Disrupted adoption from the adoptee's point of view

Currently in the United States, adoptions are being promoted as the “cure” for foster care, and a panacea to all permanency issues. And yet, across America, there are a growing number of adoptions that dissolve after finalization.

The highest disruption rate is for children who are adopted as teenagers.

Also at higher risk are:
- Children who are separated from their siblings.
- Children who have been sexually abused
- Children who have been adopted before and that adoption failed

The term ‘disrupted adoption’ sounds like it was coined in order to minimize the emotional impact. It brings to mind phrases like: “The television program was disrupted by a commercial break,” or a teacher saying to her class, “Be quiet. I will tolerate no more disruptions!”

Perhaps it’s a subtle way to assign blame to the child. Could it be a lingering accusation of insubordination? Does it imply that the child is an intruder, disrupting the customary order of their adoptive parents’ household?

A friend of mine who was adopted from foster care was recently reading a blog entry from an adoptive parent whose complaint was: “I guess we just thought that we would love him sooner. He is obviously crazy about us, but I just find myself coming home from a long day at work, and wishing he would calm down.”

My friend looked up from the article and commented, “It sounds like they were looking for a puppy.”

Prelude to a Loss
A series of stages have been identified by the University of South Maine that often lead to adoption disruption. First, the adoptive parents become frustrated with the child’s behavior and begin questioning their choice to adopt. They start complaining about the child to other people.

Hopefully the adoptive parents have surrounded themselves with a support group to both comfort and challenge them regarding their parenting skills. It is normal to feel overwhelmed after an adoption, just as many parents go through an adjustment after their child’s birth.

When I became a stepmother, I remember that the transition to ‘instant parent’ wasn’t easy. It took time to define the roles in our relationship, to build trust and to set limits. I knew that it wouldn’t always be easy, and it wasn’t. But I also knew that when I chose to marry my husband, I was making a lifelong commitment to his daughters as well.

Adoption needs to be perceived as a serious commitment. A child is not a defective product. A child cannot be taken out on a trial run. You can’t have buyers’ remorse, and then take that child back for a refund.

And yet, prior to adoption disruption, adoptive parents allow themselves to fantasize about what it would be like if this child were no longer a part of their family. Finally, they issue an ultimatum to the child.

The Aftermath
Most articles about disrupted adoption focus primarily on the emotions of the adoptive parent. But what does it feel like to be the child, undergoing that level of rejection?

For children and teenagers who have experienced disrupted adoptions, this experience impacts both their personal identity and long-term survival.

They often wind up in limbo:
1.) Their birth certificate has been permanently changed. It is now inaccurate, because it has been rewritten to state that their adoptive mother gave birth to them. They aren’t allowed to have a copy of their original birth certificate without approval from both parents. In fact, they aren’t allowed to have personal documents, such as their (doctored) birth certificate, until they are 21 years old.

2.) Not only can they not rely on their former adoptive families, they are no longer legally related to their biological siblings. An adoptee explained it to me like this: “We are brother and sister, but on paper, it looks like we aren’t even related. I can’t even be his next of kin.”

3.) As they transition to adulthood, they are often unsure of how to fill out their taxes or the federal student aid application for school. They are asked to “prove” that their adoption was legally disrupted. If their adoptive parents have simply abandoned them, as happens all too often with teenagers, they can’t.

These transitioning young adults are unable to receive benefits such as ETV funds, because they were adopted and the assumption is that their adoptive parents – who have been receiving adoption subsidies for their care – are financially providing for them.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the "limbo" that adoptees whose adoption has been "disrupted" can experience... Think about international adoptees who wind up in the United States foster care system.

Recommended Policy Changes
Adoption agencies should be held to the standard of full disclosure. Research has demonstrated that parents who understand beforehand about a child’s previous physical or sexual abuse are less likely to disrupt the adoption. Sometimes, such as in the case of international adoption, there might not be a lot of information available. However, inasmuch as it is possible for an agency to fully inform adoptive parents about a child’s background, they should do so.

Screen adoptive parents’ motivations and expectations. Is the adoption based primarily on the needs of the child or the adoptive parent? Many people adopt due to their inability to conceive. Sometimes disruptions occur because parents feel entitled to some wonder-child that they’ve been imagining and the child doesn’t meet those expectations.

Training for adoptive parents should include the “what if” scenarios. What if you adopt a child, and discover that child has been sexually abused? Adoptive parents should be prepared in advance, and encouraged to create a financial and emotion safety net in the event that a child might need residential care.

Facilitate an atmosphere of trust, by allowing the child contact with loved ones. An adoptee shared with me her experiences on the day of her “Goodbye Visits” prior to her adoption.

During the course of one day, she had to say goodbye to her birth family, the foster family with whom she had been staying for years and her brother. That day was the most horrific day of her life.

Three months later, her new adoptive parents were upset that she didn’t want to call them “Mom” and “Dad.”

The term Reactive Attachment Disorder makes me nervous because I believe it is a diagnosis that is given too quickly. This label makes it easier to underestimate the resilience of an adoptee and to magnify their problems. It makes it easier to blame the adoptee when things go wrong.

Imagine if someone came to you and said, “You are going to enter the witness protection program. You need to go and say goodbye to all the people that you have ever loved. You can no longer have any contact with them. It is for their safety.”

In a witness protection scenario, national security might be at stake. But whose needs are being met when an adopted child is denied contact with loved ones from their past?

When I asked my friend why her adoption meant that she was denied contact with every person that she had ever loved, her explanation was, “Adoptive parents are insecure, especially with older kids. That’s why the government allows them to cut all ties.”

I believe that if her former foster family was safe enough to place her with during the interim, she should have been allowed to maintain contact with them. If she was allowed sibling visits prior to the adoption, they should have been continued afterwards as well.

I would like to invite readers to weigh in on this issue…