"...Domenic saw his birth mother twice, at 12 and a year later, by his own request. He also met a sister that his birth mother was raising who is seven years older than he is. Like Kiersten, has had no contact with his birth father.
"Mrs. Jungling said Domenic, a senior in high school who wants to become an actor, "has a lot of anger" about his adoption and "he considers himself being abandoned."Why wouldn't he feel angry and abandoned? He has a full, older, sibling who was kept. But it proves what I have always claimed. adoption sucks and even openness does not change it. It may make it somewhat better for some. It alleviates wondering what your relatives look like.
And what of the ones that totally fall apart when the child is very young? In many adoptions that were promised to be open the children never met their natural parents and are in exactly the same position as any child is a closed adoption - may not even know they are adopted!
Unmentioned in the story is the fact that even open adoptions still begin with the relinquishment of parental rights and a falsified birth certificate, which is very unlikely any new legislation will change.
5 comments:
I have never been totally enamored with the concept of open adoption. I guess there is an advantage to putting a name and face to one's nparents rather than have them be figments in the child's imagination. However, there still seems to be enormous potential for pain. I don't think a child's wants his fmother to visit once a year or to be a family "friend". The child wants her to be his mother! Also, if she had another child that she kept, I'm sure that would be very hurtful. And what if her life moved on and she couldn't keep in touch as much? It would just be another rejection and abandonment all over again.
Exactly. How do they deal wiht - my mom is capable enough to visit, but not capable enough to raise me? How do they deal with - my mom chose school or her career over me. In many ways the adoptees of yesteryear at least had the ability to accept that their mothers were likely - or in fact - PRESSURED because they were young or unmarried. An none of it says anything about what is better for the mother.
It's all just one more human experiement.
Also children are creatures of emotion. They don't understand adult concepts like I couldn't provide for you in the way I wanted, etc. They just think they aren't important enough to be taken care of. I wonder if there is a potential for ridicule from their friends. I mean they see all their friends being raised by their own mothers and all they get are occasional pictures. I did think this arrangement might be better for a first mom because at least she would know where her child was and get some updates.
Kids can find unlimited ways to tease one another.
As for mothers in open adoption:
1) they are subject to it being a sales pitch to talk them into losing their child that they might not otherwise
2) they are accepting a PROMISE that can - and oftn is - broken ans they have virtually no recourse
3) many find it painful to watch their child call another Mommy and or each them being parented in ays they would not.
"In many ways the adoptees of yesteryear at least had the ability to accept that their mothers were likely - or in fact - PRESSURED because they were young or unmarried."
This is such an excellent point. It is comforting (in an odd sort of way) for adoptees of the BSE to know that their mothers with no husband in sight really didn't have any choice. And that the overwhelming majority of first mothers would have kept their child if illegitimacy had not been such a stigma.
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