12.20.09
Adoptees who are found… and told they are adopted
Adult adoptees are all over the map when it comes to search and reunion. Some adoptees begin the process of search as children, gathering what facts they may have at hand and actively imagining an eventual meeting with their first parents. Other adoptees never feel the need to search. Some toggle between the desire to search and feelings of ambivalence. And then there are adult adoptees who are found.
The difference between searching and being found can be profound. “Ithaka” by Sarah Saffian and “The Mistress’ Daughter” by A. M. Homes, reunion memoirs by adult adoptees who had not decided to search when they were found by their first mothers, map this terrain. While Saffian and her first mother eventually develop a positive relationship and Homes does not, their descriptions of their emotions and psychological states as they process being found are very similar. Lingering feelings of loss of control and subsequent attempts to regain control through the pace of reunion. Lack of trust and communication. Feelings of mixed loyalty. Identity shift similar to Late Discovery.
Since the inception of the Late Discovery Email list in 1999, I’ve been contacted by first mothers who searched and found their adult children and discovered that they had not been told they were adopted. All of the complicated dynamics of contact are at play in these situations, overlain by the discovery.
We have a cliché in our culture, “Don’t kill the messenger”, which, if anything, reveals a profound, if unconscious, desire to do just that, to punish the bearer of traumatic information. A first parent who informs an adult adoptee that they are adopted risks becoming forever linked with the trauma of discovery.
There are no easy answers to the dilemma of search, contact and reunion. Whether initiated by adoptees or parents, reunions are relationships without maps. The dilemma of telling LDA’s that they are adopted is complicated as well. From an ethical standpoint, adoptees should be told, but ethical frameworks seldom account for the vagaries of human emotion.
It is my opinion that first parents who find and inform their reunited adult children that they are adopted have given them the gift of truth.
Gaye Tannenbaum said,
December 22, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Beautifully written Ron. I was told by my younger sister at age 31. She had just learned about my adoption from an older cousin. I told this tale to a co-worker who I would have liked to become friends with. She flat out told me that if my a-parents didn’t want me to know I was adopted, my cousin had NO RIGHT to tell me. I told her that I did not agree (and excuse me for breathing, but it’s my life and my adoption, right?) and that as far as I was concerned, once the “adopted child” turns 21, the gloves are off. Give the a-parents fair warning first, but set a deadline. Be prepared for backlash though.
I can name at least three dozen people who knew I was adopted. Why is it fair that THEY knew but I did not?
Karen said,
April 29, 2011 at 1:16 am
Special thanks to Ron and Gaye. One year ago at the age of 46 I found my adoption papers while trying to find my mothers will. I have been completely and totally devistated beyond belief. My whole entire family that I grew up with and thought were my biological family knew about my secret. I feel I can no longer trust anyone. For 46 years everyone lied to me. Finding the papers on my own and no one having the nerve to do what was right, like your cousin. has left me with such anger in my heart. I have cried everyday since this discovery. We have the right to know where we came from, not only for health reasons but to know what are biological make up is. I thank you for this sight. I have not been able to find anyone who understands what my feelings are like right now. They want me to be the person I was but I am struggling so much.