Weaving a Family Narrative

2019 ◽  
pp. 275-312
Author(s):  
Abbie E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
Nature Versus Nurture ◽  
Family Narrative ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Birth Family

This chapter addresses how adoptive parents think about nature versus nurture, and whether and how these ideas change across their children’s life course. It explores how parents talk about the complex issue of similarities and differences between themselves and their adopted children—both those that may be immediately visible (e.g., skin color, hair), even early on in parenting, and those that are not as apparent until later on (e.g., abilities and interests). It considers whether and how adoptive parents invoke birth parents to help children to understand, make sense of, accept, and/or experience pride in aspects of themselves that may not be mirrored in their adoptive parents. Furthermore, the chapter explores how parents anticipate, make sense of, and address challenges in the domains of mental health and physical health in the context of varying levels of contact with and knowledge of birth family.

Open Adoption and Diverse Families

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbie E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Open Adoption ◽  
Adoptive Families ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Birth Family ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Over Time

This book traces the experiences of diverse adoptive families—including lesbian, gay, and heterosexual parent families, and families who adopted through foster care and private adoption—as they manage birth family relationships across their children’s childhood. It explores the diversity among families in how open adoption is envisioned, enacted, and experienced over time. The author uses interview data from four time points spanning preadoption to 8 years postadoption to address a variety of questions, including: How do adoptive parents feel about openness when they first learn about it, and why do their feelings change over time? How do adoptive parents’ initial feelings about birth parents inform the types of relationships that they form with birth family? How do adoptive parents who strongly valued openness cope with and handle the disappointment of matching with birth parents who do not desire and/or are unable to enact a similar level of openness? What types of complex, unexpected, and nuanced trajectories of contact unfold over time between adoptive families and birth families? What types of boundary challenges occur between adoptive and birth family members, offline and online? How do adoptive parents talk about adoption with their children, and how does this vary depending on level and type of contact? How and to what extent do adoptive parents invoke environment versus genetics (i.e., birth family) in articulating children’s strengths, challenges, and physical features (e.g., height, skin color)? How do the experiences of adoptive parents differ by parent gender and sexual orientation?

Issues of Confidentiality in Adoption: The Role of the Pediatrician

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Birth Certificate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Court Order ◽  
Adult Adoptees ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Birth Parent ◽  
Birth Family

Adoption practices in the United States have been designed to protect each member of the adoption triad. Traditionally they preserve the anonymity and privacy of the birth parents. These practices have supported the concept that adoptive parents need to establish a relationship with their new child without concern of unwanted interference by members of the child's birth family. In addition, they emphasize protecting adopted children from potentially disturbing facts about their birth families and/or psychological confusion that might arise from any continued relationship with their birth families. To protect confidentiality in adoption, all records of the adoption proceedings are sealed. The child's original birth certificate is sealed, and a new one is issued that typically contains only the child's adoptive name and substitutes the names of the adoptive parents for the birth parents. The original birth certificate and adoption records can be opened only by a court order and only for "just cause." Recently, however, three states have developed open adoption records, and more than 30 other states have developed mutual consent registries.1 The exact statutes regarding mutual consent registries vary from state to state, but the basic concept allows adult adoptees and birth parents to register their desire to meet each other. If a mutual consent is achieved, identifying information can be released and a meeting may be facilitated. Some states require both parties to register independently. Other states allow a state agency to locate the birth parent(s) to determine whether consent will be granted to release information to the adult adoptee.1

scholarly journals Post-adoption Contact and Relationships with Birth Family Members

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-197
Author(s):  
Harriet Ward ◽  
Lynne Moggach ◽  
Susan Tregeagle ◽  
Helen Trivedi
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adult Adoptees ◽  
Adoptive Families ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Birth Family ◽  
Children's Identity

AbstractThe chapter draws on data collected through responses to an online survey concerning 93 adoptees (44% of the cohort), completed on average 18 years after placement, and interviews focusing on 24 adult adoptees. Face-to-face post-adoption contact was a legal requirement. After placement with adoptive families, 93% of adoptees had contact with birth family members; at follow-up, 56% still saw at least one member of their birth family; 69% of both adoptees and adoptive parents thought contact was ultimately beneficial. There was minimal evidence of contact with birth parents destabilising placements. However, it introduced a ‘painful transparency’ for all parties and could be problematic. Over time, contact supported children’s identity needs by incorporating knowledge of their antecedents and could mitigate their difficulties with attachment, separation and loss. It forced all parties to engage with one another and helped adoptees achieve closure.

