the contradictions of contact.

[Tenar]

This is my second attempt to raise this issue. This time I will put less personal stuff in. Over the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time clarifying why I felt so uneasy about it and what was a sort of misgiving has become less tentative. If anyone can convince me it is really in my child's interest to continue with (in our case) annual letterbox contact I will of course do it. Please don't say 'but you agreed to it'. Can anyone honestly say they felt there was a choice? Or that they knew how contact would work out? Or that anyone told them that there was expert opinion of how contact is in some cases contributing to adoption breakdown? Or that some professionals are increasingly uneasy about the effect of continued contact on some (many) children? I also agreed to start DS in nursery when I went back to work, but it was not the right place for him and I changed it!!
So these are my thoughts.
Current practice around contact was worked out on the basis of what had happened to children adopted in the very different, secretive, disapproving of illigitmacy environment pre-pill and pre-abortion act. Most adopted children then were relinquished and some mothers were put under enormous pressure. The question of abuse did not enter into it. Some of these children and birth parents advocated more openness once they grew up, which I do not have a problem with. It should also be recognised, however, that many adopted children did not go on to trace or contact birth families.
Nowadays most adopted children are not relinquished but removed, usually because of extreme abuse or neglect. This is my stumbling block. It is not that I have no sympathy for how people come to be abusive. But how can we deal with the contradiction of explaining difficult information at age appropriate intervals, explaining why our children were removed, and writing these anodyne letters in the hope of getting something back, which will probably be inappropriate anyway? How can children make sense of the fact they were removed and that we, the people who were deemed capable of protecting them, are engaged in chatty correspondence with their abusers? We are not professionals, we are parents. How many other parents would be asked to do such a thing? Would anyone ask a birth parent to do that?
I do not suggest that we 'slag off' the birth parents, merely that we try to tell the truth. Do birth parents write letters back saying that they are so sorry they stuffed up and they wish they had done better? That would help remove from the child the feeling that they had something wrong with them. Or is it more along the lines of 'I love you and I think about you all the time' etc. I cannot imagine the pain of losing your children, especially through your own actions, but are the child's new parents really the people to take responsibility for easing that pain?
I read on here recently the heart-rending dilemma of the mother in Ireland trying to help her son through massive feelings of abandonment, while writing cheerful letters to her DD's birth family about her family life! That is an unfair and unreasonable expectation on behalf of post-adoption support.
Is the child really at the heart of this process. it seems to me like a dance of lies.

Hi Tenar. I don't have much relevant experience - I am an approved adopter but not matched yet - but I wanted to respond to your very thoughtful post.

You are right that we are not given much choice in agreeing to contact, but my understanding is that once the adoption order is final all final decisions are up to you, the parent. I have met adopters who feel very strongly that continued indirect contact was distressing and disrupting their children, and decided not to continue with it. I do think that parents should have the right to make this decision, once they can see how contact is affecting their child.

However, I did agree to contact (in principle) willingly (and I did tell them I was only agreeing in principle). I did so because I am anticipating a high possibility that any child I adopt will have a continuing interest in their birth family, or that they may become intensely interested during adolescence, and I want to be helpful to them in that. Maybe more honestly, I don't want to be blamed and the bad guy if they are furious that I haven't kept up contact! And I think contact may help them to reach a realistic, rounded view of their birth parents and why they were adopted.

I would be very, very unhappy, though, if the birth parents were writing inappropriately, e.g. telling my child they were coming to get them back, slagging me off, or in any way trying to disrupt the placement. And I absolutely would stop contact if I thought it was harming my child.

Your wider point about how we talk about birth families to adopted children is very interesting. In principle, I understand the honest-but-positive approach; in practice, I can see how this could be a struggle. I don't have any easy answers: how and when should you tell a child they were conceived through rape or abuse? That their dad used to beat up their mum so badly you had to be got out of there, and that their mum is still living in that situation? that their mum used to stub out cigarettes on them?

It sounds like you're further along this road than me. Are you matched? Is the contact issue a pressing current issue or something you are anticipating in advance? If the latter, could you not take it on a case-by-case basis, discuss your child's background and likely future needs with their social worker?

Tenar

I hear your frustration. Is the contact letters causing a problem for your child (ie bringing up bad memories) or is it just you? (Sorry was this in a previous post?)

