Mummy can't buy you love
A new law will make it easier for 'birth mothers' to trace their adopted children. But Mary Kenny wonders whether that is fair either to the children or to their 'adoptive mothers'
The Adoption and Children Bill, to be implemented this month, will make it easier for mothers whose children were adopted to trace their sons and daughters. All blood relatives will have the same right. Until now, the initiative in tracing has been left to adopted people. All this may seem eminently fair to biological — or birth — mothers, but what of the women who have adopted children, taken them into their families and brought them up as their own? How do they feel about the new arrangements?
'I feel a bit of a dinosaur about this,' says Vicky, the mother of two children in their teens, both adopted. 'I am a feminist; I read the Guardian; I am in favour of progressive measures, and I feel I should be wholeheartedly in favour of these new regulations, but . . . it worries me. It worries me for the sake of my children.
'I actually asked both of them what they would feel about their birth parents contacting them. My 17-year-old, who likes to act tough, shrugged and said, "Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind — maybe they'd give me some cash!" My 13-year-old, who is a sensitive type, said thoughtfully, "People might be longing to know what's happened to the children they've given birth to, but I wouldn't like anything to happen suddenly.'' That rather expresses the fears of many adoptive mothers: the dreaded vision of a strange woman waiting outside the school gates and announcing herself as the children's 'real' mother. (There was an episode in the TV serial Grange Hill which portrayed a birth mother locating her child in this way.) Marion, whose adopted children are now in their thirties, feels more inclined to accept the proposed changes, partly because her daughter and son are now married and settled with families of their own, and partly because she and her husband adopted their first child through a 'third-party adoption' procedure. That is, Marion and her husband knew the birth mother and her family, although the adoption was arranged through the proper legal channels. That first child is 'quite interested' in being approached by his birth mother, though he has never made the move himself. The second child has no interest in establishing a link with her birth parents, though she would probably not rebuff it.
'I feel such admiration for these birth mothers, who gave up their children for adoption — they were so brave,' says Marion. 'I wouldn't wish to deny them the chance of finding out about their children. They may just want to be reassured that they are all right. Mine are, I think, old enough to handle these things now, but when they were growing up they didn't want to be labelled "adopted". They always knew they were adopted, but they just didn't want to be put into a category. When my husband's name was to appear in a reference book, they wanted to be listed as our children, not as "by adoption".' When Marion's husband was seriously ill, his adopted children were as devoted to him as any biological offspring could have been.
The reaction of the children themselves to the new regulations may depend on many things: on the age or the personality of the adopted child, and in some cases on the circumstances. A child who was adopted from an abusive family may not be best pleased to have a distressed or needy biological mother suddenly reappearing in his life. Other adopted children may be pleased; in well-known cases, such as that of Pauline Prescott and Clare Short, these reunions have been delightful. But according to Hazel, whose adopted children are in their twenties, such reunions work best because the adopted person has sought out the birth mother, and the initiative should still be left with the adoptee.
Under the new regulations, the adoptee will have the right to refuse contact with biological relations, but, says Hazel, 'that is an emotional burden being put on them — they then have the responsibility, and perhaps even the guilt, of having turned away their birth family'.
It is not, says Hazel, that adoptive mothers feel threatened on their own behalf; it is that they worry for the sake of the child. 'We are just as tigerish in defence of our children as any other mother.Her eldest son likes life to be regular and ordered; he is the sort of person for whom stability and security are very important. She cannot imagine what the impact might be if he received a letter saying the birth mother seeks contact. 'If he wants to do it himself, that's fine. But how dare anybody intrude into the lives of my children, retrospectively?' Hazel may not feel threatened, but she is angry: she feels that the law should not be altered now. When she and her husband adopted, the notion that the birth mother could afterwards come looking for them was not in the contract.
But as Vicky points out, adoption has evolved over the decades since the second world war. Unmarried mothers in the 1940s and 1950s were virtually forced to put their babies up for adoption, and were often deeply distressed by the experience. This social pressure continued into the 1960s, when it was, unsurprisingly, altered by the 1967 Abortion Act, which gave women with unwanted or accidental pregnancies the choice. Most subsequently chose abortion, others began to choose single parenting, and the adoption rate dropped almost overnight.
The mothers whose children were adopted in the 1970s and 1980s were more likely to have chosen the option freely, and to have been given support by family, charities or social services. In Vicky, 's case, the birth mothers of both her children were young unmarried girls who accidentally became pregnant but refused an abortion on grounds of conscience. It is probable that mothers who voluntarily choose adoption might be less likely to 'intrude', suddenly, in their biological children's lives than older women who had babies wrenched from their arms 40 or 50 years ago.
Adoptive mothers feel there should be further consultation about this change before it is fully implemented. Research into reunions after adoption is continuing: a new study from the Children's Society indicates that reunions between adoptees and birth mothers are not always successful. Sixty per cent of adopted children who made contact with their birth mothers dropped the contact after making it — or were eventually rejected by their biological mother. Blood is not always thicker than water, and maternal feelings by adoption can be stronger than those forged by biological birth.
The Adoption Reunion Handbook, by the Children's Society, is published by John Wiley & Sons.
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