scholarly journals “I’m More Than Just Adopted”: Stories of Genealogy in Intercountry Adoptive Families

Genealogy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Sarah Richards
Keyword(s):  
Hague Convention ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Intercountry Adoption ◽  
Adoptive Families ◽  
Family Work ◽  
Birth Country ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Birth Family

In contrast to the historical ‘blank slate’ approach to adoption, current policy places significant emphasis on providing children with knowledge; family history; biological connections; stories, a genealogy upon which to establish an authentic identity. The imperative for this complex, and often incomplete, genealogy is also explicit within the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption established in 1993 to ensure that intercountry adopted children will be provided with a genealogical ‘heritage’. Yet, despite the recurring dominance of this approach, ‘heritage’ remains an ambiguous dictum which holds the expectation that adopted children should have access to any available birth/first family information and acquire cultural competence about an often distant and removed birth country. Providing such heritage becomes the responsibility of intercountry adoptive parents. It is therefore unsurprising that this role has become part of how intercountry adoptive parents perform and display their parenting and family practices before and after adoption (Richards 2014a; 2018). Such family work is explicit in the stories that parents and children coconstruct about birth family, abandonment, China, and the rights of adopted children to belong first and foremost to a birth country. Using qualitative data provided by a social worker, eleven girls aged between five and twelve, and their parents, this article explores the role and changing significance of narratives as familial strategies for delivering such heritage obligations. Outlined in this discussion is the compulsion to provide a genealogical heritage by adoptive parents which can ultimately be resisted by their daughters as they seek alternative and changing narratives through which to construct their belongings and identities.

scholarly journals The Early Growth and Development Study: A Prospective Adoption Study From Birth Through Middle Childhood

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 412-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie D. Leve ◽  
Jenae M. Neiderhiser ◽  
Daniel S. Shaw ◽  
Jody Ganiban ◽  
Misaki N. Natsuaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Growth ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adoptive Parent ◽  
Primary Study ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Development Study ◽  
Adoption Study

The Early Growth and Development Study is a prospective adoption study of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children recruited in two cohorts (N = 561 triads). The primary study aims are to examine how family, peer, and contextual processes affect children's adjustment, and to examine their interplay (mediation, moderation) with genetic influences. Participants were recruited through adoption agencies located throughout the United States following the birth of a child. Assessments are ongoing, in 9-month intervals until the child reaches 3 years of age and in 1-year intervals thereafter through age 9. Data collection includes the following primary constructs: child temperament, social behavior, school performance, mental health, and health; birth and adoptive parent personality characteristics, mental health, competence, stress, health, context, substance use, parenting, and marital relations; and pregnancy use of drugs and maternal stress during pregnancy. DNA and salivary cortisol samples have also been collected. Analyses have indicated evidence for genotype-environment interactions during early childhood. Study procedures, sample representativeness (including tests of potential confounds in the adoption design), and an overview of findings to date are summarized, and future plans are described.

When Love is Not Enough: Parenting an Adopted Child with Mental Illness

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele D. Hanna ◽  
Erin Boyce ◽  
Diane Mulligan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Residential Treatment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Treatment Center ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Adopted Child ◽  
Adoptive Families

This article presents the results of a qualitative study designed to explore the experiences of adoptive parents who placed an adopted child with mental illness in a residential treatment center (RTC). Twenty-four adoptive families from across the United States who placed an adopted child in residential treatment were interviewed. The adopted children represented various types of adoption including public child welfare, domestic infant, and intercountry adoption. Parents reported feeling victimized by their child and by the very systems designed to help them, including child welfare, mental health, health care, and education. The findings reveal signs of trauma in the adoptive parents as a result of their experiences. The article concludes with recommendations from adoptive parents for adoption, mental health, and residential treatment professionals who work with adopted children and their families.

