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Continued from this previous post …
I must admit that I’d not put thoughts of Post Placement Reports in the same cerebral convolution as the one holding opinions on sharing a child’s story until the topic came up the other day on an Adoption.Com forum, but there apparently is reason to.
Some international adoptions and many domestic arrangements require parents to agree to compile reports and photos documenting their child’s development, health, growth, etc., and to submit them according to a schedule … often annually, sometimes more frequently … to agencies, government ministries or birth parents.
I’ve written about enjoying the process of going over the year, collecting and remembering, and emphasized the importance of compliance, as on the international front some countries have gone as far as to suspend adoption programs because too many parents have failed to follow through on the promise to get their PPRs sent in regularly.
As is so often the case in the complex world of adoption where branches and roots of the same tree are sometimes at odds, post placement reports don’t make everyone happy.
Parents are concerned, and kids old enough to make decisions on such things as personal privacy while understanding exactly who is who in the mix that makes them them, have more than a few gripes about this sharing of information.
Birth mothers with MySpace pages posting photos are making people nervous, and no one wants to think of their child’s image making its way around jails. This may sound like a bit of hysteria, but the experiences are real and parents are frightened.
Some adoptees in their teen years are unhappy about having too much of their day-to-day passed along to birth parents they have little relationship with.
One mother asks if her son has a right to be part of the process of deciding who’s in the news loop of his life. After all, if there’s no question of him owning his story, does his right to tell or not tell extend as far as his birth mother? Is a birth mom’s right to keep up to date with the doings in her child’s life more important that the child’s right to keep his trials and triumphs confined to within the walls of his home?
In reaction, birth moms are feeling vulnerable and in danger of missing out on bits of their child that are very important to them. There are accusations of a creeping mistrust on the part of adoptive parents, stereotyping, strong-arming, and otherwise turning rights into issues that can slam doors in already damaged faces, as birth moms worry that a valued stream of treasured mementos and important information could dry up, leaving them with less than nothing.
One post made a point of comparing PPRs with photo Christmas cards, wondering if restrictions were put on the circulation of those, and asking if the wide dispersal of that form of holiday cheer isn’t as much of an intrusion, but far less important.
Agencies and governments may not only feel entitled to the information in PPRs, but depend on them for validation of good practices and rely on a constant flow of glowing reports on placed children to keep adoption programs going.
But what if they show them around, or use them as examples. Could my kids’ faces be part of some campaign?
Sam and Cj are still small, so this won’t be a discussion we have any time soon. I’m not sure where I’ll stand when it does come up.
I’m not sure how I feel about it now, in fact. And if my kids were adopted domestically with birth parents anxiously awaiting news on a regular basis instead of a government ministry possibly just adding to a pile?
There’s always something more to think about …
It’s not about ‘mementos’, its about the connection. Some Moms through adoption will honor that connection, some will not.
K may be too young so I may understand all the issues here. I’ve been reading with interest, but to me I hope sharing details of our life will be like sharing K’s details with her second aunt or cousin, leaving out anythiing that wouldn’t be appropriate for extended family.
Oh my goodness, I need to respond to this, but, have no time now. I will say for now, though Merrill is right, it is NOT about missing some small bit of info. It is about being totally cut-off and shut out of your child’s life.
I have to say too, that all the reasons for not sending photos, sharing into, etc. do sound suspiciously not excuses from adoptive moms who do not want to do so. Honestly, ever really know of an adoptee harmed by a photo that got into the “wrong hands”? Anything is possible, but….I think those kinds of thoughts are really reaching. And yes, looking for excuses NOT to maintain contact.
TREASURED momentos AND important information, please. I was not minimizing the contact.
Folks on the forum are wrestling with this, so it must be an issue widely.
I’d be interested to hear a birth mom take from the child’s privacy POV, not only reactions to adoptive moms’ concerns.
“Moms through adoption”? Is that the term we’re using now?
I’m just as confused about what terms to use as anyone else. I used it as another way to say adoptive mom, except I put “Mom” first. I’ve heard amoms saying, “Why can’t we just be Mom” and of course that is who you are to the child you are parenting, but we need something to clarify through this form of communication. I just wrote, ‘through adoption’ to clarify which mom. I used to be the natural mother, but can’t seem to use it without feeling I’m making someone uncomfortable.
“I’d be interested to hear a birth mom take from the child’s privacy POV, not only reactions to adoptive moms’ concerns.”
I can only speak for one adult adoptee, my bson, who was adopted in the closed era. He expressed on several occasions that he would have preferred to have had an open adoption and to have had contact with me sooner, 18 or even much sooner if it were possible, and any form of contact preferrable to none, zilch. He experienced feelings of abandonment through his closed adoption… not uncommon as I read the adoptee boards and have also sat in on adoption support groups primarily attended by adult adoptees. This is something I never would have wished for any child of mine, let alone any child, to experience unnecessarly. I have seen that today, there are agreements stipulating that at a certain age (12 for example), the child can be given the choice whether to continue with the exchange of information or not. I think it is good for the child to have a choice.
Terms of address and description are in danger of becoming our downfall. Spending as much time as we do thinking about them, we’re still tripping up…and unfortunately this often happens at the beginning of converstations, sometimes reducing the rest to an unheard blather.
With that said…
My hope is that domestic adoptions today function differently that those in the closed era, and that children are given the information they need to process their life stories with a context.
I think many parents understand very well how important this is for their kids, although I’m sure there are some who would still prefer blinders. (There are extremes on both sides, as we all know.)
Agreements where a child’s input is sought at a certain age sound like a very good idea.
I’d like to thank you, merrill1277, for reading, and for taking the time to post your comments. We’re all here to learn…and by ‘here’ I mean on the planet, not the blog.
Sandra