As our children age, they outgrow their Life Books or at least the sitting on our lap while we read it to them part.  They don’t openly announce their adoption status to the world.  They become busy with growing and mastering and all the other parts of being a kid, and then a tween, and then a teen.  It’s easy to believe that our job is done.  We’ve told them, they’ve accepted it, now let’s move on.

We know, however, from talking with teens and adult adoptees, that kids don’t stop thinking about being adopted when they outgrow their footy pajamas.  In particular, they wonder about their birth parents: who they are, what they liked to do, what they looked like, why they didn’t parent them.  Some kids think about this a lot, some think about it a little, but from what I can tell from talking to teens and adults, most think about it some.

There are some kids who will readily talk and ask these questions to their parents and birth parents, if they are in an open adoption.  But lots of kids, my own included, might think and wonder, but never bring the subject up.  And even the most curious and talkative child will steer clear of this conversation if they sense that it makes their parents uncomfortable.  It is way too easy for parents to assume that if it isn’t spoken, it isn’t thought. If the kids don’t ask, then we don’t need to tell.  This is mighty convenient since we just as soon not talk about it anyway.  If we’re not careful, this can become a self perpetuating cycle.  Our discomfort, keeps them silent, and their silence justifies our own.

So what’s a parent to do?  First of all, we need to accept that we are 100% our kid’s parent.  We will be there for them, and they for us, for the rest of our life.  Their curiosity and desire to know more about their birth parents has nothing to do with us and doesn’t threaten our relationship.  Part of “being there for them” is being their go-to source of information on all the Big Four Topics of Life (BTLs): sex, drugs, rock and roll, and adoption.  (OK, it’s really the Big Three since it’s only in your dreams that they are going to view you as an expert on music.  By the age of thirteen, fourteen at the latest, they are going to think that your musical taste and computer literacy are both hopelessly out of date, but you still want them to come to you with their questions about the other three.)

Kids have a tendency to not voice their questions about the BTLs leaving the ball in the parental court to still provide information even when not asked.  If you’re lucky, your little darling will respond like a sponge when you open the conversation about adoption.  I’ve never had that experience, but I have dreamed about what it might be like.  My experience involves a lot of me throwing out a conversation starter and watching it drop like a dead weight.  Still, I look for opportunities to start the conversation because I want my kids to know that I am available when and if they want to talk.  I have to consciously look for times that I can bring up birth parents, genetic traits, and adoption. I toss the opening out there, and then respect their decision to either run with it or let it drop.

Oh, and as long as we’re talking about BTLs, we need to talk about the fourth BTL–race.  Especially if we are raising a child of a different race, we have to talk about race and prejudice and navigating our white society as a minority.  We have to be open to listening to their experiences without trying to minimize or explain.

The other thing I can do as a parent is to realize that I can’t be their only go-to resource.  They need to have the opportunity to talk with other adopted people—kids their own age and adults if possible.  Sometimes it’s simply easier to open up in a group of people who are living your experience.  As much as I want to be “enough” for my child, I’m probably not.

The truth is that sometimes these conversations make me uncomfortable.  So does talking about sex and drinking and drugs, but I still do it because that’s part of my job as a mom.  Unlike footy pajamas, kids don’t outgrow the need to talk, or know that they can talk, about the BTLs.

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I don’t know why the myth of the troubled adoptee is so prevalent, but it is.  Another Twainism sums it up well: “A mistruth can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”  At times I want to scream, but instead, I’ll share the facts, and hope they help the truth tie up its laces and get the heck to the starting block.

Adopted kids and adults have been studied out the wazoo.  The findings are consistent-on all measures of mental health, adopted kids are doing fine.  Let’s look more closely at the largest study of US adoptive families conducted by the Search Institute, a nonprofit providing research on child development.  (Growing up adopted: A portrait of adolescents and their families; Benson, Sharma, Roehlkepartain (1994))   This is the type of research that sets my heart aflutter—large and randomized.  Oh my, I’m almost giddy!  Large randomized studies produce the most meaningful results, but are the most expensive to conduct; and therefore, not as common.  This study was supported by a $1 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Seven hundred fifteen families participated in this study, including 881 adopted adolescents, 1,262 parents, and 78 non-adopted siblings.   The sample of families was randomly selected from the records of 42 adoption agencies –both public and private–in the four states of Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  The children were adopted before they were 15 months and were between the ages of 12 and 18 at the time of the study.  The study included transracial and same race adoptions, and international and domestic adoptions.

The Search Institute study found that adopted kids and non adopted kids were about the same in all areas of mental health, including self-esteem, identity formation, attachment to parents, academic achievement, social competency, at-risk behaviors, anxiety level, and externalizing and internalizing behaviors.  In fact, on several measures of psychological health, adopted adolescents scored higher than a comparison group of non adopted adolescents. The researchers concluded that “when the focus is on agency-assisted infant adoptions, the journey through adolescence appears to be, on average, less stormy.”

Although the kids are doing fine, how are the parents faring.  Many couples enter adoption carrying the burden of infertility.  I often hear people worry about their unresolved feelings about infertility, feelings of failure, discomfort in talking about adoption with their children, discomfort with birth families presence in their lives, feeling stigmatized as an inferior type of family, to name a few.  Fortunately, these “handicaps” presented few long term problems for the adoptive parents in this study, at least by the time their children were teens.  The parents overwhelmingly felt attached and very well satisfied with their parenting experience.

It’s true that the kids and families in this study had a lot going for them.  The kids were adopted young into two-parent families that remained intact. (Only 11 % of the families divorced, compared to 28 % in a comparison group of families.)  Adoptive families in this study “typically evidence a high level of strength in terms of warmth, communication, discipline, and cohesion.”  Although indeed these kids and families are blessed abundantly, it still seems clear that adoption is not, in and of itself, a liability to kids or parents.