The way I see it is that I owe it to the children to keep a relationship open for the future. Really what I write in annual contact letters is fairly meaningless, but when they get to 18, it's far different setting up a meeting with someone you've been in letter contact with rather than having to trace a complete stranger out of the blue. Hopefully it will help the DC's to have realistic expectations of their BF were they to get in touch.

What we get back is fairly bland but slightly emotional letters, really what you'd expect, there is a bit of "I love you so much and always think of you" but also just news about the rest of the family. I think the letters are heavily assisted by the post adoption workers.

Shrouding the birth family in mystery and appearing to deny their existence is going to make abandonment worse (well this is what I fear). They are your child's bio family and you can't take that away from them, they have to come to terms with the reality of 2 families or they will not grow up whole people.

I know there are mixed opionions on this and in our case we don't have especially traumatic memories to deal with. It is sometimes a bit upsetting/confusing for the DC's to receive contact letters but perhaps I'm awful I want to drip feed the painful reality rather than have it hit them like an avalanche at 15.

Like Hester, I don't have any personal experience as we are just about to go to panel. But of course we have thought about this a lot and said, yes, of course will keep up letterbox contact. And we will, at least I will keep writing the letters just so that one day, if my ac wants to trace her birth family I can say, hand on heart, that I really did try to maintain contact. 2 of the 3 very close adult adopted friends I have decided not to look for biological families, but the one who did was very grateful for the information his parents could share with him. Who knows what our child will want to do. My understanding is that most birth families don't keep up their end of the agreement anyway, but I do think that if it is at all possible, you should. However, I don't see that you are obliged to show your children the letters if they are disturbing, at least not until they are old enough to deal with them. Knowing how I would feel about anyone who hurt my child, I find it difficult to imagine how I could deal politely with people who potentially hurt my ad. But we just have to, for the sake of ad who may be grateful for it one day.
Good luck. It's a toughie isn't it?

my position (and I know of no research) is pretty much what blithedance said - I would maintain contact in case my child wants contact in future, it isn't really your decision to let contact drop (IMHO) but your child's - I think you have a duty to your child to maintain communication until they are old enough to have an opinion themselves. However horrendous their birth parents may be they contributed the DNA that your child has and he may well want to know about them. If they write inappropriate letters back then I would get SS to vet them before passing them on.

As to what you tell your child - advice I have always been given is stick to the truth. No embellishments, no "but I'm sure they loved you" if you really have no idea. If the story is very rough then I would drip feed at an age appropriate rate eg when very small I would stick with "some people can only look after themselves not babies" then add to the picture as the years go by. I would never lie to any child but especially not to an adopted child I believe that they need to be 100% confident that you are always honest with them.

How do children make sense of the fact that they have been removed? WIth your help - that is your job through life books and talking to them - did you not cover this on your prep course? There is at least one yahoo group speicifcally set up to look at the issues of life books which can be very helpful. You should also google Joy Rees or EMK press because she has done some interesting work on life story books

Yes we all say that we will agree to contact- we know it is the right thing and we know that it is seen to be the right thing. But I would agree with whoever (sorry - got a bit lost off with long posts)said that we are the parents and we do what we feel is right for OUR children.

In my case contact has ceased because it was not productive for my kids. I am not duty bound to provide anything for my kids birth parents but I have done and I am happy to let them know that all is well because I hope I am a compassionate person who would not knowingly cause someone pain. However, my DS who is now 14 (adopted at 6 and a half - fully aware of why he was 'lifted' literally from birth family, memories of what it was like etc.) in a very calm and measured way has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with his birth family including any information being sent to them at all. This is not, I stress, the rantings of a distressed child but a very reasoned arguement that he feels that they are not relevant to him any more and he owes them nothing. (Yes I know that this is not the case but he sees it this way!) If I felt that he was being really unreasonable I would argue with him and, as I say, through conversations with the adoiption dept in our local social services I have made it clear that I would like the birth family to know that the kids are OK. Of course we will be able to trace them if(- when?)he changes his mind. He and his sister were adopted locally and there are clear records in Social Services. But I am here for my kids - and if I can look them in the eye and say I did what was, in my opinion, the right thing for them, then that will have to do. Incidentally, when contact ceased with the birth family I did feel quite anxious and consulted with our fabulous after adoption worker who has provided me with so much advice and help over the years and who has had so much more experience than me, clearly (even though I am professionally involved in this area to some extent as well). She has supported my decision all the way and looking at my kids, I have to feel that I have taken the right road.

