan Hafetz Not
Robert Allan Hafetz Not Remembered Never Forgotten www.neaspa.com/id14.htm
The Primal Wound is play on words. What Verrier is describing is a narcisstic wound. Claiming something is a thoery has no bearing on its validity. Gravity is just a theory but you dont see people jumping off buildings because its a theory. What Verrier is addressing is the separation experience as a trauma. WHen a first mother surrenders her baby a traumatic experience can occur. Trauma is effectively defined not by the separation but by the infants inability to cope with it. Every separation doesnt result in a trauma. If you consider that an infant has no ability to cope and must depend on the mother to do that then we can see that separation not only removes the mother but also removes the infants ability to cope with that same event. That results in a narcississtic wound. To those of us who experience it its no theory. Im sure some first mothers dont want to be told their actions harmed their babies, and some adoption agencies are vested in denying this event fearing a loss of business, but it does happen and it should be examined in detail. To say the effects of adoption(what you are refering to is separation) have not been exagerated in fact the opposite is true. They have been ignored and denied and thats why there have been few studies on the issue. Understanding the separation trauma is fundamental in understanding why transtion to the new mother is so difficult. Mothers are not simply interchangable like shoes. What we are dealing with are people with personal adgendas invaliding, minimizing and denying the effects of their own actions at the expense of adoptees. The assumption that taking an infant from its bonded mother has little or no effect on the development of that infant is utter nonesense.
Activism vs Support
This thread, to me, shows two beasts of a different nature, activism and support. I believe both are welcome at PPL, but both require their own time and space. I believe Kerry started this thread from a support perspective, as she states how Understood she feels by The Other Side (being the natural moms). Now the Other Side's text is clearly an activists statement and that is where Klassyfide (who is, if she is whom I think she is, an activist herself) picks up and from an activist's point of view and rightfully addresses that statement. In a support setting you can almost say anything and a support setting should be such that you can say almost anything. Statements need no scientific proof, can be highly subjective and there is room for beliefs. An activist, on the other hand is fighting for a cause, has enemies and hence has to prove herself with every statement she makes, otherwise the opposing powers will bury her. That is how the political arena of activism works, I believe. Putting these two beasts in the same room is interesting in and of itself but does not do justice to either of them, so maybe it is a good idea to set up a separate forum for activism related topics.
support and activism
"Putting these two beasts in the same room is interesting in and of itself but does not do justice to either of them, so maybe it is a good idea to set up a separate forum for activism related topics."
There is a lot of wisdom in what you write, but I don't like the idea of parsing activism and support into separate ghettoes. I've been on the internet as an activist for more years than I like to admit, and have been kicked off a whole bunch of lists, bulletin boards and other adoption fora because I was perceived as too "political", calling people to action, polarizing, creating critical discourse.
On the other hand, I've also particpated in peer support groups with ground rules such as "no cross talk" and other tools that allow for a flow without fear of criticism.
I think the two modalities can coexist, but there needs to be groundrules, i.e. no ad hominem attacks, or else the discourse can devolve into alt.adoption.
where's the debate?
If a group upholds the importance of a child's placement among adults providing a safe, loving, accepting environment, free from mental or physical abuse, where is the argument? Focus on the needs of a child should not ever be an issue.... or am I mistaken?
The Debate
"If a group upholds the importance of a child's placement among adults providing a safe, loving, accepting environment, free from mental or physical abuse, where is the argument?"
So far, so good, but one could easily find the above statement in the mission statement of just about any adoption agency or individual adoption facilitator or professional in the field. So it becomes less a matter of intentionality than one of theory put into practice, or what is known as praxis.
What's to debate? If we agree that the current system of family building through adoption is flawed then we could debate theories on how to create the social change necessary to correct those flaws, for one. We could then debate strategies for implementing our theories of social change, for another.
Robert Allan Hafetz Not
Robert Allan Hafetz Not Remembered Never Forgotten www.neaspa.com/id14.htm
The argument or debate is on what the needs of the adopted child are. One side, The Catholic Church, the NCFA, and the ACLU believes that an adopted infant is no different than any other as if they are under some kind of emotional anesthetic when they are separated from their first mother and delivered to a new mother. This is not the case and the results are the inability to transition, incomplete transitions, and successful transitions all left to chance. This isnt a good way to conduct adoptions its a roll of the dice and the adoptee loses almost every time.
the point to be made by an Original Pound Pup
the inability to transition, incomplete transitions, and successful transitions all left to chance. This isnt a good way to conduct adoptions its a roll of the dice and the adoptee loses almost every time.
That being Old News, my question is simple: what is being done in the Here and Now in terms of the losses felt by The Adoptee, or any OTHER child abandoned by the Responsible Accountability a parent needs to give his/her child?
Studies in the form of RAD diagnosing seems to be limited to Children.
WELL... as an adult-child who was owned and rejected by parental-figures, what studies are there to show for the loss of a person's identity? What's the statute of limitations related to promises made at the signing of a contractual agreement? Should the life left with immeasurable loss go ignored and dismissed as if Nothing Bad Ever Happened?
Surely I am not alone in thinking this attitude of "ignore it, it will go away" is INSANE... (am I???)
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changed link
The original copy of the "Exiled mothers" statement contained a dead link to the article "Relinquishment and Intimacy" as originally published at the Oregon Adoptive Right Association. Since the opening of sealed records in the state of Oregon, the need for an activist movement there has diminished, hence AORA is now defunct. Found the original article somewhere else, put it up here and changed the link in Kerry's post.