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"You equate a piece of paper with your actual genealogy? I didn't say that your genetics aren't important, I just don't understand why your birth certificate is so important."
I do not believe that anyone has indicated that they equate a piece of paper with their actual genealogy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by keribus72
It's not just a piece of paper, it is a link to biological roots. If genetics weren't important, people wouldn't be so obsessed with ancestry.com or shows like "Who do you think you are?"
We already agree that adoptees should have access to any documents they want. Just saying that people shouldn't set expectations up so high for expecting their birth certificates to hold the truth, because they might find out otherwise.
We already agree that adoptees should have access to any documents they want. Just saying that people shouldn't set expectations up so high for expecting their birth certificates to hold the truth, because they might find out otherwise.
Totally agree with you there. As adult adoptees, we are big boys and girls. I'm sure that we can handle anything that might happen. The adoption industry and state governments have already created an entire system that is based on secrets and lies. We're used to that already. Our lives were founded on it. My original birth certificate does not include any information where the father's details should be. I survived finding out that my original birth certificate did not contain all of the truth. And I'm sure that other adult adoptees could as well.
Fine. I am behind you 100% that there is unlikely to be any single agreed upon TRUTH when it comes to a story with more than one person involved. But that has very little to do with adoptees getting our OBCs as a matter of principle.
If we did what we could to remove shame from the equation of adoption, it might help everyone. Just a thought.
Don't you realize, though, that a birth certificate could have falsified information too? Even your original. My original birth certificate is either falsified or much worse. Just cause a document is the original doesn't mean it's any more reliable than the falsified birth certificate with your adoptive parents names on it.
Ah, I hate to tell you, but I have been at this since 1974. I have seen many birth certificates of adoptees, and I have researched adoption law and birth certificiate law. I know all about birth certificates being falsified from one state to another, form one country to another. And I know that either natural parents were forced to use false names on the birth certificate (because they stayed in maternity homes), or the names were changed due to many different circumstances.
I know my original birth record is intact because my father gave my birth certificate and baptismal certificate to my adopting parents when he handed me to them. My adoptive parents never showed these documents to me. When I was found at age 18, my adoptive mother threw them at me in a fit of rage, saying, "These documents mean nothing to me anymore!"
I understand your saying that lies and falsehoods could be on the original birth certificate, too. However, saying that it may not be "any more reliable than the falsified birth certificate with your adoptive parents names on it" does not solve the problem.
My documents are all in order. I have everything. I do not have the legal right to ask for, pay for, and receive a certified copy of my true birth certifcate because the law prevents me from getting it. That is thye point. The birth certificates that were filled out at the birth of an adoptee should be available to them upon request without any parental permission, without deleting any names, without giving any parent power to stop the adoptee from getting what any non-adopted person gets.
I do not condone the issuance of amended - falsified - birth certificates upon adoption. In the 38 years I haev been reunited, and the 37 years I have been writing about this issue, I have always pointed out that the more logical thing to do is to issue a truthful adoption certificate which states the facts of adoption, and the birth certificate --- THE birth certificate of the adoptee would stay intact. Whether it is or is not tampered with at the time of birth is another issue. MANY children discover later in life that father is not father named on my birth certificate. Mom lied. The man who raised me lied. Maybe I'm adopted by my step father and maybe I was simply rasied without an adoption and he is just my step father. Either way, the false information is on my birth certificate so now I want to know the truth. ...I have heard this so many times over these long years of dealing with adoptees in support and search groups.
I hope you can see what I am talking about here. ONE birth certificate, and ONE adoption certificate, both certified by the government and open to the adoptee at the age of majority. Ideally, neither document would contain falsehoods.
Ideally, the adoptee could verify information.
I have comparative documents (all of my sealed adoption papers were released too me about 20 years into my reunion). I have Final Order of Adoption which states my adopting parents names, and my father's name, and my full name at birth and my new full adoptive name. I have my father's signed Relinquishment paper with his signature and his name printed in the text, with my name at birth, and the names of my adopting parents; and these papers state his reason for relinquishing me, and his financials are listed, and the names of my siblings are listed along with their ages. I have my adoptive parents' signed Intent to Adopt papers which states their names and the name of my father and my name at birth and my new name at adoption. I have the Home Study, which give financials on my adopting parents. All of these documents confirm my original birth certificate is correct. All of these documents confirm that the amended birth certificate issued upon finalization of my adoption is completely false.
I think I made it absolutely clear that there were lies on my non-identifying information, and that I have no idea who my father is at this time, although I am trying to find out. I accept that I may never know. I have written before that there is a great deal of fantasy, then and now.
Many adoptees grow up with questions and those questions are never solved.
An OBC has names on it; mine for certain doesn't have my father's name anyway! My mother told me that. So getting it won't help me find him. It's the principle of the government withholding it from me. I am already reunited.
There is the issue of search and the issue of our OBCs that often gets intertwined. Some opponents want to prevent us from getting our OBCs because they think we will harrass our mothers when we get our OBCs. I see it as a right that we should have, just like anyone else, to our own information.
Perhaps you are saying that you don't want adoptees to be hurt by thinking that there is a TRUTH with capital letters out there. When there are many people involved, there will be lots of emotions and potential conflict. We must all be prepared for anything when we search, that is true. Sometimes we will never be reunited with our families, or our original parents will have passed away before we can meet them, as happened to a dear friend this week when he finally was "granted" his non-identifying information (after a stalling social worker retired/quit and a new one actually would do her job). Sometimes we might be able to know our entire truth, and that is quite magical, as susankate said.
