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When I was going through the home study process, I did not want to believe that my son would have any challenges resulting from his adoption. I wanted to believe that I would have the answers and love him enough to blot out any negative feelings from having been separated from his birth family. Then, I learned about a book called The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier. In this book, the author asserted that all children who are separated from their birth family suffer from grief, even when they are placed for adoption at birth.
Here is how I explained the book in my post, Resilience of Adopted Child in Facing Adoption History:
In a nutshell, the author asserts that all adopted children suffer from a “primal wound” when they are placed for adoption because their connection with the first person they ever loved is severed. I agree that children experience a loss by losing their birthmothers and that this loss needs to be grieved. Where I part ways with the author is when she describes a number of aftereffects that sound very much like attachment issues and then applies them to all adoptees. I also disagree with the hopelessness and fatalistic view that permeates the book. – Faith
As adoptive parents, we need to accept that our children are affected by their adoption and do what we can to help them work through their issues. The grief might just be a bump in the road or could run much deeper, but most adoptees do have some issues to work through as a result of having been placed for adoption.
In my last couples of posts, Reasons to Tell Adopted Child About Adoption and Insecurities about Adopted Child’s Relationship with Birthparents, I shared a link to an insightful post called What About MY Rights? that was written by an adoptee named IzzyMom. IzzyMom’s post provides a lot of insight into the mind of an adult adoptee. Here are some of the ways that her adoption affected her, even though she did not know that she had joined her family through adoption until she was an adult:
As soon as found out I was adopted, so many things started to make sense to me and I quickly developed an intense need to know more. When I found out my records were not available, my need only intensified. I had to know who I was. I needed to find my tribe, so to speak.
When I finally did, so many things “fit” and the ability to see that I was like these other two living beings both physically as well as in personality and character brought me a peace I’d been seeking not only since learning of my adoption but really, throughout my life. – IzzyMom at What About MY Rights?
As adoptive parents, we want to believe that we can meet every one of our child’s needs, but our children might have some needs that can only be met by reconnecting with their birth family. This is not necessarily true for all adopted children, and some adoptees are better off not reconnecting, particularly if they were placed for adoption after being removed from abusive households. However, we do our children a disservice when we refuse to acknowledge these needs, particularly when our children are telling us that this is how they feel.
I have an adult adoptee friend who felt a curiosity about her birth family but chose not to search while her adoptive parents were alive. She was afraid that searching would hurt her parents. She connected with her birth family after both adoptive parents passed away and met needs in herself, some of which she might not have even recognized were there. This new connection has in no way displaced the love she feels for her adoptive parents.
I do not want my son to feel like he must go through his life with unmet needs until after I pass away. I want him to be able to search for his birth family if he feels the need to “find his tribe.” While I am sure that I might feel nervous when the day comes, I plan to put his need to feel whole ahead of my insecurities about how his choice to search for his birthfamily will affect me.
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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
My adopted son lost his mother whne he was five years old. He not only experience the loss from the foster care separation , she passed away while he was in care. He was 5 years old. he is now 15. Does he have residual grief? of course. he must deal with loss and grief as he understands it at different stages of his life. Are there issues with attachment stemming from these losses? yes. he has attached to me but has trouble making friends and getting closer to other members of my family. I believe that the best that I can do is keep him connected to his birth family. he was separated from his sister and now his sister has had 2 children. There is nothing I can do that repairs or changes the past fro him but helping make healthy attachments to his birth family will hopefully help him make healthy attachments to others in his life. This idea has helped me create an organization that helps rebuild relationships between separated siblings. family for life brings siblings together for camps to visit and create positive childhood memories. for more information check out http://www.family4life.org