NANCY VERRIER M.A., PSYCHOTHERAPIST
"The chosen child and the grateful child myths are two beliefs that die hard. Although made to feel as if it were the case, most adoptees do not feel chosen so much as they feel unchosen by their birth mothers. To be chosen by anyone else after that is anticlimactic. So far as being grateful, it is the adoptive parents who should be grateful. They are the ones pursuing the adoption. They are the ones who got what they wanted. No child would choose to be separated from his biological mother. That he may have to be separated from her is a different thing altogether. That is an intellectual, adult decision, not an emotional/sensual baby experience. Although grateful for many things his parents may have done for him, no child should be obligated to feel grateful for having a loving set of parents. That should be his right."
That is an extract from Nancy Newton Verrier MA in her concluding chapter 2o called Adoption Myths, from her book called Coming Home To Self, published by Gateway in '03 and available on Amazon, much consulted and recommended by both adoptees and the ivf-made.
"The chosen child and the grateful child myths are two beliefs that die hard. Although made to feel as if it were the case, most adoptees do not feel chosen so much as they feel unchosen by their birth mothers. To be chosen by anyone else after that is anticlimactic. So far as being grateful, it is the adoptive parents who should be grateful. They are the ones pursuing the adoption. They are the ones who got what they wanted. No child would choose to be separated from his biological mother. That he may have to be separated from her is a different thing altogether. That is an intellectual, adult decision, not an emotional/sensual baby experience. Although grateful for many things his parents may have done for him, no child should be obligated to feel grateful for having a loving set of parents. That should be his right."
That is an extract from Nancy Newton Verrier MA in her concluding chapter 2o called Adoption Myths, from her book called Coming Home To Self, published by Gateway in '03 and available on Amazon, much consulted and recommended by both adoptees and the ivf-made.
So why is adoption records access important?
It’s
about identity! Adoptees grow up with questions about identity. Questions that
affect their psycho-social development, sometimes in negative ways. Like all
humans, adoptees seek to answer the questions “who am I?” and “why am I here?”
Adoptees are legally prohibited from obtaining
information that is critical to answering that question. But it is a necessary
tool for most adoptees to answer those nagging questions about our origins.
Knowing is better than not knowing. Knowing the truth is healing for most of
us. But fear of discovery, not as you might imagine for parents who surrendered
a child to adoption, but for adoption professionals who misrepresented the
facts to vulnerable women or couples wishing to adopt, makes for a powerful
motive to keep the truth hidden.
When access to one’s original birth certificate (OBC) is
forbidden, the only substitute is to search for one’s family of origin.
If
state officials are intent on protecting the identity of parents who were
persuaded to relinquish a child to adoption the surest method is to provide
answers to the questions asked.
Many adoptees
would be satisfied just to know the truth.
Contact is a different matter and no reasonable person on either point
of the adoption triangle expects a relationship to automatically develop with
strangers, even strangers who are biologically related.
Adoptees, generally,
are not seeking a family, but themselves.
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