"Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been." --Wayne Gretzky

Adopters Against Adoption

"My wife and I cannot have children though we want them very much. We have tried everything for 15 years to no avail. Still, I am morally opposed to adoption and would like to see it abolished. Perhaps then fewer people would recommend adoption as a "just as good alternative."
- Posted by Richard T. Elmore, Adopter, Spearfish, S.D., USA, 5/31/07, on AbolishAdoption.com Petition Comment pages.

ADOPTER EXPLAINS "WHY I'M ANTI-ADOPTION"
From an Interview with Sheila Grove, 12/29/02
by Lori Carangelo

By coincidence, Sheila phoned me wanting to know if there is a local support group of adopters for frank discussion about problems encountered while raising adopted children. I suggested we start a forum online via this webpage.

"At first," explained Sheila, "I hesitated to express my views about adoption except among adoption-affected friends in private. Sharing my thoughts online is a big step. I was concerned that other adoptive parents 'might hate me' before knowing me and undesrtanding where I'm coming from. But I'm finding out that I'm not alone in my feelings and views. I spoke to a friend today who has two nieces both adopted. One girl is a severe diabetic which the parents were never told at the time of the adoption. The girl has had two liver transplants because this information was withheld at the time of adoption. I feel so frustrated and know I am not alone. And I know it was the same for adult adoptees and their parents who have gradually 'come out of the closet' over the years, to 'open up' their adoptions and the secrets kept under seal so long. I see more and more adoptive parents supporting 'open records.' I think it's time that adoptive parents to began an honest dialogue about adoption itself."

In "Desert Hot Springs Woman Stabbed," (The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, 8/7/93, page A-3), staff writer Stephanie McKinnon wrote:

"Twenty-four year old ..... was in critical condition from multiple stab wounds believed inflicted by an assailant as a result of a drug deal gone bad."

But McKinnon didn't get the whole story. The twenty-four year old in the newsclip was Sheila's adopted daughter. The photo at the top of this page was taken 4 years prior to the stabbing incident, when we were on the local news lobbying support for an open adoption records bill in California.

Sheila remembered "We told television viewers why my husband and I support her efforts to find her mother and I said to local primetime TV viewers.

'If I had adopted a dog, I would have known more than I am allowed to know about my own adopted daughter!'"

I asked Sheila if she now sees the problems with adoption are not only about secrecy.

"Yes, but I also see that the problems are not magically cured by opening a sealed record decades after an adoption, nor by our children finally meeting the mother they've never known--though they still need to do so. At the time of the stabbing, I knew that her stab wound was self-inflicted--one of many suicide attempts of the past 3 years during which she had not found her mother and which included slashing her own throat and wrists."

From her hospital bed in ICU, she told AmFOR that she still wanted to find her mother. In just 24 hours, by "pulling some strings," AmFOR located this adoptee's mother who immediately flew from San Francisco to be at her daughter's bedside and they began what was hoped to be a healing process. But despite what appeared to be an "Oprah happy reunion," drugs and the hurdles imposed by post-adoption relationships didn't bring them the healing that even adoption-oriented psychologists have come to expect--and not for Sheila.

"In fact," Sheila said, "I was entirely left out of my daughter's life from then on. I was no longer 'mother,' or 'mom.' I have to admit this change didn't begin with their reunion. There was always the feeling that something wasn't quite right as we became more estranged. Certainly we did everything within reason to show her our love and nurturing. We never withheld any information about her adoption or pre-adoption past from her, but neither was anything significant told to us. We told her she was adopted as soon as she was old enough to understand what 'adopted' meant. But it was obvious that she had had other parents. We're small Italians and she has a large frame and Scandinavian features. She seemed to just be resigned to the fact that she was with us."

I asked Sheila why she decided to speak out now.

"My perspectives on adoption have been evolving over the years since we adopted her. We were misled by the adoption industry that adoption is a 'quick fix' for a child's and parents' problems. And that all a child needs is love to 'adjust' to loss of a biological reality and to 'adjust' to strangers becoming her 'new parents' despite that she was so physically and emotionally different from us. And that somehow her reunion with her mother would put a bandaid on all the hurt she felt for more than two decades believing she wasn't wanted.

