“For all those interested in the universal questions of who we are, where do we belong, to whom as we connected, to whom do we matter and who matters to us, and why, this is a book to be studied and savoured.” Professor David Howe
Searching for family members raises many troubling questions:
What do adoptive parents think of their son or daughter's search for birth parents and other family members?
What was the impact of the adoption on the birth mothers and how do they react on being approached?
Where do birth fathers fit in to all of this? And how do adopted people handle having a birth and an adoptive family?
This study is the first in the UK to investigate the experiences of both birth mothers who initiated a search for the child that they placed for adoption and birth mothers who have not searched, but were contacted by the adopted person. The book gives a comprehensive picture of the adoption experience and the impact and outcome of the search and reunion process for all the key players: birth mothers, adopted people and adoptive parents.
The study was based on the experiences of 93 adoptive parents, 93 birth mothers, 126 adopted people and 15 birth fathers. It also examines and contrasts the thoughts, feelings and experiences of:
matched pairs of adopted people and their birth mothers and
adopted people and their adoptive parents,
matched triads of birth mothers, adopted people and adoptive parents.
In all cases the study highlights shared and different reactions, feelings and evaluations of personal experience. A small group of birth fathers also add their views.
This important and original study provides new information and fascinating insights for all those who have a personal and professional interest in adoption and in the search and reunion experience.
Highlights from the research:
85% of adopted people reported that the contact and reunion experience was a positive experience for them
50% of adopted people who had felt rejected for being placed for adoption reported that the feelings of rejection disappeared after contact; 68% said the same about experiencing feelings of loss
97% of adopted people said that meeting with their birth parents did not change they way they felt about their adoptive parents
Adoptive parents reported that contact and reunion had not affected their relationship with the adopted person.
None of the 93 birth mothers surveyed said she wished that she had not met her son or daughter.
John Triseliotis is Professor Emeritus and a child care and research consultant (previously at the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde), Julia Feast is Policy, Research and Development Consultant at BAAF (formerly at The Children's Society) and Fiona Kyle is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge.