This study conclusion runs counter to conventional portrayals of the troubled adoptee.  Adoption professionals are partly to blame.  We don’t want to gloss over the potential for problems because we want families to be prepared.  In our haste to acknowledge the potential for what can go wrong, we forget to acknowledge the potential for what can go right.  Yes, things can go wrong; kids and families can struggle, adolescence can lose their way.  When this happens in adoptive families, we blame adoption.  When it happens in non adoptive families, we blame parents or peers or just plain bad luck.

I have my doubts whether this blog or the growing evidence of research will change the misperception that adopted kids have lots of problems.  At times I feel like I’m shouting in the wind.  But, to round out my Twainathon with a paraphrase, at least you’ve got the fact, now you can distort them as you please.

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As a general rule, I hate the hyper-focus on using just the right words.  As Lisa pointed out in the discussion we had on the Creating a Family Facebook group about the blog Why Not Just Adopt, we are all guilty at times of offending someone inadvertently.  Sometimes we simply don’t know the correct words to use, and other times we speak or type without thinking of the impact of our words.  I know this better than most since I am on the air every week, often talking about sensitive subjects.  We have consciously decided to not avoid topics that we think will help someone for fear of offending others or for fear that I’ll put my foot in my mouth.  I do my best, but I’ve make mistakes.  We all have.  Most times people don’t mean to hurt.  But words matter, and words often reflect deeply held beliefs or misconceptions.

People really do wonder why an infertile couple doesn’t just quickly shift to adoption.  A kid’s a kid, right???  People really do believe that adopted children aren’t as fully “owned” by their parents, as a child born to them.  They are obviously an inferior substitute to the real thing, right???  Such ignorance is difficult to know how to handle.

As much as it pains me to hold my tongue, sometimes silence is the best option–the conversation too fleeting, the person too intransigent, the timing too awkward.  However, when possible, I think we should speak up for ourselves, for other infertile people, and for our children.  Although I know how hard it is to do, it really is best to assume that the person is ignorant, not malicious.

I employ the “educate briefly then change the subject” approach.

Clueless: For goodness sakes, why don’t you and Harvey just adopt?

You (suppressing a sigh): Infertility and adoption are both pretty complicated issues, and we’re considering a lot of options.  How in the world did you make this delicious bean dip? (Unsaid: Looks like Open (a can) and Dump (in a bowl) is the best you can do.)
OR
You: Neither infertility treatment nor adoption is easy or quick. Thanks for the suggestion, though.  By the way, I love your shoes.   Where in the world did you get them? (Unsaid: Do you think we have been trying for 3 years and haven’t yet thought of adoption?!?)

Ignoramus:  Adoption is just not the same as having your own child. OR Too bad you couldn’t have kids of your own. OR Is that your real child?

You (valiantly resisting the urge to smack the offensive mouth): Adoption and giving birth are certainly different ways to have a child, but either way, the child will be 100% ours.  Isn’t this a wonderful reception?
OR
You: Actually, we feel very blessed to have this wonderful child of our very own.  Can you believe the weather we’ve been having?
OR
You:  Yes, this is my lovely daughter; and yes, she is very real.  I’d offer to let you pinch her to make sure, but she’d probably scream a very real scream.  (Unsaid: And I’d have to hit you with my very real fist.)  Now, excuse me while I get back to squeezing these melons.

I know this is a bit naïve, but in some ways what offended me the most about the comments was that some of the most offensive and insensitive comments came from women.  I know that women don’t have a corner on the family desiring market, but honestly, is it too much to ask of other women, most of whom have or hope to have children, to at the very least understand the pain of someone who is struggling with this most basic desire?  Hey ladies, we need to support one another. Your path may not be mine, but I can at least understand your desire to be on the journey.

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The statement that adoption is not the same as having a child of your own is both remarkably accurate and remarkably wrong.  The first part—“not the same as”—is quite true.  Adoption and giving birth are two very different ways of creating your family.  Just as New York City and Paris are two different vacation destinations, or chocolate and vanilla are two different flavors of ice cream.

Adoptive parent don’t get to experience the joys and pains of pregnancy and birth.  They don’t have the visual proof of impending parenthood and the communal sharing this elicits.  They miss out on the wonder of seeing a tiny foot or head or butt make waves across the belly.  They don’t get to indulge in the pregnant parent’s favorite pastime–playing Guess the Gene. “Whose nose she will have” or “Will he get grandma’s gigantic feet?”  They likely won’t get to breastfeed exclusively.  The expense of adoption, while often similar to the expense of giving birth, is covered by the adoptive parents rather than insurance.  And then there is the worry about the unknown–prenatal exposures, genetic conditions, emotional state of the expectant mother, and on and on.

We seem to focus so readily on what adoptive parent miss by not giving birth that we overlook what parents by birth miss by not adopting.  As a mother by birth and adoption, I have often felt a little sorry for people who haven’t adopted.  They have missed so much.

If you haven’t adopted you haven’t felt the breath holding excitement of “getting the call” announcing that a birth mother has chosen you (domestic adoption) or that a child has been referred (international adoption).  You’ve missed the wonder of meeting a fully formed human being that is your child, complete with all the unspoken possibilities of that relationship.  Oh, and you’ll never have the pins and needles sensation of waiting to travel to pick up your child whether you’re driving across town or flying across an ocean—making lists, packing and unpacking, giggling at absolutely nothing, and worrying over absolutely everything.