I agree with this.
Oppositon to adoptees having our sealed birth records is narrowly focused. Harassing "birth" mothers is a moot point when a mother and/or father has died and is not the relinquishing parent. Not all adoptees are born illegitimate, therefore, no need to keep harping on the "birth" mother "protection" bit. I am tired of that worn-out excuse. Kids who were born within a marriage are adopted by their stepfather, but that kid's birth certificate will not stay intact, it will be sealed and a false one will be issued because that is how it is done in America.
This just has to stop.
They cycle of sealing and falsifying birth certificates on the premise of illegitimacy that must be hidden does not apply to all adoptees, nor should illegitimacy be used against adoptees who were conceived and born to not married parents. We, as a society, carry this notion throughout the adoptee's life and then prevent the adoptee from obtaining his or her original birth certificate. It's just silly.
So we should all just accept the status quo just in case there are lies on ALL of our documents? No thanks. As kaykee said, information can be verified. There is always a paper trail that leads somewhere. Some people would rather know their truth than stick their head in the sand just in case.
So we should all just accept the status quo just in case there are lies on ALL of our documents? No thanks. As kaykee said, information can be verified. There is always a paper trail that leads somewhere. Some people would rather know their truth than stick their head in the sand just in case.
Where did anyone say we should accept the status quo? Everyone on this forum as argued in favor of letting adoptees have access to their birth certificates.
And again, paper trail does not necessarily equal the truth.
What if someone just wrote down another name on your original birth certificate? Then what?
Then I guess DNA is all you would have to resort to (if you had the resources). Or you would have to just accept not knowing.
You don't think that the above & your insistence that birth certificates MIGHT have lies on it implies that we shouldn't bother? My mistake. I was taking your comments that the truth might not be out there to mean why bother trying.
If there was one thing you would want adoptive parents to know about adoptees, what would it be?
We will never be exactly like you like your other children will. Some things are genetic. You can raise us and we can learn from environment quite a bit, and we can act how you act in a lot of ways, but we will never fully be as you are and you must accept that. YOU MUST ACCEPT THAT!
For me, when I was younger, I didn't want my parents to talk about the adoption. I didn't want the "Pete's Dragon" and whatever other book that talked about kids being adopted in order to make me feel, 'normal'. I understand the counseling, that was necessary considering what I went through, but other than that, please don't point it out to me all the time. I know I am adopted, thank you.
If I do come to you with fears, let's discuss them. People bring up the idea of abandonment a lot and that was my experience as well, as a child. That I would be left behind. If we went on trips and stopped at a rest stop to eat lunch and use the rest room, I would use the bathroom as fast as I could and run outside before they could pull away and leave me there. If we went to a mall and I was the first to our meeting place at a certain time, I would start to panic until I saw one of them coming, so sure they had left me in the mall. When we were getting ready to move out of the state of CA, I came home from school, saw no car in the driveway, the curtains pulled and the house was dark. I started freaking out and bawling right there on the sidewalk in front of the house. I was convinced they had left me.
In that last instance, my mother did talk to me about it a bit but she didn't talk about it in depth which is what I needed at that time. THOSE are the times when it's ok to talk about being adopted and what I've gone through...when fear rears its ugly head.
Day to day stuff...no. Stop bringing it up.
To summarize: Understand I will never be the same as you or your other children but don't talk about it all the time. Take the time to just sit down and talk to your adopted child. You don't have to start out with, "So, tell us how you feel about being one of us" or "tell us how you feel being adopted" because we may not know the words to say, especially at a young age. But just sit and talk to us, give us one on one time. You may find out, through just sitting and talking to us, what, exactly our fears ARE. THEN, when you get in to a situation where you KNOW that fear will come to the surface, THAT is when you recognize the difference in your adopted child to your biological children. THAT is when you can make a point to be different or act different towards that child BASED on your discussions you've had.
I spent my entire child hood living in fear even after I was adopted because the issues I needed to talk about were not talked about and being asked how I felt about being adopted or being given things that reminded me of that in a normal, daily situation were over done.
They tried, yes they did. I understand that and appreciate it. They just got it backwards.
I would like to respond to the birth certificate thing.
When I was younger, it mattered greatly that my birth certificate had all of my "biological parents'" information on it except their names. That is the only birth certificate I can get. I will never have access to the "real" one. The one I get IS considered the "original" one. It is not.
Fast forward to about 8 months ago. I applied for a government job. This is a high clearance government job that would require intense scrutiny in to my past. Every possible thing that you ever went through in your entire life is going to be gone over with a fine toothed comb.
I got to one section that I was unsure how to answer. I called the number and discussed it with someone. In the end, I had to put down that I was adopted, who the biological people were and everything I know about them BECAUSE my "original" birth certificate would NOT match the birth dates or information about my adopted parents.
If I had the original, the real original, this form would have been a whole lot easier to fill out. But now, to get this high clearance job, I had to detail every last bit of my personal life history the first four years of my life to explain WHY my original birth certificate would not match the ages of my parents.
This continues to affect me in my life and I'm sick and tired of the state of CA or any other state, for that matter, telling ME that I cannot have this information. I'm an adult. "It's to protect the biological parents". You know what? To hell with them and their protection. First of all, I know who they are. I know where they live. I know everything I want to know about them. Giving me this birth certificate with accurate information is for ME, not to "go after" or do anything to them...or whatever the hell the state of CA or SC thinks I want it for. LET ME HAVE MY ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE! This is ridiculous.
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