Our adopted daughter was also misled by the adoption industry to believe she could raise her own two children with no family medical nor social history to relate to, just as I had to.

Today, I would like to see a local support group for adopters to help them cope with and understand troubled adoptees.

Today, you could say that I am 'anti-adoption' because, had I to do it over again, I would have opted for legal guardianship, or remained a foster parent, rather than burden our daughter and us with the inequities that the adoption system imposed on all of us. I wish we could call the "adopted parents" "custodial parents" which I think is more correct. Do you agree? We have custody of the child and only that.'"

Copyright by Lori Carangelo 2002.

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ADOPTION, A CAUTIONARY TALE
by Nancy (CA) (therabbitts@cox.net)

My husband and I adopted two children from birth. The adoptions were open adoptions and we had met the parents. My son is caucasian and my daughter Caucasian/Hispanic. They are both beautiful children. The birth parents filled out the health forms for the adoption process. There were some gross omissions. However, since the birth parents were 18, how much realistically can they be expected to know about their genetic background? It was complicated by the fact that our son's mother was herself adopted at age two. We were encourage by what looked to be two normal births with good APGAR scores.

Our son seemed to develop normally in the beginning. He walked very late though...16 months. He also potty trained late at 4 years old. By the time he was four, he was seeing a neurologist and was diagnosed with developmental delays of unspecified origins.

In the meantime, our daughter who had the colic from hell the first 10 months of her life was not out-growing the terrible twos. We had moved on to the terrible threes. She could not be kept in a time out chair unless she was strapped in the car seat. By age three I was taking her to see a therapist who diagnosed a child/parent relationship problem. Her problems continued to dominate our family life. Our son's care which I might have pursued more aggressively was relegated to a lot of physical activity to help develop his deficit skills with balance, hopping, skipping, etc.

Our daughter continued to have a hard time of it and at age 6 she came to me with a red mark on her neck and showed me how she tried to hang herself. She cried that night for four hours straight. She was put on Prozac. Later she was diagnosed with ADHD and put on Adderal. She became extremely manic and at age 8 she chased her brother through the house with garden shears and ended up hospitalized. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and begun on medications for that.

My son had been diagnosed as ADHD and was also on medication for that. He experienced angry outburst almost daily and the physician's response to that was to further increase his medication. This year, my son now 13, was switched to a newer ADHD medication. Well, it made him psychotic and he ended up in the hospital and returned to us with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and Asperger's syndrome (high functioning autism).

Both children have significant learning disabilities. We fought tooth and nail with the school district to give us the much needed services. Still we could not avoid a legal action. The school district refused to acknowledge either of my children's diagnosis or include it in their IEP's (Individualized Education Plan). We have had to spend a lot of money on tutoring, private school, etc. and often at the expense of what would be more pleasureable activities.

Our son and daughter are doing relatively well now. We still have touchy and sensitive days rather frequently but nothing like in the past. The toll on our family has been enormous. My husband and I both have stress-related disease processes now. There have been days I wanted to call it quits. Because our adoptions were private, we get no help from the state. Having a lot of money to throw at some of the problems like education would be helpful. My daughter was also subsequently diagnosed with partial complex seizures.

In the year(s) since our children were adopted we learned some of the following: our daughter was born with cocaine in her system (hospital let us leave with her, never telling us), she has an older brother with lots of problems and raging. The mother of my son is a diagnosed sociopath. His father now in his early thirties is barely functional and his mother describes him as having been her "problem child".

I love my children and my life wouldn't be as enriched without them. But I would never adopt again or advise adoption....

I used to be naive enough to believe heredity and environment played about a 50/50 role in personality development but that is no longer true. I surmise it to be more like 90/10...