People who’ve never adopted have never felt the overwhelming intensity of first meeting their child.  It’s hard to explain the giddy anticipation mixed with unnamed anxiety.  This combination of emotions helps etch even the tiniest details into your memory forever– the colors, the smells, the words, the emotions.  For me, this moment is one of my “mountain top experiences”.

Adoption can make the everyday seem miraculous.  The moment when this child that you met only a few months or even weeks before seeks you, and only you, out of the crowd with her eyes.  The moment when you realize that your small developmentally delayed child is now a robust into-everything preschooler, and the quiet pride you feel knowing that but for you, these gains may not have happened.  The contentment in knowing that you took a risk and it paid off.  A feeling of satisfaction unique to adoptive parents when we look around our Thanksgiving table and realize that we are a family created by choice and love.

Yes Marie, you’re so right.  Creating a family by adoption is not the same as creating a family by birth.  You couldn’t be more wrong, however, about the “child of your own” part.

I’m not exactly sure what Marie and others meant by “a child of your own”, but it implies a desire for a child who looks and acts like you.  A child you conceive will share half your DNA, and while it’s true that appearance and certain characteristics are influenced by genetics, what’s most interesting from research, as well as from my personal experience, is how little of our traits, personality, and intelligence are controlled exclusively by our genes.  (I highly recommend the Dec. 9, 2009 show we did on Nature vs. Nurture).

A child conceived and born of you and your spouse will be a mixing of two different gene pools, with a unique environment thrown in for good measure.  Your child by birth may be nothing like you at all.  I can honestly say that I am no more similar to my kids by birth than to my kid by adoption.  And for the record, similarities are overrated.  Being similar to a child doesn’t guarantee closeness or parental enjoyment.  In fact, sometimes it means just the opposite.  Also, it’s easy to find similarities with all your kids, if you look for them.

I suspect that those who made the comments are seeking a feeling of “this child is mine”.  But what they are missing is that this feeling comes through the acts of parenting.  Sure, giving birth is one act, and a big darn act at that, but parenting is made up of thousands of acts each day, and it is the sum total of all these acts of claiming that creates this feeling of “owness”.  Biology has little to do with it, unless you make it.

I worry a little when I hear the word “own” used in relation to our children.  I am sure that Marie would assure me that she wasn’t using “own” in the possessive sense, but I wonder.  I know that before I had children, and even when my children were young, I thought of them as an extension of myself.  It was only after my children grew older that I completely grasped the concept that I am only along for a short part of the ride.  I can influence and guide, but never own.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all Kahlil Gibran on you, but your kids are never really yours regardless how they join your family.

I can hear it now, all these things I mentioned that are special about adoption are not necessarily unique to adoption.  Parents by birth can and do have some of these same experiences.  True enough, but doesn’t that help make the bigger point?  I have always realized that I am immensely blessed to have had children by both birth and adoption. I can’t imagine not having had the joy and excitement of doing it both ways.  Neither way is superior; both are special, and both are great ways to have a child of your very own.

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The facts simply don’t add up.  Torry Hansen, a thirty- three year old single woman and registered nurse who lives near her extended family in Shelbyville, Tennessee, adopted Artyom Savelyev from the Far East region of Russia in September 2009.  All adoptions from Russia require parents to meet the child on one trip. They are given the medical and social history of this child to take home and consider before deciding to adopt.  If they decide to adopt that child they go back to Russia to finalize the adoption.  Presumably this process was followed in Artyom’s adoption. Prior to the adoption Artyom had been removed from his alcoholic mother and placed in an orphanage.  His age at removal and how long he lived at the orphanage have not been reported.

Hansen used WACAP Adoption Agency to process this adoption.  Since WACAP is located in Oregon and Hansen in Tennessee, WACAP partnered with Adoption Assistance, Inc., a local Tennessee adoption agency to prepare the home study.  A home study is in part to evaluate the parent’s suitability to adopt and in part to educate and prepare the parent to adopt.  At the end of the home study, the social worker prepares a report that is sent to Russia approving the family to adopt.

Russia requires post adoption reports be submitted at 6, 12, 24 and 36 months after placement.  In preparation for the submittal of the first post adoption report a social worker from Adoption Assistance visited Hansen and Artyom, whom she had named Justin, in January of this year, four months after he arrived home.  The social worker noted no problems and said that Artyom appeared to be adjusting and Hansen was enthusiastic.

Artyom’s American grandmother, Nancy Hansen, told the Associated Press that behavior problems began after January.  She said Artyom started hitting, kicking and spitting when he didn’t get his way.  He threatened to burn down the house and drew a picture of a burning house with his family inside.  Nancy Hansen says her daughter talked with a psychologist, but never had Artyom evaluated and apparently never began family therapy.

In March, Hansen contacted a Russian lawyer to ask about options to “annul” the adoption.  Last week, Nancy Hansen flew with Artyom to Washington DC and put him on a United Airlines flight to Moscow–alone.  They had hired a “tour guide” found online for $200 to pick up the boy at the airport and drop him off at the Ministry of Education.  A note pinned to Artyom’s jacket explained:

“This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues.  …I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues. …After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child. …As a Russian national, I am turning him over to your guardianship.”

It seems inadequate to say that this is a tragedy.  It will make us all feel better to blame someone—the mother, the agency, the orphanage officials, international adoption in general.  We think we can make sense of the unimaginable if we can find the one person or thing to blame.   I’m certainly not saying these players are blameless, but pointing the finger at any one of them allows us to avoid the bigger, harder picture.

