THE ADOPTED PERSONS SEARCH FOR ROOTS
(IN COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE)
Dipika Maharajsingh
Adoption has come of age. The voiceless infants whose destinies were controlled by the decisions of so many people, have grown up. They are asking questions (uncomfortable questions) about their birth. If they have been loved by their adoptive families why are they raking up a painful past? Are they ungrateful, unreasonable, asking for trouble? How should those who hold the key to their birth story respond to their appeal for information? Should the painful circumstances of disruption of their birth family line be shared with them? How should the assurance of confidentiality to birth parents, the sensitivities of adoptive parents be balanced with the adopted persons need (and right) to know ? what in fact is the psychological validity of the adopted persons "Search"?
These questions pose major challenges in adoption. There are no clearly defined answers. But in order to understand what the ‘Search" of an adopted person is all about we need to understand the emotional anatomy of adoption itself.
Adoption is a complex relationship which has its beginnings in pain and loss, usually a personal crisis leading to the amputation of birth family ties. This sense of loss manifests gradually as the child cognitive understanding of adoption develops. Unlike the losses encountered in death, divorce etc. the loss in adoption has no social recognition, it is barely acknowledged. Therefore it remains an undefined lingering loss.
The protective instinct of adoptive parents is to shut the door on the painful events of the past and encourage their child to move on. In childhood this is possible but later for many adopted people moving forward first involves journeying backwards. It is this paradoxical journey which we call ‘Search’ in adoption.
Who gave birth to me and why did she leave me? What is happening to her and what are her feelings towards me? These questions haunt the minds of adopted people usually at significant moments in their lives like birthdays, marriage, pregnancy or illness. When they begin to search for some basic facts to substantiate their identity they usually encounter a great wall of secrecy. This secrecy is the foundation upon which adopted people are expected to build their lives. Is it a firm foundation or is it advisable to dispel the mystery shrouding their birth?
"I could not even find my name in an agency register. I have a terrible feeling like I was never born," wrote a 22 year old adopted girl to me recently. In effect we are compelling adopted people to accept that their lives began after adoption. While some do accept this situation many adopted people (particularly in the inter country perspective) feel compelled to search for the lost part of themselves, which is their root.
Search is the adopted persons quest for the reasons underlying their adoption. It is a quest for wholeness driven by feelings, ranging from curiosity, fantasy, anger (with birth or adoptive parents) and very often ( in my experience) a need to reassure their birth giver that they could understand their hardships and would like them to know that they are so thankful for the decision to place them into adoption.
It is a complete misconception to believe that only maladjusted adopted people search. In a healthy adoption search is a natural developmental process where in adopted people are seeking to integrate their birth heritage with their adoption identity in order to feel complete. However in a dysfunctional situation which can be due to family conflict, poor communication of ideas (particularly ideas relating to adoption ) social rejection, secrecy etc, in such situations adopted people see themselves as "lost people". Their search is undertaken in the hope of actually re-linking with their birth family. In contrast people with a healthy adoption experience search for information to complete and reinforce their identity to join the two parts of themselves, dispelling the duality that haunts them.
Many active searches are triggered by the need for medical history. A 35 year old adopted person who was searching for an update on his birth father, contacted me recently. When I informed him that his father had not been well he reacted with alarm.
"What illness is he suffering from Diabetes? Heart? Cancer? I will suffer from it too!" he wailed. " Old age". I reassured him. Many adopted people have an exaggerated fear of inherited illness perhaps rooted in a feeling that having inherited nothing else from their birth family they will inherit their medical problems.
Adopted people invest a huge amount of their emotional resources into a search. Many ‘adoptees’ around the world have actually met their birth family, a totally mind blowing experience. The adopted person really fears being rejected (again) by the family. Paradoxically they are even less prepared for being accepted by this biological ghost whom they have so long fantasised about, who resembles them but who is a total stranger.
Awkwardness, tears, questions and answers finally conjure up the missing pieces of their lives. Fitting the fragmented past takes time but for one moment time stands still as the "Adoptee" experiences the joy and wonder of being BORN, just like everyone else in the world.
It is at this point that most adoptees relinquish their relationship with their birth families. It has been aptly said that they were searching for a relation not a relationship. Contrary to the fears of adoptive parents the search strengthens their ties with their children specially if they were supportive to the search. Because the search becomes a healing experience restoring control, bringing relief, and closure. Even a sad experience helps them to grieve over the real and then move on.
Adoptive parents and agencies are often relieved when no birth inform1ation is available as in the case of a "found" child. But it is a huge handicap for a desperately seeking adoptee to find no clue to birth identity in an agency file. Information relating to the area and situation the child was found has a lot to say. Re-visiting the place and re-connecting to past links like doctors and child care workers helps to journey back to the pre-adoptive time when the child was closest to the source.
In "domestic’ adoption (adoption within India) Search is a new and terrifying concept. The birth mother is not a fantasy in a far away exotic land. She may be too close for comfort belonging to a different socio- economic strata in a class ridden society. Social attitude to adoption itself is very ambiguous. Within the family there is a consciousness about family sensitivities rather than individual rights. In this backdrop very few adopted people cross the line of discretion. But the child who does not ask questions is not necessarily a child who does not have any questions. An increasing number of parents sensitive to the feelings of their child, are asking for information concerning the birth history of their child. Just a little factual information provided to the child helps to dispel the feeling of being the product of everyone’s secret.
Indeed, not all adopted people search. Many accept the circumstances of adoption as an unchangeable fact of their lives, see the stresses as challenges, and exercise restraint about venturing back into a painful past. They view their altered destiny as a blessing and take their lives on from there. But many feel compelled to search.
Out of nearly 100 active searches that I have handled there are hardly a few who have pressed for actual contact with birth families, and those were the ones who were relinquished as older children or they had pathological needs. We shelter behind the "confidentiality of birth mother" clause to shut the door on the face of a desperately seeking adoptee. At least 20 years have passed since a birth mother relinquished her child. She is in a mature phase of her life. Can any one of us honestly believe a mother would not be interested in knowing how life turned out for her secret child ?
May be the time has come for us to re-construct the adoption relationship dispelling secrecy to include the birth heritage of the child.
The Author is a Managing Committee Member of SOFOSH, Pune, since 1974 She is one of the most-actively associated persons in Pune dedicating her services to the cause of Adoptions in India. She is also, Advisor to Catalysts for Social Action, Pune. She was earlier a Research Journalist.
