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Giving birth does not guarantee that either. More abusive home are biological than adoptive. I know people who were raped abused and starved by biological parents and step parents.
When children are taken from their homes because of abuse, odds are that it will be better.
It might not but being abused at any sort of parent requires removal. And fast termination.
I would ask for statistics to back this up, but most abuse goes unreported anyway, so the stats are meaningless.
Being abused only requires parental removal and fast termination if the parents get caught.
Abusers often know how to not get caught, and families and communities are often in so much denial because of the horrific nature of abuse that their denial makes it even easier for the abuser to get away with what they're doing.
There are things you can do to lessen the risk, but there's nothing you can do to guarantee an abuse-free home. Even if the parents are saints, there are siblings, babysitters, neighbors, teachers, doctors, religious figures, cousins, grandparents, family friends, extended family, that could all be abusing.
The honest truth is that you and I will never know the true frequency of abuse in adoptive or biological homes because of how much of it goes unreported--even when the survivor tries to report. I was abused for 13 years (10 of them post-adoption) by many people and despite my attempts to report them in some cases, all of them are walking free.
I am all for your having what you need. This is not my issue. I'm not your enemy.
Am I anyone's enemy? Yeah. People who do not think that I have a right to adopts and that children with out families have no right to find ones that want them and can care for them.
Have you noticed that trend here?
Actually, no, I haven't. I've read every post in every thread here over the past week or so and NO ONE has said that. What people HAVE said is that there should be options so that children don't have to be taken from their families and/or homelands. They've also said that adoption should be about what's best for the child, not for the would-be parents. No one has said that adoption -- national or international --should be abolished, but that it should be a last resort, not a first choice.
I wish you'd take a step back and really listen to what people are saying, instead of assuming that everything is an attack on you -- because it's not.
Sheena, the sealing of birth certificates carries on in 44 states, which I find ridiculous and antediluvian. A baby adopted today most states of the Union would have her original birth certificate locked away. A child adopted by a step-parent would have her original birth certificate locked away, which is even sillier! Who does that protect? Again, adoptees as a class are treated differently, and we shouldn't be. State governments should not have the right to put us into the Witness Protection Plan without our consent.
I agree. I was born and adopted in California in the early 60's, and my original birth certificate was sealed. In my 30's, I successfully found and got to know my birthparents, but even with their names and identifying information and their letters naming me as their daughter, the state still won't open my record. I have all of the information found on the original record, but I can't have it. Stupid. I have to go to court to get it opened, and I'm not sure a judge will sign off on it. I don't have a medical reason to find out. Still, it's MY birth certificate. But in order for me to have my name on the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) rolls, I have to have proof that I am my birthmother's daughter. Her lawyer told her that she can't sign an affidavit claiming me as her child until I have my original birth certificate. It doesn't make any sense.
Last edited by TribalCat; 09-24-2012 at 05:44 AM..
"adoption does not automatically guarantee a safe and secure home"
I agree.
Giving birth does not guarantee that either. More abusive home are biological than adoptive. I know people who were raped abused and starved by biological parents and step parents.
When children are taken from their homes because of abuse, odds are that it will be better.
It might not but being abused at any sort of parent requires removal. And fast termination.
Stepparents aren't biological parents. It would be interesting to see the separate figures between abuse by actual biological parents and non-biological parents (which includes stepparents, foster care and adoptive parents).
Also, as thethreeofme pointed out the percentage of adoptive families to biological families is quite small (about 2% (not including stepparent adoption). Thus the rate of abuse should be less than 2%.
Also, there is psychological abuse and also emotional abuse. There are also those who get in over their head when adopting from overseas and end up going to counselling sessions which can be abusive in themselves - such as those videos on another thread that I linked to (btw I am very sorry for not warning people how shocking those videos were, though I note the moderator has now put a note to warn people).
The thing is that in theory, an adoptive home should always be better as adoption is supposed to be about providing a better home for a child. Removing a child from one disastrous situation and putting them in another disastrous situation strikes me as being a double betrayal.
Also one thing I often found disturbing on other adoption forums was the following: Someone might start a thread about a child being killed by their parents and when everybody was assuming that they were killed by their biological parents, there was quite rightfully indignation. However, if it was then mentioned that in fact the child was killed by their adoptive parents, then excuses would start to be made, eg "oh well the child must have RAD" or "those poor parents, they just didn't get the support they needed".