Fingers most quickly point to Torry Hansen.  True enough, her actions are unjustifiable.  She may well have reached the end of her rope, but from the outside looking in, it certainly seems as if her rope was mighty short to begin with.  She claims she was lied to about Artyom’s mental conditions and behavior by the Russian orphanage officials.  In truth, it wouldn’t surprise me if indeed the orphanage workers didn’t report behavioral problems.  Some kids don’t act out in an orphanage setting because it’s not safe.  Sometimes rapid turn over amongst orphanage workers prevents them from knowing the kids well enough to see problems.  Sometimes the officials or workers that talk to the parents never spend any time with the kids and have no idea of their behavior.  Sometimes orphanages lie because they don’t think the child will be adopted if they tell the truth.

However, adoptive parents have a responsibility to investigate on their own potential problems.  Anyone who adopts a 7 year old child who was removed from an alcoholic mother due to abuse and neglect and raised in an institution shouldn’t need an orphanage official to tell her there may be psychological problems.  Most parents adopting from Russia have a US doctor specializing in international adoption review the medical and social records of a child they are considering.  I have no doubt that most international adoption doctors would have said this child was at risk for neurological damage and attachment disorders since his mother was an alcoholic, he was abused and neglected prior to being removed from her, and was then raised in an orphanage. Most social workers would also have prepared the parent for this possibility during the home study even without specific evidence from the orphanage of these problems.  A quick perusal of any internet Russian adoption forum would also have put Hansen on alert for the possibility of these problems prior to adoption.

Nancy Hansen claims that the problems didn’t begin until after January.  She started looking for a way to return Artyom one month later. I suspect problems existed before that, but even if they had lasted six months that is too soon to give up on an adoption.  In no way do I minimize the pain, the trauma, the hard unrewarding work of raising a child with either fetal alcohol syndrome or attachment disorders, or heaven forbid both.  Children with FAS and attachment disorders can be helped, but it takes time and good therapy.  Hansen gave Artyom neither.   And when time and therapy don’t work, legal humane ways exist to disrupt the adoption and find a new and safe place for the child.

The fingers of the blame game are also pointing at the adoption agency.  I have not spoken with WACAP, but they have the reputation for being a good agency that tries to prepare parents for the reality of adopting an institutionalized older child. They require 10 hours of adoption education pre-adoption, which is more than the industry standard for Russian adoptions.  They require parents to research pre-adoption local resources that are available to help a child with attachment or behavioral issues.  They ask parents to address how they might handle various “what if” scenarios that might arise with a child that has been abused, neglected, institutionalized, or affected by drugs and alcohol.  This is standard for WACAP, and I have no reason to believe this type of education did not take place with Hansen.

A social worker visited 4 months post placement.  I think a visit closer to placement is preferable with older child adoption, but since according to the grandmother and to the social worker she didn’t acknowledge problem at 4 months, it’s unlikely that more and sooner visits would have helped.  It is possible that she stayed quiet about the problems because she feared being judged.  Good Morning America reported that she had applied to adopt another child and perhaps she feared that she would be denied the second adoption if she acknowledged problems with the first.  Perhaps she felt that she should be able to handle things on her own.  Perhaps she was a hopeless optimist believing that love or her faith would conquer all.  Perhaps her tolerance for acting out really was so low that she would “return” a child after one month of misbehavior. Perhaps she was clueless.

It is true that the agency actually doing the training was not WACAP.  Usually, for legal and ethical reasons the placing adoption agency keeps a tight rein on the home study agency, but maybe that failed in this case. There is a fine line between preparing adequately and terrifying needlessly.  Maybe the social worker erred when searching for that balance.

Russian officials are quick to blame the institution of international adoption and the American system.  Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said, “We should understand what is going on with our children, or we will totally refrain from the practice” of allowing Americans to adopt.  While I agree that the American system of international adoption should be reexamined in light of this case, I also think that the Russians have room for self evaluation as well.  Being put on a plane for Russia was the last in a series of tragedies in this small child’s life.  We don’t know the specifics of this case, but we do know that far too many children in Russia are suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome from a prevalence of drinking during pregnancy and attachment disorders from dismal institutionalized care.  The damage caused by these practices is often irreparable regardless whether the child is adopted into a loving American home or Russian home.

I agree completely that Russia has the right to establish adoption standards and to question our compliance, but in addition, if they want to really help their children they should improve the care of their children pre-adoption to increase the odds of a successful placement in any family—Russian or American or any place in between.

The uncomfortable truth is that there is no way to prevent this from happening again, just as there is no way to prevent all forms of child abuse. We can set standards for adoption education, we can make prospective parents listen and read and talk, but you can’t make all of them understand.  Closing down international adoption isn’t the solution.  The reality is that children are being abused daily in orphanages throughout the world in far greater numbers than they are in their adoptive homes.  Even the best of institutions pale by comparison to even the most average adoptive home. Hansen’s home was not the norm.

Kids aren’t objects that can be returned once a defect is found.  We aren’t given any warranties when our kids arrive, regardless whether they come to us through birth or adoption.  One screwed up woman who failed to grasp this fact shouldn’t be able to eradicate the day-in, day-out 24/7 work being done by thousands of adoptive families that are helping to heal badly damaged children and who sometimes wish they could return them, but do not and would not even if given the opportunity.

P.S. The Creating a Family radio show this week will be on Adopting a Child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Drug Exposure.

P.P.S. Please check out the We Are The Truth: A Campaign and Call to Action by the Joint Council of Children’s Services   “You, the community of adoptees, adoptive parents, adoptive grandparents, child welfare professionals and child advocates know that the outrageous and indefensible actions of one parent are not indicative of how children are treated by adoptive families.  You know that families who encounter difficulties do not simply abandon their child.  You know that help is available, that solutions are found and that families can thrive.  And you know that suspending adoption does not protect children but only subjects them to the depravity of an institution…and an entire life without a family.”

