Editor:
In reading the Feb. 19 letter to the editor titled “Not a Pretty Picture,” I was saddened to hear that Ms. Rigge has experienced so many difficulties in her journey as an adopted adult. While adoption in this country has seen countless forms and is still, in many ways, evolving as an issue that society is grappling to better understand, I commend the individuals like Ms. Rigge who are brave enough to come forward and speak about the issues that are directly affecting adoptees in this country. If it were not for these individuals standing up and openly discussing the complexities of adoption (such as the balance between protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents, and respecting the adoptees’ desire to “know” about their pasts), adoptions in this country would still be a closed issue.
Adoptions today are significantly different than they were even 10-20 years ago. There has been a huge paradigm shift, moving away from the days of closed and secretive adoptions, to a time when children are given the opportunity to know of all the parents in their lives. It is the outspoken individuals such as Ms. Rigge who have brought the importance of this issue to the forefront and allowed for today’s adopted children to experience a much more open experience with adoption. In Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties alone there are over 80 children a year who are benefiting from the gifts of adoption. These children, many of whom have experienced a period of time in the care of birth parents who are unable to meet their needs, have found dedicated, loving and generous families prepared to commit a lifetime of love and support to them.
However, there are still many more children right here in our very communities that are desperate to have a place to call home. It is because of these children speaking out about their strong desire to find permanence and their wish to play an active role in determining their own futures that the California Department of Social Services has joined with a number of youth throughout the state in forming the Heart Gallery. This traveling photo display of some of California’s waiting children was created in collaboration with the children themselves. Although such a display was initially met with concern from some parts of the community, it has also proven to be a successful tool for recruiting adoptive homes for these and many more children.
While I do realize that there are many unique challenges that continue to face adoptees, I would hate for these issues to stand in the way of children finding homes. For that reason, I strongly encourage anyone who has ever thought about adoption to contact the State Adoptions Office (826-9180) to learn more about how to help the children in our communities. Also, for those of you who have been adopted and are seeking help to particular issues or road blocks, you might consider reaching out to our local Post Adoption Services Project (476-9210) for assistance.
— Carolyn Coke, Adoptions Supervisor,
*California Department of Social Services, Arcata Office *
Sweet Spot: Carolyn Coke wins a Bon Boniere sundae for sending our favorite letter of the week.
This article appears in Flash Fiction Contest.
Carolyn missed my point completely. I am not surprised AT ALL as it is her job to "sell" the public on the "sunny, rainbow-filled" aspects of adoption.
It’s very clear from her letter that adoptees drop off her radar once they are adopted. We’re simply commodities in which adoption agencies and lawyers profit from our losses.
There ARE NO birth parents lobbying for privacy, Ms. Coke. That is a myth created by adoption agencies, such as yours, to justify the civil rights violations of sealing original birth certificates of adoptees and falsifying them with amended ones.
Children are only born ONCE!! Sealing away birth records is immoral.
I strongly suggest that the California Department of Social Services work to immediately stop the sealing of original birth certificates of adoptees and unseal the ones already sealed.
Stop selling the public this beautiful picture of adoption. Adoption is a loss of the child’s original family. It is a traumatic experience for every single child that endures it.
The sealing of an adoptees’ birth records is yet another disenfranchising from the non-adopted majority that we, adoptees,are expected to accept with gratefulness.
I’m NOT grateful.
I want what every non-adopted citizen in this country has: my original birth certificate. It’s that simple.
" as the balance between protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents, and respecting the adoptees’ desire to "know" about their pasts), "
Wow how disturbing that such a blatant falsehood was published by someone who holds herself up as an expert in the field.
"Birth" parents have never lobbied for privacy, quite the oppposite in fact. Those natural parents who are organized enough to lobby have asked for open records.
The organization that lobbies for closed records is the National Council for Adoption, which is a misnomer if there ever was one. They should be called the National Council for Adoption Professionals, they are a lobby for a right-wing religious zealots and adoption attorneys and agencies.
The very people that profit off our backs. The quote from Ms. Coke is lifted directly from the NCFA’s latest report. The NCFA is not interested in adoptees, but rather protecting the profits and often sleazy practices of their constituents.
The "birth" parent privacy scam is jus that a scam. Our records seal upon adoption not when the parental rights are terminated, and if there is no adoption, there is no sealing.
If an adoption is undone, the records are unsealed.
Unforatunately Ms. Coke sees no problem in exploiting and misrepresenting an already vulnerable population, "birth" parents, I wonder where this disregard ends?
Ms. Coke has some very serious inconsistencies in her letter. While on the one hand lauding the "paradigm shift" away from closed adoptions, she is nonetheless reluctant to allow adult adoptees to participate in the openess that is now commonplace. In her view, the openess enjoyed by today’s adopted children cannot be shared with the adults and first parents who had no choice under the old closed system.
No one, it seems, is willing to right the wrongs of the past. Adoptees and their first parents are expected to be thankful that the system has changed for the better while still being subject to the old rules and admonished for trying to change them in any meaningful way.
The statement where she "balances" the alleged RIGHTS of first parents against the DESIRES of adult adoptees is right out of the Adoption Industry lobby’s latest manifesto. "Birth" mothers do not lobby – the adoption industry does.