Luckily I had good parents but after reading those threads, I sometimes wonder if I had been killed by my adoptive parents, would people have assumed "well there might have been something wrong with her", purely because I was an adoptee killed by her APs? People might have assumed it was my so-called "bad blood"* shining through ("oh well, some of those adoptees, you don't know what sort of background they are from, do you?") Btw, I actually come from a very lovely biological background.
An older foster care adoptee would be especially prone to have people making these assumptions about them.
Btw the following people have done studies which they believe to show that less abuse occurs in biological homes than in foster care homes and that too many children are going into foster care that shouldn't be, clogging up the system and making it harder to identify and deal with the true cases of abuse:
More biological homes are abusive than adoptive homes because there are obviously way more biological homes compared to adoptive. Adoptive parents are just as likely to abuse (or not abuse) as biological parents, however. The need/desire to adopt & the ability to pass a home study does not prevent someone from being abusive, as evidence of all the adoptees who have been raped, abused, starved, & murdered.
I always find it interesting that some folks will instantly point to biological family statistics when faced with a comment about adoptive families. In fact, that retort has become extremely tiresome. So often, when an adoptee comments on abuse within adoptive families, the common retort is "well, abuse happens in biological families too." The message given being that the adoptee should not put abusive adoptive parents into an adoptive family context simply because people with biological children also abuse. The other message given being that adoptees should simply shut up and accept what has happened to them in an adoptive family context because hey, it happens in biological families too.
Adoptive families are different from biological families. An adopted child has already experienced trauma. The fact that the child had to be adopted means that something bad has already happened to them. For an already traumatized child to then be adopted by people who inflict even more trauma makes this sort of abusive situation unique and different from biological families. And it must be viewed through a different lens. Abuse in adoptive families should be considered within an adoptive family context, not a biological family context.
I would ask for statistics to back this up, but most abuse goes unreported anyway, so the stats are meaningless.
Being abused only requires parental removal and fast termination if the parents get caught.
Abusers often know how to not get caught, and families and communities are often in so much denial because of the horrific nature of abuse that their denial makes it even easier for the abuser to get away with what they're doing.
There are things you can do to lessen the risk, but there's nothing you can do to guarantee an abuse-free home. Even if the parents are saints, there are siblings, babysitters, neighbors, teachers, doctors, religious figures, cousins, grandparents, family friends, extended family, that could all be abusing.
The honest truth is that you and I will never know the true frequency of abuse in adoptive or biological homes because of how much of it goes unreported--even when the survivor tries to report. I was abused for 13 years (10 of them post-adoption) by many people and despite my attempts to report them in some cases, all of them are walking free.
Nim, I am so sorry this happened to you! Words cannot express how vile this is! and for them to be walking free is a crime re-committed!
I am all for your having what you need. This is not my issue. I'm not your enemy.
Am I anyone's enemy? Yeah. People who do not think that I have a right to adopts and that children with out families have no right to find ones that want them and can care for them.
Have you noticed that trend here?
In terms of people adopted in the 50s and 60s - I am not knowlegable.
But I'll repeat - I think you have this right.
I am searching for common ground here. Do you see any with me and with other Adoptive Parents and children?
Do you think I am lying when I say my daughter is disinterested?
If she wanted to visit Korea, I'd move heaven and Earth to get her there.
Honestly, I don't see you looking for ANY common ground and no one on here has said that children without families have no right to find ones.
The world is much bigger that you and your daughter. This is about corruption in the adoption industry, adoption being focused on the children and adult adoptees having a voice and access to their own information.
There is a lot of opposition from the adoption industry and thinking it will make adoption unattractive. However, progress is being made and it's not just the people on this board. If you were informed on this topic, you would know that's far from being true. There is a LOT of information out there regarding adoption reform in Korea being more focused on the adoptee, the birthmoms and decreasing international adoption. Reform has come about through pressure from adoptees and interest groups.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott_K
Have a look around Bastard Nation. It was formed back in 1996 by adoptees to bring reforms to the adoption industry. They are primarily the ones responsible for many of the open adoption policies in practice today. I quote from their website, it may clarify the positions of many of the adoptees who post here.
Is Bastard Nation anti-adoption?
No. We are not anti-adoption; we ARE adoption. The opposition to open records, most notably the National Council for Adoption, has long characterized those who are for open records as being anti-adoption, since in their convoluted logic the end of sealed records will destroy adoption as an institution. There are many adoption-related issues BN takes no position on. While individual members hold varying views on adoption, the only mission of Bastard Nation is the restoration and maintenance of the right of adopted persons to unconditional access to their own state-held records.
