It makes me so angry to read these stories of patronising, patriarchal denial. Adoptees deserve so much better. We’ve had so much taken from us, and yet the truth still remains hidden and “protected” from so many. I cannot fathom why. Thank you, Barbara, for your relentless dedication to the pursuit of the truth, and your incomparably brilliant writing.
I've had a phone conversation (nothing in writing - hmmm) in response to my letter of complaint - addressing the fact that they called us "children" - used the 19th century pre-Adoption legislation archaic and inappropriate term "adopted out" - which I suggest comes from the term "boarded out" - which was the first foster care or "out of home care" system. But "to adopt" a child means: to take a child - or to 'take up' and to raise "it" "as if" one's own. So the term "adopted out" ("out" of where exactly?) is nonsensical - it literally means 'to take up out' but worse, as I argues, it is CODE for what happened to us. It silences - it obliterates the time of our trauma and the truth of what was done to us.
And lastly, they chose to include, in the same sentence as the 'mothers, "children", fathers, siblings' etc. they apologised to "adoptive parents".
The woman who called me claimed that they 'consulted with a broad range of people and decided to be "inclusive" of all parties.
Thank you, Dr A.I. It is essential we continue to call out the daily 'othering.' While there is unlikely to be apology anytime soon in NZ, the Ministry of Justice discussion documents on adoption reform from 2021 and 2022 were replete with these microaggressions, othering and diminishment language. Using phone calls instead of putting things in writing is an old trick. I encourage everyone to insist on written responses or record the conversation and have it transcribed.
Yes - I knew the phone call was a protective legal move - no records was the objective.
But I insisted on hearing back re: my suggested amendments to their inappropriate language.
I also said, if my suggested amendments have not been implemented then I will follow up. So, I'll take your advice on board too and ask for a written responses. I know they're unlikely to provide it and unlikely to amend the micro-aggressions within their text but I intend taking it further.
We too should catch up re: some collaboration perhaps?
In these situations, I follow up with a memo of our conversation as best as I can remember it. I ask if this is not their recollection, to let me know.Itt then becomes part of the official record.
I love how you hold them to account on language, Ali - it matters! I have felt exhausted and jaded by all things adoption-related. The lip service from the WA government to the inquiry recommendations has been particularly disappointing. But then I read Barbara’s work and can’t help but feel energised. She’s revealing the truth of adoption in a way no one else ever has. I believe she’s galvanising the adoptee community in an unprecedented way, and Australian adoptees should be drawing on her inspiration.
just FYI - I am similarly working towards helping. I got some funding this year Abe and have been working with VANISH and ARMS to create two new plays and an Oral History Archive for PUBLIC consumption. So, I guess I should be making myself and my work more visible. I started by creating an online pilot program -a series of SIX Workshops - helping adoptees to interpret their records, to see the language as constructed and continuing to dictate how WE speak/write - rather than reiterating the language THEY created to make adoption palatable to prospective adopters and to think critically about the language we use - to change the narrative and to educate others. So, yes, Barb is doing great work and if I continue working towards my objectives, I hope I too, will make a difference for Australian adoptees. We should catch up. I'm about to begin interviews for the Oral History Archive. When I'm ready to branch out to other states, perhaps you'd like to be included? A x
Oh, to receive some funding. Well done, Dr. There is absolutely nothing for this work in NZ. I've been turned down for every grant I've applied for. 70 years of stranger adoption and not a single adult outcome study. Is adoption in the best interests of the child? Of anyone? We have no idea. No evidence, only anecdotes - and those are not positive.
Well...maybe we should be thinking/talking about collaborating Dr Sumner! I'll call you sometime soon - to discuss some ideas.
Cause there is little to no research examining outcomes for us here either.
The Commonwealth Inquiry Report - from the AIFS- was very generalised and minimising.
From my thesis FYI:
In the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), Past adoption experiences: Final Report (2012), Kenny et al., surveyed a total of 1,528 respondents comprised of: 823 adopted individuals; 505 mothers; 94 adoptive parents; 94 other family members; and 12 fathers.
