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Sharon Berg A life in words ... |
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Family Matters
Adoption Disclosure Seeking Reunion: A Personal Position
~ December 2005 ~
The past several years of public debate have demonstrated the fact that a great number of people feel access to adoption records in Ontario should be reviewed. It is my personal stand that they should be opened by the time the adopted child reaches the age of majority. My daughters have the right to know their brother, who was adopted at birth, for instance, even if 'I' signed away my rights to know him as his birth mother.
The great public debate over the issue of opening adoption records apparently centers on who has the greater rights... the child seeking information about his biological parents, or members of the birth family. In the latter group, there are a great number who would like to revisit the question, probably the majority... and a few who feel that disclosing information about biological birth parents would potentially ruin the lives of people who have moved onto other interests. The MPs in Ontario who reviewed the question were quite open about receiving several pleas to leave the records closed. A few of their constituents felt their home life would be upset if current wives and/or husbands became aware of an adopted child.
It is not an easy question to resolve... especially given the blanket promises offered during adoption procedures in the past. Yet, one has to ask... how often were the children involved in adoption given enough information about their biological parents to settle their own questions about the circumstances of their adoption? How often did the lack of information lead them to believe that they were both unplanned and unwanted when the circumstances of their adoption were something quite different?
Many years ago, when I traveled to The Banff School of Fine Arts as a writer participating in The advanced Writing Studio, I met two very talented young men. None of us knew each other prior to this meeting as participants in the school's Writing Studio. We were the first three to arrive among a dozen participants in the program. So, on our first evening there, we met for a drink and these thirty-something men launched into a conversation about what led them to a career as a writer. As it happened, both of these young authors felt their writing career was somehow related to the fact they had been adopted and did not know their true roots.
I had been listening to their conversation, participating from the edge (so to speak) as I sat with them. It soon became clear that both men were deeply hurt by the fact that they were adopted. Indeed, they both expressed a great anger towards their unknown mothers who (as they assumed) set personal interests ahead of their interests as a child.
At this point, I decided to reveal my own circumstances as the mother of a child I had released through adoption. I told them that I had no idea why their mothers had put them up for adoption, but in my case I had felt I was putting my child's interests ahead of my own when I offered him to a family who was in a far better position to care for him than I was. Indeed, in the early 1970s in Ontario it was another era socially; something those young men had not considered. At the time when I released my child for adoption, the children of mothers on their own (married or unmarried) suffered a great deal of social persecution. A father-less home was cast in a very different light socially just a few decades ago, and the women who led the father-less home were often unable to provide their child with the same opportunities as the majority when it came to either their standard of living or future education.
There is another, rarely spoken issue surrounding adopted children. Many of the young mothers involved were victims of abuse. This does not mean the children involved were necessarily the product of abuse, but the mothers may have felt they were either unworthy or unable to assume the care of a child. In the first half of the 1900s, and to some degree in the decades following, motherhood was a role cast in an evangelical light with strict social scripts. As I pointed out to those 30-something men in 1982, in the 1940s or 1950s their birth mothers may have felt their only clear option in providing for their sons' future was to release them for adoption.
That was certainly how I felt in 1973. Long before anyone spoke of surrogate parents I counseled and consoled myself with the knowledge that I was delivering a child to a couple who could not have their own. Yet, my two daughters, Ila and Kirsten, were raised knowing that they had a brother from the time that they were toddlers. We have each dreamed of a reunion and searched for my son, born in Brampton in 1973, throughout the years. Both of my daughters and I wrote to the committee reviewing the question of adoption disclosure during the summer of 2005. Now - finally - there is a chance that we WILL be united as a biological family in the near future.
On November 1, 2005, the Minister of Community and Social Services in Ontario, Sandra Pupatello, announced that a New Adoption Information Law improved the rights to receive information for both Adoptees and their birth parents. The new legislation attempts to balance the right to know with the rights of people requesting protection of their privacy. Bill 183 updates the provincial adoption information laws by recognizing that the right to information is not the same as the right to a relationship.
In cases were there is a concern for personal safety disclosure will not be made. However, in other cases, those who are 18 years old or older do have the right to obtain copies of their original birth and adoption records. Birth parents will also have access to those records after they reach the age of 19, including information about their name after adoption. This right to information is balanced by the right for any party involved to place a "no contact" notice on their file which is backed up by a hefty fine.
The new legislation will come into effect in about 18 months from its passing, or about May, 2008. It is important to note that this new legislation will also provide adoptees with greater access to medical records and personal history... something that other members of the community often take for granted. "Imagine not knowing about your personal history," Pupatello says. "imagine not knowing if the child you gave up has had a good life."
The minister is very astute. This last concern has plagued me personally for decades. I was offered certain promises when I gave my child up for adoption. Prior to his birth, the non-identifying information about the family who would adopt him stated his parents were in particular professions and had specific personal interests. I was made to feel I had some part in placing him with that family, that my stated concerns were taken into account. This, I felt, would somewhat guarantee he would be supported in becoming the best he could be. Decades later, the information I received about who adopted him was very different. Quite honestly, I felt betrayed by the Children's Aid Society. They had betrayed my trust as a child, when I sought their assistance in leaving my own abusive home. Now they had betrayed my trust as a birthmother.
While I don't think that the change in his circumstances was necessarily detrimental to my son... the pain I feel is rooted in the fact that I just don't know how he fared. I thought that I was doing what was best for him. Now I have reason to question whether he became one of those many unfortunate children who is passed from family to family and never quite thrives. It is my constant worry that he was unable to achieve his full potential, or ... survive. There is nothing in the old system of secrecy and reluctance to disclose information that allows me to discover whether he is even still alive!
So I, for one, welcome this new adoption disclosure legislation with open arms. I can barely wait to discover the truth about what happened to the son I released to The Children's Aid system in 1973. I had such high hopes that he would be provided with a better life than I could ever hope to provide for him! That remains my prayer. Indeed, what I hope to discover is that he did do well... without me.
But the other side of the coin is his own questions... It is my desire to assure him that he was never forgotten, never abandoned, and that he always has another place of belonging... his birth family... however he wishes to define his belonging, when he is ready and able to meet us.
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