NOTE: There is something wrong with the Quoting buttons - won't let me quote the posts I actually want to "multple quote" SO this is in answer to WarrenZee --
It is very frustrating as an adoptee activist since 1974 (at my age then of 18) till now that adoptive parents still do not get it. And the adoptive parent opposition and snide comments ALWAYS come from American adoptive parents and big money adoption agencies.
If you were involved in the international adoption reform movement as long as I have, you would know that adoptees in America began fighting against Sealed and Falsied Birth certificates for adoptees as far back as 1953 when twice-adopted bastard Jean Paton started the organization called Orphan Voyage. Her group and her books started the Adoption Reform Movement. In 1971, adoptee Florence Fisher started Adoptee Liberty Movement Association in New York City and that spread across the US and is still an organization. In the mid-1970s, ALMA had a class action suit to fight sealed and falsified birth certificates for adoptees, and lost.
I was not born or adopted in 1953, but when I was 18 in 1974 and my siblings found me, and my adoptive mother threw my birth certificates at me in her fit of rage against me being found by siblings SHE determined I was never supposed to know because my adoption was a closed adoption and SHE wanted it that way, within that first week of reunion, there was a TV movie aired that told me something larger was going on. That movie (look it up on Google) was: The Stranger Who Looked Like Me.
It was a fictionalized version of group meetings of adoptees wanting to search. Because TV can only focus on the drama, that's what they played up. However, I was very aware that there was something else happening; why else would Hollywood make this movie?
Six months later, an adoptive mother in a group meeting for adoptive parents (I was asked to be there) gaev me her copy of Florence Fisher's book: The Search For Anna Fisher. I read it in one night. The next day, I was on the phone with Florence in NYC and joined ALMA.
I suggest you look her up and ask her yourself how many adoptees are and have been fighting to see, touch, have in their hands, and legally own a copy of their own real and true birth certificates. I think Florence (an elderly lady now) would tell you that she has know well over 10,000 adoptees in her lifetime. That's just a guess.
If you can't find her yourself, ask me. I lsot touch with her, but know an adoptee from the early 1970s who still has contact with her.
As for this being strictly a thing of interest to just a minority of disgruntled adoptees, here are some facts for you:
The country of The Netherlands has never sealed nor falsified birth certificates of adoptees. The country of The Netherlands stopped adoptions as of last year. I suggest you look up adoptee Joe Soll (Congers NYS, Adoption Crossroads and Adoption Healing) and he will tell you that Dr. Rene Hoksbergen presented a lecture and Powerpoint Slideshow showing the statistics of how and why adoptions are no longer done in Holland. It is because adoptees stood up and protested and said NO MORE. Even though Dutch adoptees never had sealed nor falsified birth certificates, they still protested against adoption. Single mothers are encouraged to keep their babies. Intercountry adoptions are discouraged. And it is because adoptees complained.
Australia has apologized for the systematic separation of newborns from their mothers at the moment of birth --- this summer, state by state, Australia appologized. They exposed the horrors done to mothers and to their infants who were exploited and thus "given" to other couples who wanted to adopt, thinking that the mothers did not want their babies.
Again, birth certificates were sealed an falsified. There is now a Federal Inquiry into these practices in Australia. Look up for yourselves the government website covering this.
These are just two countries who are listening to the voices of adoptees and natural parents who do not want the past or present system of adoption to exist.
So stop being patronizing to the adotpees on this board.
Stop calling us Trolls.
We are now, and have been, demanding our civil rights and our human rights to the truth of our births. It is not-informed adotptive parents who are probably not old enough to know this history. By the looks of posts and comments I've read by adoptive parents on this board, you don't care. But you should care because if you don't understand that adoptees and natural parents have been in oposition to the corrupt adoption system for many decades, you are doomed to repeat the mistakes done to us.
We cannot win the legal battles, or the public opinion battles, unless adoptive parents start to listen. And learn.
I was born and named by two parents who loved me. I was given a birth certificate within 5 days of birth. I was baptised at the bedside of my dying mother when I was three months old. My mother died a few weeks later. My father relinquished me because he thought he haad no other options. My adoptive parents wanted to rename me in the names that they chose for me, which totally disrespected my real name at birth and baptism. The government treated my birth as if I were born an illegitimate bastard because the laws that govern this mess were created to hide illegitimacy and to protect adoptive parents from interference, not to cover up a legitimate birth. My real birth certificate was confiscated by the State and placed under seal. The government took the name my adoptive parents told th Judge they wanted for me and the government made a false birth certificate for me. The Regisrar of Vital Statistics knew he was creating false facts, but he signed his name and affixed the raised State seal to it, thus committing the crimes of fraud and perjury. Testifying, certifying, and creating a false government document is a crime. BUT NOT IN ADOPTION.
