While quite a few of the mainstream media seems to have picked up on this, the lovely MSP sent me the notice of the Time article. Thank you, my friend!
Now before I go off on an infmous FauxClaud adoption rant, please follow that link that appears below that says “digg story” and take a minute to sign up for Digg and then “digg it”. If the dern thing gets a significant number of diggs, then it has a chance of more people actually seeing it and giving a dern..so worth the few minutes to sign up. (believe me folks..I spend 8 hours day doing SEO stuff and understanding how to get news nd such across the web..so these stupid things like Digg, they work)
This is something that family preservation and reproductive exploitation groups such as Origins-USA.org have been saying for years.The adoption agencies and other legal professionals NEVER inform the relinquishing parents or prespective adoptive parents the real RISKS that adoption opens up to the children surrendered.
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Now, for many of us, this really isn’t news. This is something that HAS been studies before and has been published before, but alas, many folks still naysay it. In fact, I have to say that I find offense to this quote in the article:
The Minnesota psychologist and her colleagues found that disparity could be due as often to innate factors such as perinatal care or his birth parents’ genes. “The deleterious effects may quite possibly have come before the adoption ever took place,” Keyes, the study’s lead researcher, says.
I won’t agrue pre-natal care becasue that has been shown to be a risk factor towards certain behaviors, most notedly ADHD. Low birth weight, prematurity, prenatal choices are proven to affect the mental well being of kids and adults. It would also be ignorant of me to fail to recognize that there are very real menatl health issues that are not genertically related, BUT the risks that face the general non adopted population regarding all those factors should be the SAME as the percentages of adopted children.
The comment made infers that reliquishing parents do less than the regular population regarding the care of their children or have a higher tendency to have genetic mental issues to pass down to the surrenderd kids, and THAT is bunk ESPECIALLY in this study. In this study, while they looked at adoptees from both international and domestic situations, all were adopted before the age of 2, so that pretty much precludes any children that were from CPS removals and had suffered any form of truama induceing abuse.
While I can take the ideal that adoptive parents are more apt to be versed in the mental health aspect, or be more likey to seek help for the adopted child, or be more aware of asssitnce being needed, even that cannot account for what is concluded..adoptees are overrepresented in the mental health field than non adopteed persons or as the study says:
Nevertheless, being adopted approximately doubled the odds of having contact with a mental health professional and of having a disruptive behavior disorder.
Adoption doubles the risk: That’s not a small percentage. That’s nothing that can be dismissed with a wave of the hand. If we were talking about something other than adoption, say, the use of some diet drugs that doubles the risk of a stroke, then you KNOW the FDA would have to pull the diet drug or risk facing huge lawsuits.
You have to really begin to wonder why this is happeneing. For many, we see the answers as obvious:
There is the Primal Wound…separated at a very young age from the only world and comfort they know, their mother, the adoptee is unable to understand or verbalize their feealings of grief and loss. ALl they know is something terrible has happened, but they must somehow internalize this and survival kicks in. So we hear a great number of reports that either cliam that an adopted baby is just a dream, the perfect good baby ( internalizing and dening their greif and loss) or a difficult coliky baby (epressing it anyway they can, but frequntly assumed as “colic” for lack of any physical reason and sometimes the drug treatments begins right there while still in diapers).
While the Primal Wound can be somewhat mitigated by a caring and acknowledging adoptive parent, the thing is, if it could be avoided completely, by not separating a baby from the mother, then it really should be. ANother reason to avoid unnesseary surenders or in simple terms, if mom is not planning on beating the baby or starving ti, then you can probably get around all the other factors that seem to make adoption sound like a good idea.
So now we have a child or may or may not have experinced the Primal Would (and I say may or may not becasue their are many adoptess who will want to kick your face in for even suggesting that adoption has affected them, so there always must be an out). Anyway, now we have the adopted child..and they may have other adoptee issues to deal with.
