Does Society Think Adult Adoptees & Birthparents?

Question

are incapable of handling their own relationships? Is that why our records are held hostage, does society and the government think we are more capable of causing harm to the other party than your average Joe?

Is this Discrimination?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I think the answer to your question is in some cases (not all cases obviously) yes.  Is it discrimination?  I think the answer is also yes.  I really don't have a clue as to what the stats are on children being removed due to abuse, birth parents requesting to maintain their privacy, and those who are open to maintaining or re-establishing a relationship.  Some people believe that both parties have suffered enough in the first two groups.  Perhaps, one day we'll be open enough in our society to able to each choose our own way.

Answer 2

"Does Society Think Adult Adoptees & Birthparents?

are incapable of handling their own relationships?"

Apparently so! My son's adoptive parents want to be with us whenever my son and I have the chance to meet - which isn't very often. They seem to be very afraid of us spending any alone time together. Goodness, he's 24 years old! Lol.

Yes, seal the records and blame the first mothers for wanting privacy - it sets up a false dynamic that others play into and blow out of proportion. It's ridiculous!

ETA: Of course it's discrimination.

Answer 3

Of course it's discrimination.  No one else in society is withheld their own information on the PRESUMPTION that they may cause harm when there is no evidence to support such.  

Here's an absurd scenario.  A man and a woman have been dating, and now they break up.  The woman thinks that he was cheating, so the evening of the breakup she begins to sneak around by the man's house at night to see if he's got a girlfriend.  Upon seeing another woman arrive at the man's home, she jumps out of her car and pulls a gun on her.

So, what sort of legislation should we have to protect all women from the slightly possible rage all other women who have recently broken up with their boyfriends?  Should the boyfriends be moved to secret "safe houses" as soon as the breakup occurs?  After all, women are dangerous, right?  Knowing where an ex-boyfriend lives means that a woman could wreak havoc on his life and the life of his new girlfriend.

Sound ridiculous?  Of course it does.  However, this is the type of presumption made about adopted citizens and citizens who have relinquished all the time by those who would do anything to hide us from one another.  Adoptees and first parents are no more likely to act like the scorned woman in the above scenario than any other citizens.

When my parents (adoptive) were first married, a woman showed up at the door one day and stated she was pregnant and that my father was the father of her unborn child.  She hadn't broken any law made to "protect" him and his new wife.  She didn't have to register with the state and have a third party contact him.  

Come on, this sort of treatment is insulting and condescending.  Let adults be adults, and handle their own matters.  Hey, just because a few people don't want contact with their first parents or relinquished offspring doesn't mean everyone must be subjected to legislation that hinders it.  If you don't want a relationship, don't have one.  Let everyone else alone.

Answer 4

I don't know about discrimination but I do know when you become an adult you have the right to know who your birth parents are. If for no other reason than medical ones, you never know when you might need something that only a biological family member can provide.

Your parents both sets made a decision to put their child up for adoption and the other ones decided to adopt.  No one gave the child a say in it.  The child can grow up loving its adopted family, but nine times out of ten it won't look a thing like anyone else in the family, it will wonder why don't I look like any of my family, not knowing he/she is adopted. Or if the child knows its adopted, it will one day or another begin to wonder about the biological parents, why they gave them up for adoption, what do they look like, do I look like any of them, do our voices sound alike.  Do any of us enjoy the same things, etc...  I believe once an adopted child reaches the age of 18 the files should be opened and the child should be made aware of that, so he/she can make the decision to look up the biological parents or not.  But at least give them the opportunity to choose. Important decisions have been made for these precious children all their lives by the age of 18 its time they be allowed to make some life decisions all by themselves.

Answer 5

I'm adopted and no I don't think that's why. If the birth mother wants a closd adoption (the child can't find her) then legally the government can't give out records.

Answer 6

I would say that yes it is discrimination. I have never experienced not being able to have my records, but I can imagine the upset it must cause.

EVERYONE has a right to know where they came from, who they are etc, and It is very wrong for someone to hold info about you and not let you at it!

I think that adults adoptees and bith mothers are more than capible of being the judge of their own actions. Its shocking and I feel for those who cant accsess their own information.

Answer 7

Yes I do.  If you look at the process of the records themselves, the process truly reveals itself.   It violated our fourth amendment rights by holding our papers in seizure on the presumption of harm.  It also violates our right to privacy.  The right to be free from governmental interference.

The records are not sealed at relinquishment but at the finalization.  It is to protect the adoptive parents.  In adoption, it is a transfer of rights from the natural parents to the adoptive parents.  Natural parents lose the right to familial privacy in this process.  Again adoptive parents are protected.  

The records were initially sealed to remove the stigma of illegimitacy and bastardy.  Back many many years ago, the records were stamped with these words.  Thus the rise of b*****d Nation.  Its how we in that group have come to own the words that describe us.  

The records were also sealed to prevent the natural parents from interferring with the adoptive parents.  I believe that Georgia Tann started this.  She also stole children from their natural parents.  The natural parents began fighting back but still lost.

Answer 8

Of course it's discrimination.  And it seems to me that many people are willing to believe any horror story they hear about an adoptee or first parent barging into the other party's life and ruining it through anything from ill-thought-out first contact to insane, murderous stalking.  I say this because almost everyone I talk to about reunion (everyone who is not personally involved with adoption, I mean) has a piece of folklore to share about what happened to someone they "heard about."  Adoption reunions entered the public consciousness fairly recently and thus, like so many other things, became the stuff of urban legend.  Folklore is a big part of how we "digest" things as a society.

I think sensationalized and/or fictionalized accounts, like Lifetime movies and the E.M. Homes novel In a Country of Mothers probably contribute to/play on this.  Certainly the defense mounted against open records in places like Oregon is partly responsible.  

I also think it's easier for the average person to imagine having a shameful secret suddenly made public than it is to imagine what it would feel like to be adopted and to lack so many facts about one's own self and heritage.  That makes it easier to cast the adoptee as Other and villain.  

It just goes to show you that you can't believe everything you think.  (-:

But, as has been pointed out, that's not really the reason for sealed records, just the reason for a lot of people's beliefs about sealed records.

Answer 9

I do think it's discrimination.

But I don't think the records are sealed because of natural parents OR adoptees--we never had any of the power.

They are sealed because the agencies want to insure a fresh crop of adoptable children, and keep the $$$ coming in, and everyone keeps their jobs.  Without product--there is no employment.  Plus if they remain closed, the agencies can keep their unethical practices under wrap.

The adoptive parents want records to stay closed, by in large, so they can retain the fantasy of the 'as if' relationship.  

They are insecure that the love, time, money or whatever is not 'wasted', and the adoptee will flee the minute they know who their natural families are.

Their 'needs' surpass our rights.

ETA: NanaMimi--in your first sentence you say adoptees 'have the right' to know their birthparents.  Actually, in the US, residents of 6 of our 50 states 'have the right', the rest of us are out in the cold.