She also conveniently forgets that in both Oregon and Tennessee the courts found NO fundamental or constitutional right to privacy for "birth" parents. The right to privacy so convincingly invoked in recent memory is the right to be FREE from government interference. It is just that government interference which is keeping each and every adoptee from knowledge of their own unique heritage.
It is convenient that the people who are shouting "anonymity and confidentiality" from the rooftops are adoption wokers who make a paycheck from the adoption industry, as well as the adoptive parents who pay a huge price for their new children. People are listening to money, and not to facts. State laws to seal records began in Minnesota in 1917 and were “not intended to maintain anonymity between the participants in an adoption, but rather to protect adopted children from the stigma of illegitimacy,” (Strauss, 1994). These first sealed record laws were then created to remove information from “open court records,” but never with the intent of “hiding adoptive families and birthfamilies from each other,” but rather to “protect both from outsiders,” (Strauss, 1994). Also, “in most relinquishment papers in the US, the new mother is surrendering her right to parent her child, nothing more. (Soll, 2000).
The fear that birthmothers might be opposed to contact and having an adoptee walk back in their life could be a breach of privacy is not supported by research. In fact, the “knowledge of what happened to the children they relinquished for adoption plays a powerful role in the resolution of birthmother’s grief,” and in states that have re-established open records, such as Oregon, few birthmothers have wished to not be contacted (Freundlich, M. 2007). And, like any citizen in the US, if a person wants to maintain privacy there are other legal routes, such as restraining orders, that could be put in place, rather than limiting adoptees access to birth and/or adoption information (Freundlich, M., 2007).
Furthermore, in most countries outside of North America adoptees have access to their records when they reach the age of majority. “When the adoption records were opened in England in 1976 the rationale was that an adopted person’s right to their origins superseded anyone’s ‘supposed’ right to privacy,” and there has been no reported negative consequences by having these records open, (Soll, 2000).
"such as the balance between protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents, "
Wow. True to the nature of the beast adoption agencies have not evolved beyond spreading falsehoods I see.
Birth parnents, also known as the Natural Parents are not fighting for privacy. NCFA funced by adoption agencies are fighting to keep records sealed so the adoptive parents don’t have to worry about or deal with a possible reunion.
So PUHlease, stop pretending you ‘care’about the Adoptee or about the Natural Parent.
Put your money where your mouth is by changing the laws to open the records so adoptees are no longer being discriminated against – because of someone else’s insecurity.
As a young adult who was adopted through the foster care system right here in Humboldt County, I find it sad that others would so quickly attack an agency they are unfamiliar with. State Adoptions is not a for profit agency, they are there primarily to help children like me who would otherwise grow up in foster care. Not only have they been there for my adoptive family, but they helped me to get connected with members of my birth family.
Sure there are difficulties for those of us that have been adopted and yes, I too wish I knew some things about my past that I don’t. But I think the point Ms. Coke was trying to make is that it would be a shame if we allowed our frustrations to become misdirected. These issues should be focused at policy makers and legislatures who can do something about effecting change. NOT the social workers who are doing their best to find homes for children like me who otherwise would have spent my life bouncing from foster home to foster home.
I am sorry Ms. Coke’s call for foster adoption was prefaced by "balance between protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents, "
As a natural mother who lost her firstborn to adoption I find it insulting to read misinformation like this. As Joyjoyjoy pointed out, anytime birth parents have organized it has been with the intent of opening records and airing the truth.
Dear Local Adoptee:
Ms. Coke and all of her co-workers get sizeable paychecks for their "charitable" work. THEY PROFIT. They buy brand new cars and homes from their participation in this multi-million dollar "industry".
Misdirected? No, adoptees who are disenfranchised from the current system and laws that discriminate against us aren’t misdirected, WE’RE ANGRY!!!!
My frustration with Ms. Coke is that she spews propaganda and lies: "such as the balance between protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents, and respecting the adoptees’ desire to "know" about their pasts." THAT’S A LIE!! Birth parents were never promised privacy! Stop LIEING!!!!!!
As for policy makers and legislatures? Adoption agencies and agents that spew false information such as the "privacy of birth parents BS" directly influence our politicians. Whenever bills come forth to help adoptees establish their rights to their original birth certificates, these people are the ones who LIE to our politicians and tell them that birth parents were promised privacy!!!!
WHY DO THEY LIE? CAN YOU GET YOUR ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE? ASK THEM WHY YOU CAN’T GET IT.
"Adoptions today are significantly different than they were even 10-20 years ago. There has been a huge paradigm shift, moving away from the days of closed and secretive adoptions, to a time when children are given the opportunity to know of all the parents in their lives."
Actually, they’re not all that different. I’m sure Ms. Coke is well aware that the "open adoption" promised by agencies and adopters are NOT legally enforcable, and therefore meaningless. Adopters often promise mothers that they will maintain a relationship with her only to slam the door shut as soon as the adoption is final.
And the only reason open adoptions are promised is NOT because Ms. Rigge OR any other adoptee pushed for them (agencies don’t care what we think) it’s because the needed the extra leverage to separate mothers from their children, and this LIE often does the trick. We are no longer children who can be manipulated, Ms. Coke.