Genetic Mirroring is a very big issue too and something that the non adopted segment of the population takes for granted. Being raised in your biological family means that you get to see people all around you who look like you, who may act like you, or may share the same interests as you. Like I can see that Scarlett has the very same dare devil annoy anyone to death and not knowing when to stop attitude as her dad. Tristan, on the othehand, is extremely causious, though silly, but takes some time to warm up to new situations. It was actually just this past birthday vist that I realized that he is so very similar to my brother in temperment. Matt is also extremely causious, thinks things trought and plans ahead.
For me, understanding genetic mirroring became very clear to me when I was prsenting at KAAN last year with Margie, and was lsitening on a seasson by a Koarean Adoptee. She was explaining how, being a Kaorean in New Hampshire, surrounded by white New Englanders, she would be shocked when she saw her own refelction in the mirror. From seeing only non Asians all the time, she internalized herself as a non Asian and that’s what she was used to.
About two years ago, I was tucking Scarlett into bed and I smiled at her when I was listening to one of her babble stories. She looked at me and said, ” Mommy, I love that smile” And after I thanked her for her kind compliment, she asked “WIll I have that same smile when I grow up?” And when I replied yes, her response was ” Good, I can’t wait!”
THAT’S GENETIC MIRRORING. She learned to love something about herself based on seeing it on someone she loves. Her personal features, while they might not be the greatest ( it’s a goofy smile), are wanted and desired traits based on her experinces with me. To her, I am beautiful..and becasue she is goning to look a heck of a lot like me, she will she herself as beautiful when she is reaching adulthood. So self-esteem, self aceptance, confidence..they all can stem from positive gentic mirroring.
There are also other adoption related issues that the non adopted will never be able to fully understand, like the issues of adoptee loyalty. Talk to almost any adopted peson, and often, if they are about to critique adoption, or say something positve about their first families, then they must paraphrase it with something alosn the lines of ” I love my adoptive parents, they were great…” or ” I had a great childhood and I wouldn’t change a thing, but…”
In all actuality, no matter what I know and what I have studied and read, I don’t even have a right to speak for the adoptees and how they feel.. they do it well enough, so go over to Ungrateful Little Bastard and check out the huge adoptee blogroll there and listen to them..please.
Anyway, back to the study, I did notice this one little jem that I just have to repost:
Furthermore, the parent of an adopted child may have a lower threshold than the parent of a nonadopted child for reporting a behavior as problematic.
For me, this kind of goes back to the whole surrounded by people who are not related to you and just don’t GET you. Oh, I know that not everybody is trully understood in their family even when full of biological breeding. I have a father that I haven’t seen in over 20 years who I don’t want to get at all as he is such a jerk head poopy face and I have a biological cousin who seemed to take after the non Italian side of the family and divorced us all years ago, but there are certain things that I just get about all my four kids ( including Max who I did not raise) and my brother too..becasue we are made of the same stuff.
And I do NOT mean this to be a dis to any adoptive parents to whom this does not apply to..you know who you are..and you know that I heart you…so if it doesn’t apply to you , then don’t take offense, but…
It’s like.. I love my own kids. I usually even like them. I used to like ALL kids except the very very bad ones. We are talking a million years of baby sitting, three summers being a summer rec counsellor, 4 plus years of being a pre-school teacher, more babysitting, student teaching, running a day care, etc. Kids were my thing. But, with the exception of sopme few kids that rock, I really do like my own kids more than anyone elses. They drive me crazy less. I understand them more. I know how to make them do what they should better…we are in tune..
Now if I had to live with, every day, some kid who did not mesh with me.. I think I would be more apt to loss my patience and think.. well ther is something wrong with this kid and I better get him fixed. And really, there might be something wriong wiotht eh adopted child, but their might not be either. They just might be naturally made of differnt stuff that you just don’t get.