Do what feels right to you and your circumstances. I don't think there is a 'right' way that fits all in terms of contact.

My parents did longterm fostering and two girls were with us from the age of 3 and 4. As a child I saw at firsthand the devastating impact on us all as a family by the contact with birth mother. They actually met face-to-face from time to time (birthdays and Christmases, but erratically: sometimes she turned up, sometimes she didn't.)

When I was at Uni I got pregnant and decided to have the baby and give him up for adoption immediately. I met the family just before the baby was born and we exchanged letters once. But after my experience as a child I initiated/agreed no further contact whatsoever.

Obviously the whole thing was an incredibly hard thing to do and 20 years on I still think of him often, but I don't think an annual letterbox would have made the experience any less painful for any of us and could potentially have caused further upset and distress all round.

I would love to have confirmation that he is healthy and happy, but I gave up the 'right' to that information for very good reasons, and I can't regret it now.

My opinion is that contact is all about identity. This is a huge issue for us as humans, we need to know who we are, what our 'roots' are, where we come from.

By keeping some dialogue going with the birth family you potentially provide a way of helping your child to understand their identity.

However, letter box contact and face to face contact are two VERY different things.

I have to say that after very careful consideration, having had DD for 12 months with no direct contact with birth family, we decided that to initiate it at that point was not in her best interests. We do have annual letterbox contact but have not received any letters at all in reply and now do not expect any. So for us it is now more about a sense of duty and I don't have a problem with that.

We are keeping our side of the bargain and only provide general info. We hope that this keeps the birth parents involved in some way so that in future if DD wants to trace them that a) SS know where they are because they delivered our last letter and b) they will feel enough of a connection to answer her request.

Hope that helps

Thank you all for your replies. It has really helped me to read them and to try to write what I think instead of it being a vague set of thoughts and feelings.
Firstly, of course everyone must do what they think is best for their child. Each circumstance is different. However, I think there is increasing concern about the effects of contact on adopted children and families. Despite the compelling arguments put here in this thread I do think it is worth considering the concerns of child psychotherapists, (notably Lorne Loxterkamp), who are counselling children where adoption is disrupting and are raising 'the predicament' of contact as a contributory factor. This challenges the prevailing orthodoxy which has become so pervasive that contact is done as a matter of course. There still might be time to listen again online to BBC Radio 4's progamme 'All In the Mind' about this.
Hester you ask where I am in the process. I am an adoptive parent and also an adoptee. I was all set up to write annual letters to DS's birth parents, but by the second some of the effects of the abuse he had suffered were manifesting themselves and I could not bring myself to write to them.
So I suppose the dilemma we all have to weigh up in our different circumstances is abuse vs DNA links. For me abuse trumps DNA. In fact, the fact they are his parents makes the abuse the worst possible kind. I feel writing chatty letters to them will seem to DS to make me complicit with that. But I will do more research into the issue of abandonment, and many of the issues you all have raised so clearly.
One very serious consideration which none of us has mentioned is that the bps might die before the child has a chance to contact them. In this case letters etc might be very important. But my guess is that they won't answer as many questions as we might hope.
Lastly on the question of identity. Might it not be that identity is undermined by contact? A strong sense of belonging is also key to identity, and although adopted people have 2 families (at least, often bps are not together), they are not equally weighted. One is experienced daily, it is an 'actual' family. Although I knew adopted children who were not told they were adopted until their teens (disaster) my parents were always very open about it.I got so sick of people asking me 'don't you want to meet your 'real' mum?' It undermined all the relationships I had and dismissed the only history I really experienced.
I have tried to be sure I have not simply overlaid my own experience onto my son. But having discovered that I am not alone with these concerns I think we cannot just accept any more that contact should be automatic in every case. DH and I are still considering what to do next, so please keep it coming!! It is very useful and interesting.

