What about family?
Attachment?
Grief?
What about the definition of adoption?
The legal definition of adoption is creating a new, legal, permanent parent-child relationship where one didn’t previously exist. Technically there isn’t anything wrong with that definition, but the reality of adoption is much, much more. Like trying to define love or family, adoption can be an intangible denominator that both divides and unites; heals and hurts.
Several years ago I heard a respected colleague with a lifetime of adoption experience define adoption as: the severing of natural bonds of love, affection and legal rights, and the formation of new ones. It was the first time I'd heard all members of the adoption triad considered in a definition of adoption, and the first time I'd seen the unspoken reality of loss included in the same definition.
Just as divorce, medical diagnoses, disabilities, unemployment, and other losses don’t define an individual, the losses that are a part of the adoption process don’t characterize the individuals involved in adoption. Adoption isn’t about loss, but loss is a part of adoption. Adoptive relationships are relationships formed, in a very real sense, out of loss: The loss of a birth mother as she places a child for adoption, the loss of the adoptee as they lose one family and gain another, and frequently the losses of adoptive parents as they face challenges of infertility or as they watch an adopted child struggle with their own losses.
Luis Mann said, “Only eyes washed by tears can see clearly.”
Grief is a natural process of adjustment that accompanies any form of loss. Grief is a normal yet highly personal response to loss. Unresolved in any form, these losses can lead to complications in relationships between parents and children, between siblings, and even between adoptive parents. In adulthood, unresolved loss in the life of an adoptee can lead to repeated patterns of loss (loss of employment, friends, relationships, etc.).
Grief is not necessarily a long, involved process, and doesn't always involve complicated emotions. In fact, when children are guided in a grieving process and emotions are validated as they surface, they are free do the work of making sense of the information that is their life. They process difficult and sometimes conflicting realities, and when supported in their explorations, they acknowledge feelings of loss as they surface and learn to integrate it as part of their identity.
However, in cases where adoptive parents aren’t comfortable with those explorations, or the child is afraid of upsetting the family by bringing up questions about adoption, the natural grieving process can't take place, and the result becomes a life time of unresolved, complicated grief which, as stated above, can shape adult relationship and behavior patterns.
Ideas for resolving adoption loss in children:
- Allow emotions, even the uncomfortable ones: Listen and acknowledge the child’s reality, even if it isn’t your own.
- Don’t be afraid to go on difficult emotional journeys. The need to make adoption into a happy experience is a parental response to trying to protect children from being hurt. Acknowledging the loss doesn’t mean you caused it, and once acknowledged, the pain can be healed. Imagine refusing acknowledgement to a child who comes to you with a scrape or an upset stomach.
- Don’t shy away from questions about difficult histories. These too must be acknowledged. Parents can present negative parts of a child’s history along with good pieces of information about heritage. A history isn’t all bad or all good. Information that is withheld can imply shame. And always check for accuracy before sharing information. If you’re not sure, share what you know and let the child know that you’re trying to find out more information, and as much a possible, include them in the search.
- Acknowledge and work through prejudices about lifestyles and choices of birth parents. Children can sense when you have reservations about any part of their history, and will hide or deny their feelings to avoid the discomfort they feel from a parent who shows hesitation or reservation about their heritage or history.
- Engage in activities to integrate feelings and history. Share in making life books; celebrate milestone days; do art projects together about the child’s life; launch balloons with messages to a birth parent; write letters to give to a birth parent at a later date; create a time capsule; visit old caregivers, friends, schools, neighborhoods... Ideas are as limited as your imagination.
- Identify supports in going through a grieving process. If you acknowledge the loss, feelings of grief are sure to follow, and you’ll need to be able to identify people who can support you in that process. Hopefully members of your adoptive family are a part of that support network, but some adoptive families can’t acknowledge that loss is reality of adoptive family living. Don’t make it part of your journey to change what is. Surround yourself with people who are ok with what is and begin your journey.
- No apologies about searching or not searching. Adult adoptees who don’t search for their roots either 1) report satisfaction with their identity, not feeling a need to search or 2) are afraid of hurting their adoptive family. Adult adoptees who search for families identify reasons for searching as 1) desire to know genealogical roots; 2) desire to increase sense of identity; and 3) desire to establish a relationship with birth parents. Interestingly enough, increased searching is identified with issues of unresolved grief, such as feeling incomplete, or uncertainty of life events leading up to adoption. (Sobol, 1983) Your history and identity are real, and deserving of acknowledgement. If you choose to search, don’t apologize for wanting to find your roots. Have you ever heard a biological family say their ancestry doesn’t matter? There is an entire field devoted to searches of family ancestry. Why would that same curiosity not extend to adoptees?
- Identify your losses. What did you lose when you were adopted? I asked that question once to a teen girl in therapy. It took her a while to respond, and she was thoughtful about her response. She knew she had a family, so she didn’t want to identify that as her loss. After some discussion of the question, she said, “I lost the idea of a family.” Perceived loss is just as real as actual loss. If you were an infant when you were adopted, at some point in your life you had to realize that other people, sometime, somewhere loved you, and probably still do. Resolving the idea of loss is important grief work.
- Seek professional resources. If you’re embarking on this journey, fear is natural. You'll have fears of rejection from those you have spent a lifetime loving, or fear of what you might find. Fearing the unknown can prevent necessary journeys, and processing those fears in a professional counseling setting can move the journey forward. Similarly, if the grief is more than you expected, or the disappointment of not finding what you were looking for has you feeling more loss, it would be helpful to seek guidance through the grief process. Professionals remain objective, while others in your support system might have stronger opinions or feelings about your process.
- Imagine and look forward to a time when all the pieces of the puzzle finally fit. It’s important to keep a vision in mind for the journey. Be deliberate about the process. Don’t give up.
Read more about adoption issues here.
Information about the adult adoptees study cited above was obtained from: (Michael P. Sobol and Jeanette Cardiff: A Sociopsychological Investigation of Adult Adoptees' Search for Birthparents; Family Relations; Vol. 32, Number 4 (Oct. 1983) pp. 477-483.
Background information: This study was one of the first published in the 1980's about adult adoptees' attitudes on adoption. Adoptees are referred to "the invisible member of the adoption triad" before the 1980's, when issues faced by adult adoptees first began to be publicly acknowledged. Additional studies have shown that adults adopted prior to this time period report difficulty with feelings of loss and identity confusion during adulthood more frequently than their counterparts adopted after loss began to be acknowledged and discussed as a natural part of the adoption process.