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The survey was part of the National Survey of Children’s Health and was based on information obtained with a sample of adoptive parents in a 30-minute telephone survey.  In 2007, about 2 percent of all U.S. children in the US were adopted. Although the percentage is small, their actual numbers are sizable– nearly 1.8 million children under the age of 18.   Children adopted by step parents were excluded from this number.  The survey was more extensive than I could should cover in this blog, so I’ve cherry picked the information that was the most interesting to me.  You can thank me for my brevity later; or better yet, just send money.

Who Is Adopted and Who is Adopting

Twenty-five percent of adopted kids in the US were adopted internationally, 38% were private domestic adoptions, and 37% were adopted from foster care.  The racial distribution of children varies by type of adoption, with children adopted from foster care most likely to be black (35 percent) and those adopted internationally least likely to be black (3 percent). Fifty percent of children adopted privately from the United States are white, while only 19% of children adopted internationally are white.  Not surprisingly, 59% of internationally adopted kids are Asian. The percentage of adopted children who are Hispanic does not vary by type of adoption.  You can see a chart of this data in the report at Figure 6.

Transracial Adoptions

Transracial adoptions have been in the news as of late because of the media focus on the adoption of Haitian children and because of the rising popularity of Ethiopian adoption, but transracial adoptions both with international and domestic adoptions have been around for awhile.  Forty percent of all adoptions in the US are transracial, but the breakout between international and domestic is striking.   Eighty-four percent of children adopted internationally are being raised by a family of a different race, while “only” 28% of adoptions from foster care and 21% of private domestic adoptions are transracial.

Perhaps not surprisingly considering the cost of international and private domestic adoptions, adopted kids tend to live in more affluent and educated families.  Families that adopt from foster care have less money and education, but still 70% have education post high school and 25% have incomes exceeding four times the federal poverty threshold.  Adopted kids on the whole are about as likely to be raised by two married parents as the general population; however, 59% of kids adopted through a private domestic adoption are being raised by a single parent.

Many adopted children are being raised as only children.  In total 38% are the only child under the age of 18 in the house, but a whopping 48% of children adopted through private domestic adoption are only children.

How Are Adopted Kids Doing?
Physical Health

The majority of adopted children are healthy. Specifically, 85 percent of adopted children have parents who rated their health as “excellent” or “very good.”  Ninety-three percent of kids adopted internationally were rated “excellent” or “very good” in health, as compared to those adopted from foster care or privately from within the United States (81 and 84 percent, respectively).

Mental Health

Twelve percent of adopted children have ever been diagnosed with attachment disorder; however, 64% of those parents report having a “very warm and close” relationship with their child.  Only 4 percent of adopted children both have been diagnosed with attachment disorder and have a parent who reported the relationship as not being very warm and close.  The survey did not ask about the severity of the attachment issues.

Fourteen percent of adopted children ages 6 and older have been diagnosed with moderate or severe ADD/ADHD.  Eight percent of adopted children ages 2 and older have moderate or severe behavior or conduct problems, according to their parents. Parents of 2 percent of adopted children report their child has been diagnosed with depression and currently has symptoms that are moderate or severe.

A really cool finding is that adopted children are more likely than children in the general population to have parents who read to them, sing to them, and tell them stories.  They are also more likely than children in the general population to eat meals with their families.

The Process

Nearly nine out of ten adoptive parents were satisfied with their adoption attorney or agency; and more than nine out of ten believe that the agency disclosed all important information prior to the adoption. Children adopted from foster care are slightly less likely to have parents who were satisfied with the adoption agency or attorney, but the majority also felt that all important information was shared prior to the adoption.

A cautionary statistic, at least from my perspective is that three out of four adopted children have parents who have some prior experience with or
connection to adoption  friends or relatives who’ve adopted or they themselves were adopted.  Whether we like it or not, we influence other people’s attitudes about adoption.  And last but certainly not least, 87 percent of adoptive parents say they would “definitely” make the same decision to adopt again if given the chance.  But heck, I could have told you that.

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“We’ve been home 6 months with our adopted son from S. Korea and feel completely blessed to have him as part of our family. We traveled to Korea to bring him home and therefore met his foster family. We were contacted by our agency after being home 4 months that the foster family was in the USA visiting and wanted for us to call them collect so that the foster family could hear our son’s voice. Our son was 14 months at the time.

To make a long story short, we decided not to call the foster family and made up a lie to our agency as to why we couldn’t return the call. The reason for not returning the call is due to fear that somehow our collect call would be traced and they would obtain our address and phone number. We also fear that if they had our address that some day it could be given to our son’s birth family or blood related relatives if the foster family ended up meeting them some day. Also, our son had very limited English words and he doesn’t respond when he’s given the phone to talk to someone like his “papa” because we’ve done it and he stays quiet.

Our agency has the option for adoptive parents to send letters to the foster families through them and they go directly to the agency in Korea and they in turn contact the foster family. Our son or us may decide to contact them through this method which feels safe. We think the foster family visited the Korea adoption agency when they returned and probably informed them how we didn’t return the collect phone call. I say this because shortly after this situation our US agency mailed us a photo of the foster family holding our son and the letter said the photo was sent to them from the Korea adoption agency. (This persistence from the foster family also made us nervous and not too happy that they feel some rights to our son.)

In addition, my husband and I are upset at the foster family for also having taken nude pictures of our son. The pictures are of the front part of his genitals (penis and testicles). She gave us tons of pictures and hiding in there were those too. We never disclosed this information to our adoption agency nor with our social worker for fear that they would side with the foster family. We never developed a trusting relationship with our social worker, it just never happened. (Taking completely nude pictures of children is a big NO, NO for us and we were stunned that this family felt they had a right to do this to a child that they were fostering and getting paid to take care of him.)

