Adoptions are not
a simple matter of going to the adoption agency and picking out a child; there
are laws, records and background checks to be taken into account. The
experiences of adopted children vary from state to state with differing laws
concerning open and closed adoptions in each.
According to Lynda
Elkins, a legal assistant at Dove and Barton adoption law firm, closed and open
adoptions refer to whether or not private information is shared between the
birth mother and child.
A closed adoption
allows no information to be given to the child other than some background
medical history and reasons for the adoption, while an open adoption allows
child to communicate with and know information about the birth parent.
For senior mass
communication major Frances Parrish, her closed adoption gave her no
information about her birth mother other than a brief description of her
medical history and why she elected for adoption.
“I have a closed
adoption where I have the background of my birth mother for health reasons, and
she talks in this background about why she gave me up for adoption, what her
medical history was, as extensive as she knew … It’s just for health reasons,”
Parrish said.
The medical
history Parrish is talking about is not the same as a medical record. It is not
official; it is simply based on what the birth mother told the adoption agency.
“It’s best if you say medical
history, because you don’t get the exact record. It is all based on what they
tell you,” Parrish said.
This makes it difficult for
adoptees from closed adoptions to give medical information to doctors.
“I know I have to say when I go
to the doctor for the first time and they’re asking me genetic history and
stuff like that, I’m always sure to tell them, ‘I’m adopted,’ and then they
just say ‘Oh, clean slate.’”
Parrish said her birth mother
didn’t know her father, and never contacted him to tell him he had a child.
“She met a man and had a brief
encounter for one night only. That’s how they worded it in the background
check. It’s kind of funny. And voila, a child was born,” Parrish said.
Before Parrish,
she had three other children, one she gave up for adoption and the other two
she kept. She then had four children she aborted before getting pregnant with
Parrish and electing for adoption.
“I don’t know what
made her not want to abort me like all the others, but I’m kinda glad she
didn’t. I know she said in her statement
she was too proud I guess to ask for any kind of child support. She never had
child support I guess to take care of the other guys,” Parrish said.
Parrish said that
her adoptive mother did not want her to open her birth mother’s background
history until she was 21 because of her mother’s past.
“She wanted me to
understand everything because of the nature of my birth. It would be a lot
harder for me to take if I were 17, 16, 18, young girl who has never really had
a boyfriend, been in love, that sort of stuff. Never experienced that sort of
stuff, and you know, being 18 and not understanding. You know, why would you
just hook up with one person for one night and then not tell? I wouldn’t
understand it. And then, you know, the whole aborted children, all my other
brothers, it would have blown my mind,” Parrish said.
The adoption
process is not only extensive on adoptive home requirements but it is also
costly.
“It takes a year or two to get
approved for adoption. So they had to have like, caseworkers came out to their
house, they surveyed the house, they interviewed people. They had to have so
many character references from people,” Parrish said.
According
to South Carolina legislation, the adoption process requires a fee to the
adoptive parents for reimbursement of the temporary guardian, investigation
fees to make sure the parents are fit to have the child, a separate fee just
for the adoption, attorney fees and child-placement agency fees.
“They
had to have bank statements, like how much income they had. Stuff about their
grandparents, what their family and friends were like, was the house baby-proof,
was the house baby-safe, that sort of thing,” Parrish said.
According to
Parrish, her birth mother is not her mother.
“To me your real
parent is the person who takes care of you, so I don’t say, ‘my adoptive
parents,’ I say ‘my parents’ because they are my parents. They took care of me;
they raised me. And then the lady who birthed me is just the birth mother, the
lady who birthed me — nothing else.”
Parrish said when she was a child other
children were amazed that she was adopted.
“I can remember being 8 years old
at school talking to people, like talking to kids about it. But they thought I
was so cool. They were like, ‘I don’t understand,’ and I was trying to explain
it to them, how it all worked, it was really funny. I can just remember sitting
at the lunch table,” Parrish said.
The
older she gets the more adopted people she meets. Parrish said some people are
acquaintances and there are others she’s gotten to know.
“There’s
more of us than you think. Some of us are clearly visible, like kids adopted
from Korea or China into American families, and then there’s, you know, us
American adoptees. We look just like our adoptive parents, or real parents,
whatever you want to call them,” Parrish said.
