Most Birth/First Mothers Want Contact but still the secrecy lingers on

How many mothers reject contact? It's a question that dogs us all involved in adoption reform, because when we lobby for open records for adopted people, we always hear ad nauseum about the first/birth mother in the closet who will drive her car in the river if she is "found out." And we know from our friends in the blogosphere, such as Triona and Ungrateful Little Bastard, that refusal for contact does happen!

It is hard for we first mothers to even imagine turning away--well, I was a searcher mother, so that was never an issue; Linda and Jane were sought by their daughters. So since none of us can even fathom the thought of rejecting our children, we wondered how many first mothers really want to stay in the closet. Who are these women? We were prodded in our quest, we admit, by a call from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute because they are updating their white paper For the Records: Restoring a Legal Right for Adult Adoptees.

A while back we heard from Jacy Boldebuck in Wisconsin where she does searches for the state for adoptees past eighteen, that she gets approximately a 50 percent refusal rate! Is there something in the water in Wisconsin that leads to these kinds of acts of random evil? Is there something they say to the mothers to prevent them from wanting contact? What is going on? From Indiana, I have a report of 70 percent acceptance rate; 30 percent refusal.

I found this hard to believe because it is so wholly off from everything else I have heard from sea to shining sea--as well as what kinds of statistics we can find. While these are anecdotal reports, here's what I've been hearing:

Confidential intermediary Linda Burns (read more at link) from Texas (pictured holding a sign on the right), said that she had done about a thousand searches and "finds" over the years, and in the end, she had no refusals to contact. A few reluctant at first, but in the end, no refusals in the end.

To find out more, I sent out a request on Adoption News Service to confidential intermediaries or anyone who does searches and asked about their refusal rate. The reaction was heart-warming:
from Searchquestamerica: a 92 percent acceptance.
Birth mother Marilyn Waugh in Kansas (where the records have never been sealed) says she does between 400-500 searches a year, and has done them for the past 18 years, and she finds about five women a year (approximately one percent) who do not want contact and refuse information.
Joe Collins, searcher extraordinaire based in New Jersey, says he has done about 2,500 searches and estimates the refusal rate at two percent.
And from Tina Peddie in California comes this response:

I have been an adoption search consultant, like I said, for over 25 yrs.... after being reunited with my son for 26 yrs .... and most of my people..my clients (who many I consider 'friends' as well.... ), ask me to make the initial phone call, esp the adoptees who are petrified to make that initial phone call to their birthmothers - even tho i talk with them at length and encourage them to make the call if they possibly CAN ...but most are too afraid to ... so I do it ... and I do believe that having an understanding, empathetic birthmother on the phone with them DOES HELP THEM, once they get thru the first few minutes ... even tho MOST are very happy to hear that their adult child is wanting contact.

My experience (even if I wasn't a b/mom) still seems to be that the majority DO WANT contact! There are those FEW that might be hesitant at first who it DOES seem to help to have me, another b/mom on the phone to talk with about it, that by the end of the call, are okay and relaxed about it, and perfectly okay to having contact ....

And, as I said, in 25 yrs, I have only had 2 or 3 who never would have contact with their child at ALL - and they all had one or two things in common: they were all ELDERLY (older than the average birthmom being found) ... and tended to be the very religious ones. But mainly ELDERLY, like now in their late 70s or 80s!

It's heartbreaking because I KNOW it doesn't have to be that way ... and the birthmothers do not have to carry around that fear, guilt and shame, that I know is what keeps them apart. They just cannot deal with it. And two of these adoptees are males in their 40s/50s, and they are sad about it, but not angry, hurt yes, and feel sad for their birthmother, that she has to hold this secret still. (But after her death, they both want to seek out their siblings by this mother, and I will help them. I feel they have that right.) And I know that that most likely those siblings will feel badly for their mother, that she had to carry this burden all alone, and that she couldn't share it with her husband or children all those years. Sad.

I know a C.I. who is a birthmother, who does a good job - but I don't know that all do. I don't think they put as much INTO CONTACT as we do - or if they have the same empathy, or keep them on the phone as I do ... just to keep them on the phone, talking, or 'listening' - if a birthmom starts off hesitating, I at least try to keep her on the phone by telling her about the adoptee as much as I can, just to keep her on the phone, and telling her what I know about the adoptee, making the adoptee 'real' to her... and it always turns things around. I just don't think C.I.'s go quite that far. That's prob. why they don't have the same, high 'success rate.'

Thanks for what you are doing!

Take care,

God bless!

Tina

What is so sorrowful are the adoptees who are rejected, when it appears that with the right kind of contact, the closeted birth mother would find the courage to come out into the light, fess up to her spouse, her family, her friends if she chooses to and give the adopted person the sense of completeness that he or she lacks.

CORRECTION: There is more than one woman in New Jersey upset over being contacted by her daughter conceived during a rape. Both have become poster women for birth mother anonymity from their children: Kathleen Hoy Foley, of Chatsworth, who is photographed here, and a woman from Atlantic City, both birthmother wretchedaires, are the two in question. The Atlantic City woman, whose name is not being published in the newspapers (but read comments below--apparently her name is Renee Blackwell) is suing the State of New Jersey's Department of Youth and Family Services for a million dollars for the pain and sorrow caused by being contacted by her daughter. Though she received a letter stating that her daughter was looking for her, she did not respond, and months later, the daughter showed up after allegedly receiving her name from the state. Hmm...just wondering: The daughter could have found the woman's identity through other means...there are successful searchers.

As adoptee-rights advocate Pam Hasegawa has noted in newspaper reports, the woman could have gotten a a restraining order; instead she is suing for a million bucks. My heart aches for her daughter. For both daughters. Children of rape are wholly innocent and not responsible for their parents' actions.

It takes all kinds. What I think about these woman is not suitable for a family newspaper. Er, blog.-lorraine