Our experience is/was not as rosy pink as the adoption agencies picture it to be. I know we’re not the only ones that have experienced some questionable behaviors coming from the foster family.  Please feel free to comment on our situation. I am overall confused, but I know my husband is not and he doesn’t want us to keep in contact with the foster family for the above reasons.”

Thank you for the thoughtful and honest question.  You are not alone in these feelings, and I appreciate you allowing me to share your question and my answer with others who are struggling with some of the same uncertainties.  I hope you’ll forgive me if I answer you in a round about sort of way.  Your question presents the specific issues you raise, but also some underlying issues common to adoptive parents, and I want to try to address both.

When you were contacted by your agency about the foster family wanting to hear your son’s voice, you were in the brand new stages of parenthood.  Four months is not a long time to get your parenting sea legs.  Most new parents have to grow into their role, even parents by birth, although few admit it.  I remember hating to get advice when my first child was a baby.  I so disliked the feeling that the advice givers were the experts and I was the rookie–especially since it was true.  But many adoptive parents also have the added burden of feeling entitled to the name Mommy or Daddy and claiming this particular child as their very own.  This wee bit of insecurity in our role as the “real” parents can leave us feeling threatened.

While you are 100% your son’s real honest-to-goodness parents and will be for life, he also has two other sets of parents—birth and foster.  This is both confusing and sometimes hard for us adoptive parents to accept.  Even if we accept it on the intellectual level, it’s another matter entirely to accept on the emotional level.

I sense an underlying concern in your question of the foster family’s attachment or “claim” on your son.  While I completely understand how that can be unsettling, especially during the time you are trying to establish this sense of attachment and claim yourself, I do want to gently suggest that they indeed are, and have every right to be, attached to your son, and they do have a claim to him.  That’s the nature of love.  It is this very love that they felt for him that has given him such a healthy start in life and laid the foundation that your love will build on.  Who would your son be if he wasn’t so thoroughly loved and claimed by his foster parents?  It is possible to foster a child just for the money without forming that sense of attachment, but it isn’t best for the child.  Your son and you are blessed that this family chose the harder route of falling in love even thought he wasn’t going to be theirs forever.

I am in awe of foster parents who allow themselves to attach and love their foster children.  (We’ve done a number of shows with foster parents (e.g.  Fostering and Adopting Children in Foster Care,  Adopting from Foster Care) and each one left me weak in the knees.  I also can’t recommend enough foster mom Kathy Harrison’s book Another Place at the Table.)  Love isn’t something that can be turned on and off.  They love him and will always love him.  Can you imagine how phenomenal it would make him feel later in life to know that he was so loved, and so lovable, that his foster family just wanted to hear his voice four months after he left?  It gives me goose bumps.

As to the pictures, I understand your hesitancy about pictures of naked children.  I think most of us are more sensitive now than ever before to pedophilia and the possibility of abuse. I haven’t seen the pictures, but if you think they rise to the level of pornography, you absolutely should contact your agency to protect future children.  However, I’m assuming from the wording of your question that these are more your standard issue baby pictures, albeit sans clothes.

Although I understand and respect your position on any form of nudity in pictures of children, not everyone feels the same, especially with pictures that are intended solely for the family album.   Childhood nudity is viewed differently throughout the world.  In high school I was a foreign student in Germany and was surprised that most German kids stripped down pool side to put on their bathing suits.  On a family vacation to Italy a few years ago, kids as old as nine freely swam in their birthday suits at the beaches.

Even in the US, differences exist.  I would venture to say that most family albums have at least a few bare tushies and even a full monty or two of a baby or toddler.  There are very few pictures of me as a baby (second child syndrome—{sniff} {sob}) but one shows me lying spread eagle on my back in a shallow baby bath.  With my own kids, I never went out of my way to capture them nude, but I didn’t take heroic measures to avoid it either.  Yes, mostly any picture without clothes were of little bare behinds, but there was that one time we were getting ready to leave, and my two year old son came out of the dress-up closet wearing nothing but a Barbie wedding hat, complete with veil, a pink feather boa draped around his neck, and the most awful pair of chartreuse pumps (part of a bridesmaid ensemble from hell).  It was the rakish draping of the boa that did me in.  I simply didn’t want my hubby to miss this image of his son.  I tried to pose him looking over his shoulder, but he wasn’t buying it.  He knew that the full affect of the veil and boa could only be appreciated from the front.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I was laughing so hard that the picture was blurry.

In no way am I saying that my acceptance is preferable to your avoidance.  I simply want to share that within bounds, it really is just a personal preference.  But I suspect that what hurts you is that you didn’t get to make this decision.  Your son was part of another family for his first 10 months, and it was their preferences that prevailed.  If your son comes out dressed in a Barbie hat, pink boa, and bright green heels next year, you can make the decision of whether to laugh privately or run for the camera.  But you didn’t get to decide on the pictures in his first 10 months, and that is hard and a little sad.

What struck me when I read your letter the first time was how blessed you are to receive “tons” of pictures.  I know that Korean foster families are encouraged to take some pictures, but it sounds like this family went above and beyond.  Very few adopted kids, unless adopted in infancy, have many, or any, pictures of their early life.  You and you’re your son have been given something unique and precious.  Foster families can be paid to take care of a child; they can’t be paid to love a child.  Love is a gift.

It is worth examining your feelings about his foster family because in addition to a foster family, your son has a first family, and many of the same feelings you have about his foster family are likely intensified in your feeling about his birth family.  Working through your discomfort with the foster family’s love for your son and the “rights” they feel towards him will help pave the way for greater comfort towards his first family and acceptance of their “claim” on him and on his possible desire to have a relationship with them when he is older.