Bottom line.. for me.. adoption is like the concpet of original sin in a certain way. No that it is “bad” in a sinful way and I think the Church is silly like that, but in a way it is burdening an innocent child with something that is just not necessary most of the time. Yes, we don’t get to request our lot in life, and there are many ways that any adopted peson will say that they beneffitted even if you weed out the adoptee loyality stuff, and yes, we all end up with issues and trauma and baggage…but if we all have a canvas tote that must get filled up with baggage to carry around all our days, then why would you start fillin git up with adoption rocks right from the get go if you don’t have too? Is the house really, really burning down?
And then, there is the other very real aspect of a study like this…
If I know it, and you know it, and Time knows is,
and US News and World Report knows it,
and National Public Radio gets it,
and the Chicago Tribune spreads it,
and the Star Tribune reports on it,
and the Kansas City Star writes about it,
and even the Youngstown Vindicator says it…
then someone please explain to me how come we will NOT see this study, or the previous studies proving the same kind of results, being explained to expectant parents considering adoption for their children?
I know we won’t. The agencies just do not do it. They tell considering moms that adoption is great and wonderful and their kids will be blessed and “better off” having everything… yep. Everything including double the risk of ending up on a phycologist couch wondering what the heck is wrong with them that they can’t wrap thier heads around the concept if you love someone so much, you give them away.
Or in all fairness, will we see agencies explain to presepctive adoptive parents that the child could be more prone to such mental helath issues and then assisting them in post adoptive services and training so that they can avooiid them as much as possible? Or no, will they just say that it is the same as having a paper pregnancy and then happily take that paper check all the way to the bank?
I leave you with a little prayer:
Dear God, show me one agency that will offer up the information from this study to considering parents so that I can have fate in humainty again.
Please go here for the full study, from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolesent Medicine
The University of Minnesota Press Release for the study is here as well.
Thank you – this is one to read and understand.
I think it’s time we acknowledge that no matter how strong and resilient children are, no matter how sensitive adoptive parents might be – adoption adds an extra layer of loss and emotional challenge.
We are currently in the process of adopting an infant through Open Adoption and we will maintain the contact with the birth family throughout our child’s life.
In addition, the entire Adoption Triad is represented in my family. My brother is a birth father from one of the closed adoptions in the 1980’s (which is why we are now choosing open adoption), I have two adult cousins and a 4 year old niece who were adopted and my brother is now also an adoptive parent. So I believe we started from a position of more awareness than many.
The various studies which show adopted children may have more mental health issues and may need extra help especially through their adolescence were actually discussed with us both by the social worker who conducted our home study and by the counselor at the adoption agency. Although we had found the information already through our own extensive research into adoption issues before we even decided to adopt. (All this happened before this particular study was reported in the media.)
I agree that far too many people enter into adoption with incomplete knowledge and unrealistic expectations. I agree that they are many misguided and, unfortunately, fraudulent adoption practices that happen both in the US and around the world. I further agree that adoption is in serious need to reform on multiple levels.
However, I also believe that there are adoption agencies who work to ensure that both prospective birth parents and prospective adoptive parents are aware of the issues and they offer counseling and services that help them through the adoption process in an open and respectful way.
It just takes more effort to find an agency that has the interest of all the people involved (including the adoptee) as their bottom line instead of money. But they do exist. I know we found one of them.
By the way, the last paragraph of the Times article states the researchers are not saying the report should discourage people from adopting. Rather, they hope it will help them to be more aware and responsive to issues that may arise in their child.
Gretchen
Prospective Adoptive Parent
Still wading my way through the study findings (interesting). What I’m reading is that adoptees are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or ODD (oppositional-defiance disorder), but they are NOT more likely to be diagnosed with a conduct disorder, major depressive disorder, or separation anxiety disorder. So it’s these TWO areas that they are more likely to get a diagnosis. It’s NOT more likely if the child is adopted internationally though; it only applies to domestic adoptions. For that reason, the hypothesis is that the ADHD and/or ODD is that these children were either exposed to teratogenic substances prenatally or carry a greater genetic risk. Because int’l adoptees turned out equal to non-adopted children in the study, it would seem that there is something going on domestically. I hope they study it further. The big take though is that most of adoptees are completely healthy and equal to their nonadopted counterparts, so it’s far from a damnation on adoption. It’s just that some seem to be more predisposed to ADHD or ODD. Unfortunately, we live in a society right now that thinks ADHD is all bad. In fact, some of our greatest creative minds come out of ADHD. As a parent, you just have to be alert to issues and do your best to get your kids the support they need. Unfortunately though, adults with undiagnosed ADHD don’t recognize it in their kids, so it becomes a generational thing. Hyper parents and hyper kids! It gets recognized more often in adoptive families because adoptive parents may be non-ADHD and looking at their ADHD child through more objective eyes.
