Has there ever been a tragedy in the US that exiled more family members from each other than adoption?

Question

As I see more and more posts here, on myspace, and on other forums by people desperately searching for their lost family members, I am struck by the enormity of adoption tragedy. I can't think of an event in US history that has caused more people to be separately from their families. Even in war and during economic hardship, exiled family members know their birth names and the names of their family members. It breaks my heart to see posts by people who are desperately clinging to the tiniest clue about their origins in hopes of connecting to their families. How can anyone not see how truly tragic, shameful, and backward the US is with regards to human rights and adoption?

Answer 1

slavery comes to mind first to me.

Answer 2

Slavery but adoption is catching up.  

I find the similarities between the two quite sickening.

The first thing that comes to mind is changing their names and putting a price on their heads.  

History repeats itself unless we learn from it.

Answer 3

Well these days its all about the well being for the children.  If a person can't give a child the life they think they deserve then they give it up for adoption. and if a child is being a bused then they are taken from the home and put in foster homes.  Pretty much its just how people treat there kids and if they are ready to have kids.

Answer 4

Wow.

On behalf of everyone who has been touched by the Native American genocide, slavery, internment camps, the Civil War, The Dust Bowl, Hurricane Katrina, and so on I very sincerely apologize on behalf of this user.

Please keep your absurd accusations and wild swings within the adoption community. We're used to this silliness. But let's not demean the Americans who actually have been harmed by real tragedies, m'kay?

Answer 5

I see your point, although it is a stretch. However, as a birth mother, I can tell you that it would have been selfish and cruel to keep my child. He deserved a father, a stable family, opportunity....I could provide none of these things for him. That's why I choose a loving family to raise him. Open adoption gives a child stability and two loving families. There is no price on his head and his name wasn't even changed...his adoptive parents choose his name and took him home from the hospital. He will grow up with the security of knowing that he is loved and wanted. Adoption is about individual children...not about an American movement. Open and closed adoptions have been happening since Biblical times. It is no new idea.  

Answer 6

The Gold Rush/People moving west.  Most people do not realize that during this time the man/husband/father left first.  Sometimes he made it sometimes he did not.  Often the man would not go back and reclaim his family, but start a new one.  Thus the old family would settle into a new life.  If the children they would take on the name of the new husband.

When families did start to move across the West together, due to sickness, weather, raids, etc.  Several would be killed, etc.  If the children were left parentless they were usually taken in by a new family and assumed their name.

The world wars are another example.  So many young men lost their lives most with young wives and young children.  Many times these women would remarry and contact with the birth father's family became limited.  It isn't like today when everyone is family.

Answer 7

Here's a tidbit about the adoption industry and its work to keep people of adoption separated.

In 1978, under President Carter, a panel of independent experts in the field of child welfare was brought together to come up with legislation to address adoption issues.  What they developed was the Model State Adoption Act.  It included open records for adult adopted citizens and also instructed adoption agencies to serve as intermediaries in searches by birthparents for their adopted children.  In response to this proposed legislation, the Edna Gladney Center pooled together the funds from its supporters (mostly adoptive parents of the old mindset) to form a lobby group.  Called the National Committee for Adoption (now known as the National Council for Adoption,)  this organization's job was, and continues to be, to fight legislation that proposes open records.

Yes, the US adoption industry has done much to keep persons separated once an adoption occurs.  It was so threatened by the thought of records being opened and the possibility of people separated by adoption coming together that it actually funded an organization to fight it, despite a panel's proposed legislation that would have ended all of this 30 years ago.

ETA:

The legislation proposed in the Model State Adoption Act regarding open records and agencies undertaking searches on behalf of first parents and adopted persons would have actually been a return to the way these matters once were in adoption.  Sealed records and secrecy were not always a part of adoption.  This legislation would have restored openness, honestly and equality in adoption.

Answer 8

adoption is not a "tragedy" Stop being melo-dramatic

Certain unethical practices in SOME adoption agencies, etc, are tragic.. And adoptees should  have more rights.

(To contact with first family, open records, OBC, etc)

comparing adoption to war, etc, is ridiculous.

Sorry.. you're drinking WAY too  much koolaid... and you accuse those of us who think adoption does some good in alot of cases of drinking "koolaid"

Answer 9

Thank you, Inde.  The changing of names is extremely bothersome to me.  The first time someone brought this up, it immediately made sense to me that a name change is unethical.  I'm reminded of my first and second marriages.  First marriage: I was abused, and viewed as property.  I changed my name.  Second marriage:  I'm an equal, strongly feminist, very individualistic.  I kept my own name.  Name changes smack of ownership to me, and it floors me that more people don't catch this.  I once met a woman who changed her last name to "Freeme" because she was sick and tired of feeling owned by others - first her father, then three husbands.  I will GLADLY support my childrens' desire to do whatever they like with their own names.  I refuse to claim "ownership" of them in that way.

Sorry, I know this doesn't answer the question.  I get really heated about the name thing, and I'm always so glad to see someone that shares that view.  Since many adoptions are similar to slavery, I'm going to have to go with slavery, too...and say that slavery isn't really over as long as adoption stays the way it is now.

Answer 10

oh God you are really reaching don't you think?

Answer 11

I think slavery gets the dubious honor of the "top spot" here.

Answer 12

You make an excellent point although I doubt it will be appreciated by those who prefer to stick their heads in the sand on topics like these.

I'd agree with others and say Slavery is the top but adoption is definitely second and it affects hundreds of thousands the world over not just in the USA.  To see how truly tragic and shameful it is would be to admit it has seen its last days and needs to be abolished and of course that would mean certain people wouldn't get the baby they so covet and so adoption is glorified and prettied up in the media (i.e. Juno).

As for adoption being about the child these days?  Please.  That argument is dead and buried.  If that were so, we would see hundreds of people lining up to adopt the homeless and foster children in the system waiting to be adopted.  But instead we see hundreds of profiles from adopters hoping to be chosen by a young mother to place her newborn infant with them.  Yeah right adoption is about the baby.  What a load of c**p.

ETA: Adoption isn't a tragedy???  In whose books, yours or the countless people who have been ruthlessly separated and then cast aside as trash for another's selfish desires?  Only those benefiting from adoption would see it as not a tragedy, countless people would disagree with you and say it IS a tragedy... you don't have to look far these days to see the proof that it is.  As for all these comments regarding koolaid, what the h**l?  I suppose this is meant to be some kind of drink but what does it have to do with adoption?  As for giving your baby up because you were duped into believing the c**p you were told about it being better for him, that is a bucket of nonsense.  You could have made it work if you had tried and your son would have had the best this world has to offer him, his mother, the one Nature chose to begin with.

Answer 13

But let's not demean the Americans who actually have been harmed by real tragedies, m'kay?

I am so offended by this comment. Are you saying that the fact that my son was legally stolen from me is not a tragedy?

I completely agree that besides slavery, adoption is right there in the crimes against humanity section. Seriously, I hate when people downplay the loss of family, culture, and Identity.

I doubt anyone would say, "stop being melodramatic. Your child/parent/sibling only died. Don't demean Americans who suffered real tragedies."

Answer 14

I can think of two off the top of my head... Slavery, and the Civil War.

Answer 15

although adoption is responsible for severing many family ties..i think slavery gets the top slot..

4th generation granddaughter of a new orleans' slave who was taken from her mother at 13 and sold to european settlers for s*x.