I have interviewed many adult adoptees for the radio show and for the book and articles I’ve written.  One thing that stands out to me is how important it is for adopted kids to not have to hide their natural curiosity and feelings for their birth families from their parents.  Kids have the amazing ability to know what subjects make us prickly and uncomfortable.  I can’t change the fact that my kids will have to come to terms with adoption and may have confused feelings for their first family.  All I can do is be there for them to help them make sense of it all.  Sometimes being there is all we can do, but it’s a lot.  If your son senses that you are uncomfortable with this conversation, it won’t happen.  He will likely still have the feelings, but the conversation will be in his head or with others.  I want you to be a part of that conversation.  I can not stress enough what a gift you will be giving him to become more educated about your feelings about his birth family and what adopted kids need and want to grow into healthy happy adults.  We have done many Creating a Family shows on this topic (Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew, Special issues facing adoptive families, How Children Process Adoption at Different Ages, How to Talk With Kids About Adoption , Parenting after Infertility, What 3rd Party Reproduction Can Learn from Adoption).  We list many resources under Adoption Resource, and many many books in our Suggested Books pages.

I’m sorry that you were left to deal with these confusing feelings by yourself, and I’m so glad you reached out to me.  When most of us where growing up and dreaming of parenthood, we didn’t dream of the complexity of adoptive parenting.  It can be unsettling to realize that we aren’t the one and only set of parents that love our child and have a claim on his love. The time you spend now working through your feelings and getting more education will pay you back in spades as your boy ages.

By all means, send pictures regularly to his foster parents and include an extra set of pictures for the Korean agency to keep in case his first family asks for them.  Write a thank you letter to his foster family.  When you feel more secure, write a letter to his first family expressing your love for their (and your) child and wishing them a peaceful mind about their decision.  Nurture your son’s awareness of the love all three sets of parents have for him.  Life can be cold, and all kids need all the layers of love they can get to keep them warm.

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There is some evidence that she’s right.  Parents who have struggled to conceive make very good parents.   Research shows that families created with the help of fertility treatment compare favorably with families that conceived without treatment, especially after the first 12 months.  There is some research that infertility patients are more anxious during pregnancy and their child’s first year of life, but the anxiety usually passes after that.  Parents that conceive through IVF tend to be more protective of their children; more child focused; and show greater warmth towards their children.  These studies have been small, but this supports what I see in real life.

Parents who chose to adopt rather than stay in infertility treatment also make great parents.  Studies show that adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children than biological parents and “evidence a high level of strength in terms of warmth, communication, discipline, and cohesion.”   Researchers speculate that “One of the reasons adoptive parents invest more is that they really want children, and they go to extraordinary means to have them.” Amen to that.

I have to admit that I worry about the effect of over protectiveness on kids, but I think our entire generation of parents is over protective, not just parents that conceived or adopted after years of trying.  I don’t think we have a good grasp on how to weigh relative risks.  We are overly worried about low chance risks such as stranger abduction; as a result we micromanage our kids’ lives because we are afraid to let them out of our sight.  The older my kids get the more I believe that children need to learn certain lessons from failure and falling and figuring things out on their own. But that is the subject of a different blog.

Parents that have had to struggle to become parents sometimes have a hard time giving themselves permission to have the normal feelings of frustration that comes along with parenting.  (See last week’s blog about a mom through surrogacy and donor egg.) They may feel let down after all the years of anticipation.  They may think they don’t have the right to complain about being tired, or wishing for a day to themselves, or craving time to wash their hair and shave their legs.  But fortunately, these feeling also usually pass with time.  Most parents of two year olds and teens feel pretty darn entitled to their frustration, regardless how they got their kids.

Infertility can affect the quality of parenting in two ways.  Infertility treatment results in a disproportionately large number of multiple births, and much research supports that parenting twins and triplets is much more stressful on parents.   Also, subsequent attempts at infertility treatment for a second child can add significant stress on parents. I’ve not seen research on whether already having a child reduces that stress somewhat.  I would also like to see more (any?) research on how parents of kids conceived through higher levels of infertility treatment (donor egg, surrogacy, etc.) fare as their children age, but I suspect they’re doing just fine because they too have so much love to give a child.

Everyday I see and hear from people who have struggled for years to create their families.  I don’t know whether these kids are “the most loved in the world”, but I can certainly say that they are a very cherished group, and being cherished is probably the greatest gift we can give our kids.

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There is both so much happening and so little happening, that the confusion is understandable.  First, let’s talk about what is happening.  The US State Department and Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an unprecedented policy on Jan. 18, 2010 allowing children from Haiti that were already in the adoption process to come to the US before their adoptions are finalized.  They walked a fine line, and in my opinion walked it well, when crafting this policy.  They wanted to expedite bringing children that were legitimately “orphaned” over to the US, while at the same time, not opening the floodgate to children who could and should be cared for in Haiti.

The US does not need help in getting these kids to the US.  They also do not want or need adoptive families to go to Haiti to pick up their children.  There is an abundance of empty planes flying back to the US after dropping off relief supplies and the US Embassy is using these planes to bring home kids.  The US Embassy has acknowledged that it is chaotic right now getting orphans to the embassy and determining if they meet the criteria for expedited entry into the US (known as “humanitarian parole”), but more people thrown into the mix will not help sort out the chaos.

If you were in the process of adopting a child from Haiti prior to the earthquake, immediately contact both the CIS (haitianadoptions at dhs.gov) and the DOS (ASKCI at state.gov) with the name of your child, the name of the orphanage, and any other relevant information on how far along your adoption had progressed prior to Jan. 12, 2010.