My son was adopted by another family when he was born 20 years ago. He was diagnosed at the age of six with ADD and has been on numerous medications from that age until he was 18 years old and stopped taking them. He can rattle off so many drugs he was prescribed that I cannot name them all. No one in my family nor his father’s family is ADD. I loved my son from the moment I knew I was pregnant and took good care of myself and him- it is ironic to me that I was determined to have a natural childbirth so there were NO chemicals in his body nor mine when he was born, but he spent most of his life on drugs- more than one at a time- and I feel (as does he- we’ve been reunited since last year) that he does not have ADD, that he was just “different” than his adoptive parents and they thought something was wrong with him. Until more studies have been done on what the natural mother’s habits were during the time of pregnancy, do not assume that difficulties the adoptee may experience were due to prenatal care or lack of thereof or due to genetics. It just may be that adoption is damaging….as much as many people don’t want to believe it.
Hi Claud –
Just to let you know that the agency we’re working with IS very upfront with this kind of information (including Primal Wound theory) on the PAP side of the deal. I’ve been very impressed so far with their lack of romanticizing and their insistence on discussing the losses inherent in adoption for both children and their families of origin.
I don’t have access to the other side of the fence (their interactions with pregnant women considering adoption), so I can’t speak to that.
The belief that more adopted kids have ADHD has been around for a long time. When we adopted over a decade ago, the adoption agency really did “warn” us about that as well as other possibilities like children whose moms did not receive prenatal care, might carry genetic risks that we won’t know about, etc. A good adoption agency should be warning adoptive parents of the risks. Then again, I don’t think the risk of having a child with ADHD is so horrible anyway. In reality, more kids raised in their biological families have ADHD than do adopted kids. One comment also about tolerating behaviors in your kids that you can’t stand in other kids…this goes for either adoptive parents or biological parents. When you adopt, that baby becomes your baby who you accept, embrace, and love. You don’t need to share the same genetics to feel as strongly about your child as if you had given birth to them. Honestly, a lot of adoptive parents view their children as absolute miracles and it makes them even more tolerant of “kid stuff.”
I am totally insulted by this study, it missed KEY issues.
http://www.adultadoptees.org/forum/index.php?topic=8461.0
topic=8461.0
Just as a matter of interest, this study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
It urks me that many of these “mental health” issues are “blamed” on the child’s genetics…if it was just genetics, then the high percentage of adoptees (numbers)compared to the general population would not so pronounced.
Thank you for posting this. I say it as often as I can to anyone who will listen. People want to blow it off as bad genes, poor prenatal care, whatever they can to keep the lie going that taking someone else’s baby is good, good, good.
I’m the adoptee leg of the triad. In a wonderful reunion. Just started blogging about my experience and take on adoption in general.
Thanks for putting yourself out here.
Having been in adoption reunion with my son and his extended adopted family as well for soon 8 years, this troubles me to the core. He took his own life a few weeks ago. We were open w/communication. He was 35. He is also a birthfather. He spoke of adoption issues troubling him that weekend. I have followed the blogs, the books the forums since just before reunion started. Even tho love was everywhere, there was a loss that couldn’t be filled. He was a sensitive man and had learned to put up walls.
Our hearts are broken. Again. Only this time I know he’s not coming back. We all lost. Hopefully someday we can explain this to our grandson. Pictures and video’s and letters will represent him now.