Prenteding these false facts are true is what is creating the domino effects we have over the past decades since 1930. Personal opinons that adoptees are angry and bitter and have had bad experiences have no bearing in the face of the facts.
It is far better to put adoptive parents names and the dates of the finalizationn of adoption on an Adoption Certificate, and leave the real birth certificate intact and unsealed and legal. The adotpee would thus need both documents as proof of identity because, in reality, all adoptees have two sets of real parents.
THIS is how it was done in The Netherlands --- always.
Prior to 1930, ALL American adoptees had intact birth certificates. Then they had adoption papers. It all changed in 1930 because of the HATE for UNWED MOTHERS AND THEIR BASTARD BABIES.
I WAS NOT BORN A BASTARD BUT MY GOVERNMENT TREATS ME LIKE ONE.
Adoptees who were born illegitimate bastards DO NOT deserve the stigma that is placed upon them.
It would be a great thing if pre-adoptive parents were forced to read and take exams on this history before they adopt. If they fail the exam, they do not get to adopt.
Why don't adoptive parents stand up and fight for what's right?
NOTE: There is something wrong with the Quoting buttons - won't let me quote the posts I actually want to "multple quote" SO this is in answer to WarrenZee --
It is very frustrating as an adoptee activist since 1974 (at my age then of 18) till now that adoptive parents still do not get it. And the adoptive parent opposition and snide comments ALWAYS come from American adoptive parents and big money adoption agencies.
If you were involved in the international adoption reform movement as long as I have, you would know that adoptees in America began fighting against Sealed and Falsied Birth certificates for adoptees as far back as 1953 when twice-adopted bastard Jean Paton started the organization called Orphan Voyage. Her group and her books started the Adoption Reform Movement. In 1971, adoptee Florence Fisher started Adoptee Liberty Movement Association in New York City and that spread across the US and is still an organization. In the mid-1970s, ALMA had a class action suit to fight sealed and falsified birth certificates for adoptees, and lost.
I was not born or adopted in 1953, but when I was 18 in 1974 and my siblings found me, and my adoptive mother threw my birth certificates at me in her fit of rage against me being found by siblings SHE determined I was never supposed to know because my adoption was a closed adoption and SHE wanted it that way, within that first week of reunion, there was a TV movie aired that told me something larger was going on. That movie (look it up on Google) was: The Stranger Who Looked Like Me.
It was a fictionalized version of group meetings of adoptees wanting to search. Because TV can only focus on the drama, that's what they played up. However, I was very aware that there was something else happening; why else would Hollywood make this movie?
Six months later, an adoptive mother in a group meeting for adoptive parents (I was asked to be there) gaev me her copy of Florence Fisher's book: The Search For Anna Fisher. I read it in one night. The next day, I was on the phone with Florence in NYC and joined ALMA.
I suggest you look her up and ask her yourself how many adoptees are and have been fighting to see, touch, have in their hands, and legally own a copy of their own real and true birth certificates. I think Florence (an elderly lady now) would tell you that she has know well over 10,000 adoptees in her lifetime. That's just a guess.
If you can't find her yourself, ask me. I lsot touch with her, but know an adoptee from the early 1970s who still has contact with her.
As for this being strictly a thing of interest to just a minority of disgruntled adoptees, here are some facts for you:
The country of The Netherlands has never sealed nor falsified birth certificates of adoptees. The country of The Netherlands stopped adoptions as of last year. I suggest you look up adoptee Joe Soll (Congers NYS, Adoption Crossroads and Adoption Healing) and he will tell you that Dr. Rene Hoksbergen presented a lecture and Powerpoint Slideshow showing the statistics of how and why adoptions are no longer done in Holland. It is because adoptees stood up and protested and said NO MORE. Even though Dutch adoptees never had sealed nor falsified birth certificates, they still protested against adoption. Single mothers are encouraged to keep their babies. Intercountry adoptions are discouraged. And it is because adoptees complained.
Australia has apologized for the systematic separation of newborns from their mothers at the moment of birth --- this summer, state by state, Australia appologized. They exposed the horrors done to mothers and to their infants who were exploited and thus "given" to other couples who wanted to adopt, thinking that the mothers did not want their babies.