Why you might ask, would they care about opening the floodgate for bringing all Haitian children to the US?  After all, these are children for goodness sake, and children in need of care!  I answered that question in an earlier blog (Adopting from Haiti Post Earthquake), but the crib note version is that child welfare experts believe that, if at all possible, it is in a child’s best interest to remain with their family or extended family.  We need to channel our desire to help into giving money to organizations that can help families care for their children during this crisis.  Organizations such as the Joint Council for International Children Services and  Holt International have  projects on the ground in Haiti right now to help families and help kids.

Another thing that is happening is the State Department and CIS are working on plans to expedite bringing children orphaned by the earthquake to live with family members in the US.  Although, not finalized, they hope to have this policy in place once it has been determined which children were orphaned.

But there is much frustration both here in the US and in Haiti about how little seems to be getting accomplished and how much remains to be done.  I imagine there will be a lot of finger pointing in the coming weeks about how things could have been done better, and some of the criticism may be well placed.  But honestly, I think we need to give it some time.  From what I read, relief supplies are flooding into Haiti.  The problem is getting the supplies distributed within Haiti and all the relief organizations are actively working to resolve this problem.  There are no plans at this time to airlift or boatlift or in any way bring children over to the US for fostering.

I hope that the desire of these families that are stepping forward to foster Haitian children will stay alive because in the future there likely will be many more Haitian children in need of permanent adoptive families.  No one knows when it will be possible to adopt from Haiti again, but I firmly believe adoptions will resume.  If there is a silver lining in all this tragedy, it would be the overhaul of the Haitian adoption process, which is badly in need of “modernization” (aka “improvement”).

I am so touched by the inherent good I see in so many people who never before thought they were “the type” to take in a child.  And even those who don’t want to foster a child are donating money.  Two-thirds of Americans will donate to Haitian relief. My faith in basic human kindness has been boosted.  And for this, I am grateful.

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What, you ask, has this to do with my usual topic of adoption or infertility?  Well, not much, but the same week I was listening to my friend wrestle with grandparent nomenclature, I consulted with a woman to help her prepare a domestic adoption profile.  For the uninitiated, prospective adoptive parents compile a “profile” about themselves with pictures and some narrative showing their life and explaining why they want to adopt.  The completed profile will be shown to pregnant women considering adoption in hopes that she will choose this family to parent her child.  As we talked she referred to these women as “our birth mother.”  And each time, I squirmed just a tiny bit.

Normally, I’m the least likely person to play the role of word police.  I hate hyper-focus on the politically correct word choice because the usual outcome is people clamming up and conversation ceasing, which is seldom a good thing.  But as much as I hate to admit it, words do matter because they both reveal and ultimately influence how we think.  And it is both the revealing and the influencing that gives me pause with calling a pregnant woman a birth mother.

“Birth mother” is an adequate description (awkward initials aside) of a woman that has relinquished her child for adoption.  But when a woman is pregnant, she has yet to, and may not, relinquish her child.  She is considering making an adoption plan.  And this is the case regardless if she has selected prospective adoptive parents, met with these parents, and accepted their legally allowed financial support.  No woman can relinquish her parental rights until after birth, and it’s not uncommon for a woman to change her mind after birth.  Although I acknowledge that I may be splitting a mighty fine hair, I think it’s worth thinking about what we call her.

What bothers me about calling a pregnant woman a “birth mother” (or worse yet, our birth mother) is that it seems to relegate her status as solely an incubator of this child.  It also might encourage prospective adoptive parents to forget that she still has the right to change her mind.  Unfortunately, the phrase “pregnant woman considering making an adoption plan for her child” doesn’t lend itself to a ready acronym, so it’s easy to slip into prematurely calling her a birth mom.  I try to compromise with the term “prospective birth mother”.

Notice above the careful use of the personal possessive pronoun “her” when talking about the child.  (I actually don’t have a clue if that’s what it’s called, but it sounded impressive and by including both “personal” and “possessive” it helps make my point.)  This child she is carrying and will give birth to is her child.  He may soon be your child too, but he is and will always remain her child as well.  For this reason, more adoption professionals are using the term “first mother” to describe a woman who has relinquished her parental rights, and I like it.

Some adoptive parents dislike the term “first mom” because they object to being labeled “second mom” by implication.  I don’t see it that way. The one who is raising the child is just plain “Mom” or “Mommy” or “Mama”, no adjective descriptor necessary.  But, I like acknowledging the “motherness” of the women that gave birth to our children.  It’s respectful of them, and respect towards birth families is good for our kids.  (Check out some interesting research on openness in adoption on our Adoption Research page. )  Respecting her role as my child’s first mother does not lessen my role as a mother.  I have no problem loving more than one child, so I imagine my child will have no problem loving more than one mother.

My friend is still trying on names.  Her husband has decided on “Duke”.  (He denies it, but I suspect a boyhood crush on John Wayne.)  My friend has rejected (thank goodness) “Goddess” and “Mama Mia”.  I keep telling her that she could own “Granny” and set the standard for a 21st Century granny.  So far, she’s not buying it.

Check out these blogs by first mothers.

• The Chronicles of Munchkinland This blog is a reflection of a first mom.  It is well written, which counts for a lot to me.  I enjoy her insight and her writing in equal measure.  By the way, I’m not the Dawn she refers to.

• The Randolph Family Blog This is the only entry that I saw that specifically talks about being a first mom, but oh my, what an entry it is.
• Birth Mother/ First Mother Forum Written by a fascinating insightful woman.
• This Woman’s Work.  Although not written by a first mom, it is a well written blog by an adoptive mom in an open adoption that often touches on some of these issues.

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