scholarly journals Comparison Between The Position Of Adopted Children In Islamic Law Inheritance Based On Islamic Law Compilation (KHI) With The Book Of Civil Law

Jurnal Akta ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Agil Aladdin ◽  
Akhmad Khisni
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Adopted Child ◽  
Biological Parents ◽  
Biological Children ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Article 5

This research aims to knowing position adopted child in Islamic Law Compilation with the Book of Civil Law; and Similarities and Differences position adopted children in inheritance of Islamic Law Compilation with the Book of Civil Law; This research method using normative juridical research with comparative approach (comparative). The results were obtained conclusions from Islamic Law Compilation in terms of inheritance, uninterrupted lineage adopted children with biological parents, who turned just the responsibility of the biological parents to the adoptive parents. The adopted child does not become heir of adopted parents. In Gazette No. 129 Of 1917. In Article 5 through Article 15. The position adopted child found in Article 12 to equate a child with a legitimate child of the marriage of the lift. According to the Civil Law for the adopted child the same as for biological children. While in KHI adopted children get as much as 1/3 of the estate left by his adoptive parents (Article 209 KHI) exception has been assigned the consent of all the heirs.Keywords: Heritage; Adopted; Testament.

Facebook as Facilitator or Foe

2019 ◽  
pp. 313-340
Author(s):  
Abbie E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Birth Family

This chapter examines parents’ use of social media, such as Facebook, with respect to the birth family. Some adoptive parents engaged Facebook as a means of establishing or maintaining reciprocal contact with birth parents and other birth family members; thus, it was used to sustain relationships. Others engaged it “passively” (e.g., as a means of finding out details about the birth family). Still others did not desire or pursue such contact, often citing concerns about boundaries. The chapter also addresses parents’ ideas about their children’s future relationships with their birth family—relationships possibly facilitated by social media and maintained without parental oversight or monitoring.

Communication patterns between parents and children: Comparing mothers and fathers in different learner contexts

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1223-1246 ◽  
Author(s):  
LARA PIERCE ◽  
FRED GENESEE ◽  
KARINE GAUTHIER ◽  
MARIE-EVE DUBOIS
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Learning Situation ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
Interaction Styles ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Internationally Adopted Children ◽  
Internationally Adopted

ABSTRACTLanguage use and joint attention (JA) strategies were examined during interactions between francophone mothers and fathers and either their birth children (n = 10) or their internationally adopted children from China (n = 8), once when the children were 15 months old and again at 20 months, on average. Results showed that mothers engaged in more JA episodes and tended to talk more with their children than did fathers; however, this was influenced by the language-learning situation of the child. Specifically, the adoptive parents engaged more with their children than did the birth parents, and the behaviors of the internationally adopted mothers and fathers were more similar to each other than to those of the birth parents, arguably to support their children's unique language-learning situation. However, in contrast to a previous study that examined JA with adoptive mothers, the adoptive fathers’ interaction styles with their children at 15 months were not related to children's vocabularies at 20 months as has been observed for mothers.

UNRELATED ADOPTION IN HONG KONG: PROFILE AND EMERGING ISSUES

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
GRACE PO-CHEE KO
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Birth Parents ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emerging Issues ◽  
Welfare Department ◽  
Political Background

This is the first systematic study of adoption in Hong Kong. It examines the changing profile of non-relative adoption in 1987 to 1993 as shown by the files of 486 successful non-relative adoption cases that were analysed. Characteristics of the adoptive parents, the birth parents and the adopted children are presented in descriptive statistics and their inter-relationships are pointed out. The findings are discussed in the light of the changing scene of adoption work against the socio-economic-political background of Hong Kong. A series of recommendations, based on the findings of the study, to the Social Welfare Department are made. 这是香港第一个对领养作有系统的研究。本文分析了486个文件夹，并勾划出1987至1993年间非亲属领养在转变中的剪影。 本文更发表了有关领养父母、生父母及被领养儿童的特徵和描述性统计数据，更指出了其间的关系。就研究所得结果，以社会、经济和政治作背景，本文讨论了领养工作在香港的改变，也向社会福利署作出了连串的建议。

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