TAPLINK

Support for
Pennsylvania
Adoptive & Foster Families

Taproot issue 44 - May 2003

Openness in adoption today is commonplace. Openness implies at least some amount of sharing of personal information between adoptive and biological families. This sharing can involve contact by email, phone, or letters; sharing holidays; or stopping by after work. When children have contact with their biological families, these relationships can overflow into the school environment.

In a fall activity, students in my daughter’s class were asked to tell what they were thankful for. My seven-year-old daughter said she was thankful for her new birth brother. When asked what she meant, she explained that her birth mother had just had a baby. I wasn’t there to see the expression on the adult’s face, but she did take me aside later and whisper that my daughter had mentioned a “birth mother” and she just didn’t know “what to do.” Rather than worry about how the teacher had reacted, I chose to view this as an opportunity to educate.

When parents know a great deal about their child’s birth parents and the circumstances surrounding their child’s birth, they have to make decisions about how much information to share with significant people in their child’s life. One general guideline for parents is not to tell anyone information they haven’t told their children. One day after school, I was chatting with the mother of my son’s classmate. I mentioned going to an adoption group activity. This mother’s first comment was, “Oh, I didn’t know your son was adopted.” (Sometimes I forget that not everyone in our small school knows that we are an adoptive family). But the next comment is what amazed me. She asked, “Does your son know he’s adopted?” My son is nine. Apparently, they had decided not to tell their daughter that she was adopted until she was “old enough.” This was obviously another opportunity to try to educate. As disappointing as it was to me to know that this mother had been keeping such a major secret from her child, what followed was more disappointing. At least three other adults (parents and teachers) approached me in the next six months to tell me that this girl was adopted.

A second guideline is to recognize that parents don’t owe anyone else personal information about their children or their children’s background. Neither should they be asked questions that sound more appropriate coming from an afternoon talk show host. For example, parents may have a need to discuss their child’s adoption at teacher conference time because of issues around adoption. But they shouldn’t be put in the position of having to defend or condemn the choices of their child’s birth mother. “Do your child’s birth sister and brother have the same father?” is a question that should not have been asked at a teacher conference, or anywhere. 

Many adopted children wish they knew more about their birth parents or their early years. But for children in open adoptions, the issues are different. Sometimes school assignments raise questions about how much information to share. Next year my son will be writing his autobiography. He will have to decide whether to include his birth parents, their spouses, their children, his birth aunts and uncles who are close to his age, or either set of birth grandparents.

The bottom line is to talk to other adoptive families, listen to others, to your teachers, and especially to your children. Then, when it comes to deciding what and how much to say, follow your gut instinct and go from there.

Becky Judd is the mother of three school-aged children. She and her husband Bill adopted two of their children at birth through private adoption. They maintain contact with their children’s birth families.

Reprinted from FAIR newsletter, Summer 2002