-- Nancy R. (CA)
adoptive mom to Evan, 13, bp and aspergers and Julia, 11, bp, seizure disorder and both with ld's

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CT ADOPTER CLAIMS "WRONGFUL ADOPTION" by J. Block-Gianini
(Adopters in CT and Nationwide Can Add Their Comments at AbolishAdoption.com petition page)

I adopted a boy from Connecticut DCYF. After destroying my home and my life, I could take no more and made the state take him back. They tried to charge me with neglect. They couldn't prove it though. I did pay a lawyer a lot of money to not go along with their bullying tactics. This boy told a state social worker he was homicidal and until she asked him 4 or five times if he was sure he was homicidal he said he didn't think so. I of course had him leave my home. My sister, a third year law student, discovered recently that he was on Risperdal; they said it was for PTSD...It is for schizophrenia, and I now realize that is what he has definitely. I am looking for any people that are in Connecticut with these tort claims as I am going to pursue a case against the state of CT for "wrongful adoption." -- Joanna Block Gianini

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WRONGFUL ADOPTION, WRONGFUL VICTIMS
contributed by Carrie, 5-18-03
jmb62959@yahoo.com

Please feel free to share my story and email address with anyone you feel is interested. I know someone at PrimeTime who is interested in doing a story if you know any families who would be willing to tell their stories on-air.

I am part of the ever-increasing number of adoptive families who have been lied to concerning their children's pasts, with those lies leading to the serious injury of members of the adoptive family.

In my case, my youngest adoptive son was brutally raped by an older adoptive son. This older son has been declared a serious threat to society by Illinois DCFS. He will be on their sex offender list for 50 years, which means it is illegal for him to be in contact with those he might victimize. Now DCFS, as per their usual policy, plan to remove him from the locked residential treatment facility where he is temporarily housed, and move him to a regular foster home. His current therapist says that this kid has made no progress and has a 100% chance of reoffending.

This policy is not limited to Illinois, but occurs regularly throughout the U.S. I am looking for families in similar situations who would be willing to share their stories. I have several newspapers and a national news program that are interested in helping to get this story out. Most people are afraid to speak out.

Yes, I do realize that my son who is now a sex offender is just as much a victim as the children he assaults. The point I want to make is that the chances of such a child becoming an offender is much higher if they themselves do not receive the treatment they need. When child welfare agencies refuse to acknowledge that sexual abuse of children even exists, usually due to monetary concerns, they are creating a new generation of offenders.

Unfortunately my son is now a violent, serial sex offender at the age of 14. I love my son, but I know he is dangerous. I am trying to do what I can to prevent other families from going through similar situations.

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CHILDREN RETURNED BY ADOPTERS - THE PERFECT CHILD "48 Hours Looks At A Tragic Tale Of Adoption", 2/10/00

The following story is excerpted from:
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/02/10/48hours/main159165.shtml

".....(CBS) Crystal and Jesse wanted a family. So they decided to adopt. They went all the way to Russia and adopted two children. But their dream took a strange, difficult turn. They say one of the children, a nine-year-old girl, turned out to have deep emotional problems. Could they cope with their new dilemma?

.....Crystal and Jesse say that the adoption agency misled them about their adopted daughter's condition. But the agency, in turn, says that it gave the couple all the information it had, and says it is not to blame. Meanwhile, Crystal and Jesse say they are running out of  money to pay for their daughter's medical care.  ..... As the frustration mounts, Crystal and Jesse decide to return to Russia with their daughter...."

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ADOPTIVE FAMILIES CLAIM STATE BETRAYED THEM
Excerpted from KSL-News story, 12/10/2000
web.ksl.com/dump/news/cc/dcfs.htm

Several Utah families who opened their homes to the most troubled children in the foster care system, now say they are victims of betrayal by the State of Utah.

They claim social workers deliberately misled them about the true condition of the children, and now, the state won't pay money it said it would pay to help treat those kids.

News Specialist Jill Atwood has been investigating their claims, and has this special report.

These families actually adopted these special needs kids with the understanding that the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) would always be there,. But now a lawyer representing five of these families in a lawsuit against the state says this is a blatant case of broken promises.

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PARENTS SUE AFTER DISCOVERING ADOPTED CHILDREN HAD BEEN ABUSED
Excerpted from story by Shana Gruskin, Sun-Sentinel, Florida, 7/18/02
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-adoption071802.story

"It wasn't until they noticed their then 3-year-old son cringing at the sound of a squeaky bed that the Garcia-Bengocheas suspected something was seriously wrong with the three children they'd adopted from the state's foster care system.