Give Ms. Coke her sundae, and give me my birth certificate!
Many of the points that seem to be upsetting people in these comments are not even true. I also work for Adoptions and can say that we do our very best to have birth parents sign releases that we hold in their child’s file so that we CAN give them information about their birth family when they reach adulthood, unfortunately many birthparents refuse to sign them or return them, and don’t realize that they can come to us years later and we would be overjoyed to give them the forms again. If we do not have these forms in the adoption file I AM FORBIDDEN BY LAW to give your birth child any information about you. This is painful for me. It is painful for the child. If you did an adoption in our community then Come in! Sign the releases!
Re: birth certificates… these valid concerns should be directed at legislators who make the laws, because even though I understand your point, there is nothing that I can do to fix the problem…. Except to point out that children can and do get their birth certificates in other ways before their adoptions finalize. Foster parents often need the BC to register the child for school, Grammy Sue (who child gets to maintain contact with) may have a copy in her family bible. Adoptive parents know that an amended BC doesn’t mean that they miraculously created their adopted child and they also know that children want to know who their birth parents are. This is what we teach our families in our classes-biological/birth family doesn’t disappear from a child’s memory/heart, and a healthy adoptive home will allow their child to search for and connect with their birth relatives in a way that is safe and at a time that is appropriate. I cannot speak for other agencies, but at State Adoptions we teach that adoption ideally "grows" a child’s family, not "shrinks" it.
And lastly, in regards to openness being a word game that we play at that has no bite… this is not true either. Post Adoption Contact Agreements that are filed with the court at the time adoptions finalize are absolutely enforceable–by each party who signs the document.
I hope that everyone understands that as Ms. Coke stated, times are changing and hopefully will continue to change, but in the meantime we have children who need permanent families in our communities and until someone steps up and says "Hey adoption worker, Let’s talk about this crazy thing called adoption." these children will continue to get up every morning wondering if and when they have to move again, wondering what is wrong with me that no family wants me, and becoming more distrustful and broken hearted as months in the system turn into years in the system. Absolutely we have to keep advocating for positive change, but we also must ABSOLUTELY advocate for children to be raised by permanent families not by courts and social workers. Maybe even some of you "bloggers" would like to offer a waiting child the permanent loving home they so desperately need- You never know.
The 2009 Adoptee Rights Protest is July 21st in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Here’s the link for more information:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AdopteeRightsPhilly
Is the state still granting adoption placement bonuses to county social services?
Dear Victoria –
We do realize that you, as an Adoption Worker are prohibited by law from giving adoptees their own original birth certificates. But if, as you profess, it is in the best interest of the adopted "child" to know as much as possible about his or her original family – then you might want to join us in CHANGING those laws that are so damaging to the very people you want to help.
I think it’s great adoption is more open these days – but that does absolutely nothing for the MILLIONS of adoptees (now parents and grandparents) who cannot access that information because their first parents were NOT given any choice as to the openness of the adoption.
Your job is to find homes for TODAY’S children – but don’t forget about YESTERDAY’S children who are now tax-paying adults and deserve unrestricted access to the unaltered records of their birth.
The sheer fact that adoption agencies turn a blind eye in the fight for open records shows me that they care more about their bottom dollar than what is good for the child.
Yes, adoption is different today – it cost a whole heck of a lot more even adjusted for inflation.
As the saying goes, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
It can’t be more true than it is in the adoption world.
If you agree that adult adoptees should have the same access to their birth records as non-adoptees, please sign the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/release-original-birth-certificates-for-adoptees
You perpetuate the lies when you say things like "rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents" (hint: do a little investigating and see if you can find even one example of this anywhere in the country).
Meanwhile, you make it sound as if the adoptees (and their allies) who have any qualms about the illegal and unethical human rights violations against them in this country are merely the ungrateful ones, and few in number.
You owe a retraction and an apology for the lies and the insults.
Another point….
I personally know of 6 families in my children’s school who chose not to tell their children that they were adopted. In some cases, the children are TRAs (trans-racial adoptees). But it’s their LEGAL right as adoptive parents, so the school is required to support this deception.
I have found that all of the adoptive families at the school are completely ignorant of the mountains of research that has been done in the last 50 years on the subject. Many actually teach their children that their genetic heritage has now magically transferred to those of the adoptive family. Only a few of the parents understand that adoption issues don’t disappear once the paperwork is signed. The rest are baffled at normal adoptee behaviors that are readily explained, if only they’d done some research.
This is in 2009. Things haven’t changed as much as you claim.
"protecting the rights to confidentiality that have long been lobbied for by birth parents"
If birthparents are lobbying for confidentiality please explain the following quote in this pro-adoption article:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09074/955756-82.stm
"Some people aren’t comfortable having ongoing contact with the birth parents, and 99 percent of [domestic] birth parents today want that."
So is it 1% of birth parents who are demanding confidentiality? Or is it the adoption industry?
I was want to get some papers for adoption papers or wasn’t is pictures on it so we can adopt some kids me and my husband Kevin and Stacy Stinson