I think you raise an interesting point about overdoing - you were adopted and special. I NEVER tell DS he is special because he was adopted. It isn't at all special - it is hugely unfortunate - he is special because he is lovely and he is mine.

I am just beginning to explain to DS the concept of "private" (though at 4 he hasn't quite got it yet!). That he can choose who he shares his adoption with. There are some great programmes now for children who were adopted to learn how to deal with situations you describe "don't you want to meet your real parents" like the WISE UP courses. I hear they are hugely useful to children - sadly they probably didn't exist when you were growing up.

Tenar - interesting except from an article about adoption..

"Adoptees in their youth find it difficult to grieve their losses, although they are in many instances aware of them, even as young children. Youngsters removed from abusive homes are expected to feel only relief and gratitude, not loss and grief. Adults block children's expressions of pain or attempt to divert them. In addition, due to developmental unfolding of cognitive processes, adoptees do not fully appreciate the total impact of their losses into their adolescence or, for many, into adulthood. This delayed grief may lead to depression or acting out through substance abuse or aggressive behaviors"

However you feel about the abuse your child may still feel the need to grieve for the loss of their birth parents.

Mathanxiety posted it on another thread

library.adoption.com/articles/lifelong-issues-in-adoption.html

Of course that is true. What is it in what I am saying that makes you think I do not acknowledge that.
I read the article on the other post by the way. It is interesting.

nothing specific and obviously I don;t know how you will deal with your child over the issue. I just thought it was an aspect we hadn't discussed so far. I don;t have a child who was removed due to abuse or neglect so I'm certainly not talking from a position of knowledge!

Ok thanks for clarifying! I think he is already grieving for his birth parents and his foster family and I try to help him through it. I do not plan to be secretive about his start in life. I just don't want to define him by it.
If it helps, I don't think being adopted is unfortunate necessarily. I mean it starts off that way, but maybe it is the wrong word. Even for relinquished babies. If you see it like that it is like saying that you wish you did not know all the people who have become your family. Like if you had had a birth child that might have be easier at the start, but then you would miss out on knowing the child you have. It's just one of those weird contradictions.
Regarding contact, I really appreciate all your comments, but do think it cannot be reduced to my individual experience / psychosis(?) why it is difficult. We all bring our individual stories to bear on this, and we are all in different circumstances. If your child was not abused or neglected that alters the balance of course. But I know from our own adoption support group and beyond that lots of people have had difficult experiences around this. Lots of people just let it quietly drop - I am just daft enough to say so!
BAAF do a book called 'Adoption, Search and Reunion: the long-term experience of adopted adults' which people might be interested to read. It is mostly about relinquished children but it does analyse experiences of 'reunion' between birth parents and adopted children and might help make adoptees more realistic if they do get round to searching when they are older.
Lastly on the question of 'real' mother etc, I just used to say 'I consider this to be my real family'. It was true and had the merits of getting people to drop the stupid question! Then as you say people can tell what they want to people they trust.

We have a daughter age 3 who we fostered from birth and adopted last year. our situation is unusual in that our daughter has twice yearly contact directly with her birth mother. I think this can only be very positive for our daughter. She calls this lady by her first name and is aware that she grew her in her tummy but wasn't able to look after her. There is no confusion about who is mummy it is me. My daughter will grow up with a strong sense of her identity and no secrets. She will also be aware why social services had to make the difficult decisions they had to make regarding her future. I know this situation wouldn't work for everyone but my daughters mother isn't a bad person. She had a terrible life herself and her lack of parenting skills are a reflection of her own upbringing. Everyone has to decide what is best for their children but I believe we are privilaged to be able to adopt and children have a right to make their own decisions about birth parents and should be given as much info as possible.

you say "for me, abuse trumps DNA"

Thing is it's not an 'either or' situation. Abuse is in the child's background but so is their biological identity and their own unique story of their history, their family, the beginning of their life. It's all intertwined and I think impossible to un-pick.

I think identity can not be undermined by information, only by the lack of it.

And I think that keeping letterbox contact makes you complicit with nothing, except for keeping a chink of light in a dark corner that your child may or may not want to open further one day. I don't think any child would be able to 'blame' you for keeping letterbox going in a very mild, general way.

I'm talking by the way about a child who is well bonded to carer and has no attachment disorders.