The sound, the boy told his adoptive parents, reminded him of the nightly sexual abuse he and his older brothers suffered at the hands of their former foster father, Hector Rosa.

..... A false light was cast on these boys' background in their behavior and personality by the department,' Block said. "It was a slick marketing job so they can dump these children on the adoptive parents. And that's what they did, they literally dumped these kids."

"....The boys also broke their adoptive mother's jaw, tried to poison her and intentionally injured their older, previously adopted brother, ' Block said."

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ADOPTIVE PARENTS OF CONVICTED KILLER SUE SOCIAL WORKERS
Accuse agency of hiding birth mother's insanity
from CNN Correspondent Jennifer Auther, 10/27/99
http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/27/strohmeyer.suit.01/

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The adoptive parents of a self-confessed killer have filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County and its adoption workers, claiming social workers withheld crucial information that would have stopped them from adopting him as an infant.

Just before he was set to go on trial for murder a little more than a year ago, Jeremy Strohmeyer dropped his defense and told the court he killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson with premeditation and deliberation in a casino restroom in Primm, Nevada, in May of 1997.

"It could have been prevented by me, had I been armed with the knowledge I have now -- but also by others, had they done the right thing," Strohmeyer said at his sentencing hearing.

The knowledge he referred to was that his biological mother had severe mental problems.

.....The couple contend they were misled by the county of Los Angeles, specifically in a letter in which the agency characterized the mental illness in Jeremy Strohmeyer's biological mother as a manifestation of drug abuse.  That letter came six months after the adoption was approved.

.....During his sentencing hearing, he told the court that had he known earlier about his birth parents he could have sought treatment for addictive tendencies and a possible genetic predisposition toward mental illness.

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ABUSED BOY'S ADOPTIVE PARENTS SUE COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICES
by Phuong Ly, Staff Writer, Washignton Post , 11/1/01, p. GZ03
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A19440-2001Oct31

The adoptive parents of a Germantown boy who was tortured by his biological father and the father's girlfriend in one of  the most gruesome abuse cases in recent Montgomery County history have filed a lawsuit against county social services officials.

..... The adoptive parents -- identified in court papers as Eric and Catherine Doe -- are seeking $10 million to pay for the continuing medical expenses of the boy, referred to as Richard Doe, now 10 years old. The Does became Richard's foster parents in April 1997 and adopted him in June 2000."

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WRONGFUL ADOPTION SUIT by ADOPTERS
Adoptive Parents Sue After Adopting Son of Lobotomized Schizophrenic

NEW YORK, Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- After eight years of litigation, the first wrongful adoption case in New York will go to trial on November 16, 1999.

http://www.adoptionnews.org/news_by_country_detail.asp?NewsID=105
Juman v. Louise Wise Services,  620 N.Y.S.2d 371 (A.D. 1 Dept. 1995)
http://www.fpsol.com/adoption/legal/juman2.html

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"NO STRANGERS," by Anonymous
Excerpted from the Fall 1994 Birthparents Today newsletter,
reprinted in its entirety on Internet at http://teenadoptees.freeservers.com/custom.html

.....The day we received the call that a baby boy was available was, to both of us,  all our childhood Christmases wrapped into one moment. Our happiness knew no bounds. Finally, we were real parents with a baby to prove it! Our only concern was the medical history of the families. Other than that, we made it clear we were not interested in knowing anything about the girl and boy who made our son possible. He was after all, OURS now.

..... My husband and I loved and adored him. We didn't discuss the fact that John was adopted. He was simply OURS.....

..... Perhaps my mistakes can spare another birthmother, another adopted child, or another adoptive parent from the losses each of us has endured. Our children are not a possession, and we are not their keepers. Parenting is a choice, not a job for which compensation can be demanded in terms of respect and love. Parents can only hope they have earned those things. It is far more important that the children we parent become well-adjusted, coping, caring, honest, motivated human beings, and that the individual they were are birth blossoms into being the best of who they are genetically. We have a responsibility to clothe, feed, and shelter our children, but foremost we must respect them. In the case of an adopted child, we must also respect their genetic bonds and the needs, which grow out of separation from them. To do less is to disrespect the very basics of who they are."