Again, birth certificates were sealed an falsified. There is now a Federal Inquiry into these practices in Australia. Look up for yourselves the government website covering this.
These are just two countries who are listening to the voices of adoptees and natural parents who do not want the past or present system of adoption to exist.
So stop being patronizing to the adotpees on this board.
Stop calling us Trolls.
We are now, and have been, demanding our civil rights and our human rights to the truth of our births. It is not-informed adotptive parents who are probably not old enough to know this history. By the looks of posts and comments I've read by adoptive parents on this board, you don't care. But you should care because if you don't understand that adoptees and natural parents have been in oposition to the corrupt adoption system for many decades, you are doomed to repeat the mistakes done to us.
We cannot win the legal battles, or the public opinion battles, unless adoptive parents start to listen. And learn.
I was born and named by two parents who loved me. I was given a birth certificate within 5 days of birth. I was baptised at the bedside of my dying mother when I was three months old. My mother died a few weeks later. My father relinquished me because he thought he haad no other options. My adoptive parents wanted to rename me in the names that they chose for me, which totally disrespected my real name at birth and baptism. The government treated my birth as if I were born an illegitimate bastard because the laws that govern this mess were created to hide illegitimacy and to protect adoptive parents from interference, not to cover up a legitimate birth. My real birth certificate was confiscated by the State and placed under seal. The government took the name my adoptive parents told th Judge they wanted for me and the government made a false birth certificate for me. The Regisrar of Vital Statistics knew he was creating false facts, but he signed his name and affixed the raised State seal to it, thus committing the crimes of fraud and perjury. Testifying, certifying, and creating a false government document is a crime. BUT NOT IN ADOPTION.
Prenteding these false facts are true is what is creating the domino effects we have over the past decades since 1930. Personal opinons that adoptees are angry and bitter and have had bad experiences have no bearing in the face of the facts.
It is far better to put adoptive parents names and the dates of the finalizationn of adoption on an Adoption Certificate, and leave the real birth certificate intact and unsealed and legal. The adotpee would thus need both documents as proof of identity because, in reality, all adoptees have two sets of real parents.
THIS is how it was done in The Netherlands --- always.
Prior to 1930, ALL American adoptees had intact birth certificates. Then they had adoption papers. It all changed in 1930 because of the HATE for UNWED MOTHERS AND THEIR BASTARD BABIES.
I WAS NOT BORN A BASTARD BUT MY GOVERNMENT TREATS ME LIKE ONE.
Adoptees who were born illegitimate bastards DO NOT deserve the stigma that is placed upon them.
It would be a great thing if pre-adoptive parents were forced to read and take exams on this history before they adopt. If they fail the exam, they do not get to adopt.
Why don't adoptive parents stand up and fight for what's right?
I was always under the impression that "bastard" was a mildly offensive term, or at least a "rough-around-the-edges" term. I find it interesting you used it so much in a post defending adoptees' rights. Am I out of the loop here or is "bastard" not the first choice most adoptees here would use to describe themselves?
I am neither encouraging them or discouraging her. I know that nothing I say will make you be open to the idea that some Korean adoptees, my daughter being one, are content and mater of fact.
When I have tried to encourage things Korean, it's gone over like a lead balloon.
When I offered Korean Culture Camp in Colorado she YELLED at me! She told me to send her brother to English, Celtic, Scandinavian camp! She told me to stop "Shoving Korea down her throat." She told my wife to cut it out with Korea and that she had no interest in Culture Camp or going there.
What do you really want me to do?
I will believe you that their are Korean adotiees who feel this way, however the anti adoption people will just say she is brainwashed.
If I'm wrong I'd love that to be the case.
Did it ever occur to you that your Korean daughter may be hurt and angry because she was removed from her homeland? Did it ever occur to you that she may be in deep grief that "some random woman" carried her in her body for nine months, gave birth to her, and for some unnknown reason gave her up, and now your adoptee may not know how to process her grief and anger over this? Did it ever occur to you that she cannot BE in that Korean environment in Culture Camp because it is NOT really Korean?
I am American, but I have been to England. I ate real Fish and Chips and they are nothing like the Americanized version in Arther Treacher's Fish and Chips. Once you've had the real thing, wrapped in newspaper, you can never eat the stuff made in America.
Last edited by kaykee; 09-24-2012 at 09:33 PM..
Reason: clarity
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