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TWO ADOPTIONS END IN RETURN TO SENDER
Unwanted Children / From Hungary to America, and Back by Peter S. Green, International Herald Tribune (8-11-98) http://www.iht.com

When they left the state children's home here in 1996, 7-year-old Gabor and 8-year-old Karoly were looking forward to a bright future as the newly adopted sons of two American couples in the wealthy suburbs of Connecticut.

In March, the boys, their names now officially Gabriel Petrosino and Jeremy Harper and their language now English, found themselves back in Hungary, delivered with little ado to the doorstep of Budapest' s main orphanage, each with two bags of clothing and toys, and a lifetime of emotional scars.

Their adoptive parents had simply had enough. They said the boys were children from hell, violent and emotionally disturbed. Unwilling and unable to fit in, they were destroying the lives of their adoptive families.

Adoptions are not meant to be dissolved like mistaken marriages, and under a United Nations treaty protecting children, they cannot be. But legal loopholes in both Hungary and the United States, neither of which has signed the treaty, means that canceling the two boys' adoptions was no more difficult than an average divorce.

The two boys are now back in foster care, but Hungarian officials say the case has revealed the dark side of Hungary's adoption system, which does not properly prepare or screen prospective parents and which they suspect is riddled with bribery, corruption and even baby- selling schemes.

Two lawyers for the parents said that the parents spirited the boys back to Hungary and asked that their adoptions be annulled days before child welfare authorities in Connecticut were to remove one boy from his family. The lawyers said Gabor falsely accused his parents of abuse because he wanted to be sent back to Hungary.

But Hungarian officials said that returning the two, like a pair of faulty video games, was a cruel shock, and that new homes should have been found for them in America.

All that the parents said when they left the boys at the entrance to the Budapest children's home was ''bye,'' reported the parents' Hungarian lawyer, Istvan Fekete....

''Now, adoption seems to be a commercial transaction,'' said Maria Herczog, director of Hungary's National Institute of Family and Children. ''Parents can choose children and bring them home, and if they don' t like them they can bring them back.'' And that, Mrs. Herczog said, is devastating for the children. ''They have to learn for the second or third time that they are not wanted, '' she said. ''They learn they are not good enough for anyone, to be loved. And when they grow up, can you see what good fathers they will be?'' Hungarian authorities are waging a court battle against annulling Gabor and Karoly's adoptions, fearing a tide of unhappy foreign parents will simply return their problematic adoptive children. The parents' American lawyer, Sheri Paige, said the boys were so emotionally damaged before they reached Connecticut that their adoptive parents had to send them back or risk destroying their own families. Mrs. Paige said both boys suffer from ''attachment disorder,'' the effect of spending infancy without the emotional attachment to a mother.

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Comments by Adopters on the"Abolish Adoption" Petition

• "We adopted a three year old girl, who turned out to have severe Reactive Attachment Disorder. The system was unprepared to support her or us, only to move one more child from place A to place B and justify their existence." --Jo Cunningham, Lower Lake, California

• "My husband and I have recently adopted an infant through open adoption.... I feel that the government should not interfere with the birth parents unless it is a proven case of abuse/neglect" --Gina Mason, Raleigh, North Carolina

• "I am the adoptive mom and have a first hand view of the damage adoption can do to a person I love so dearly. My daughter has a right to know her birth family and her birth mother refuses and denies this is all true. How could she do this to my lovely adopted daughter. Also the law sucks concerning sealed records. Both of should be able to look at these records. After all I am the one who so foolishly gave up my rights before the adoption. and should have a right to change my mind. --Jeanne Johnson

"PATHOLOGICAL PARENTING" - an article by Kerry Semon, Registered Nurse and adoptee: http://www.poundpuplegacy.org/node/2940

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Date Last Updated: April 21, 2008
© 2001, 2002 and forward by Lori Carangelo.
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