Kenny et al., found that...
"..Compared to Australian population estimates, adoptees...had lower levels of wellbeing and higher levels of psychological distress, and almost 70% of
adoptee survey respondents agreed that being adopted had resulted in some level of negative effect on their health, behaviours or wellbeing while growing up. These negative effects included: hurt from secrecy and lies surrounding their adoption and subsequent sense of betrayal; identity problems; feelings of abandonment; feeling obligated to show gratitude throughout their lives; low levels of self-worth; and difficulties in forming attachments to others (p. xiv)".
Confining recognition of psychological distress and negative effects of being adopted to the period of ‘growing up’ suggests skewing the data against analysis of the adult’s ongoing distress.
However, Kenny et al., (2012) also recognise that...
"...regardless of whether they had a positive or more challenging experience growing up within their adoptive [sic] family (roughly equal proportions of each participated in this study), most participants identified issues relating to problems with attachment, identity, abandonment and the parenting of their own children (p. xiv)".
So...very bland generally minimising language and since then, ZIP - NADA - NIENTE to follow since. Talk soon. I'm flat out at the moment but will call soon. A x
As bland as it is, it shows significant harm hiding in plain sight. Yes, we need to join forces, I agree. Any study done in NZ or Aus is transferable to the other.
P.S. I was turned down for every grant I applied for here too. Only the Forced Adoption Support Services small grants program accepted my project and even then, both were received under the auspices of VANISH and ARMS.
What is most glaring to me is the (NZ), 'Ministry for CHILDREN'.
Similarly in AUS, adoption records are held by state 'Child Protective Services' (WA) for example.
Why are our records held by govt departments that see people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, as if perpetual children? Who is being "protected" and who "excluded" by an archaic legal construct which denies our adulthood/citizenship?
If our parents are deceased why aren't our records automatically made available to us - transferred to us, upon request - completely un-redacted?
Because...we would then see "other parties" who are also protected by adoption law. We would be able to analyse the content and take legal action against the state and/or religious institutions, whose employees were in the business of covert human trafficking.
We would see the illegal actions of those who manipulated our mothers - the "almoners", the doctors, the hospital/mother-baby-home staff and the many adopters who were "given" babies despite evidence of their inadequacies.
FYI Barb, I am currently preparing to apply to CPS in WA for my paternal (deceased) sister's Adoption file. But, I first have to sign a legal document so that a search can be done by authorities in NSW - for my "putative" father's name in my adoption file.
I can only apply for my sister's WA file IF my "putative" father's name appears somewhere in my NSW file.
The required document makes a legal declaration that I, 'will not contact him or any of his family'. But, I cannot swear that I will not contact my deceased father - who's name I already know - nor any of his family - my other (deceased) sister and brother in Greece. Additionally and adding to the absurdity, his grandchildren in WA are NOT (legally) his family, because their mother was adopted.
I have known my father's identity since 1988 (my mother told me his name) and I have since proven his paternity via Ancestry DNA with one of my WA sister's sons. But to get my sister's Adoption file (she was taken from our then single father when she was 5.5yrs of age) I must PROVE to CPS WA that my sister and I have the same father.
I have his DC - because he died in 1986.
So, I'm not going to sign the document - it is not only inadequate but nonsensical. I have ALL four of my parents DC's - my sister's DC - my mother's medical records upon which my father's name is written on several pages and I am going to apply without signing the blatantly inappropriate legal document - declaring that I will not contact my deceased father.
It's a joke and oddly enough, I now find it FUNNY that we know so much more than all of the "Departments of Secrets" (crediting Sue S for the term).
Adoption did not remove the stigma of our "illegitimacy". Adoption has made us forever "bastards" - forever fatherless - forever, "children" by the law and forever "suspect" - like bastards of the 14th and 15th centuries - we are forever "outside the law".
And right there is another powerful angle I overlooked in my question above: the authorities' ongoing commitment to secrecy stops us seeing the "other parties" who aided, abetted and actioned flawed processes (at best) and flagrant law breaking (at worst).
That is undoubtedly true. In a coming series on here, I'll be covering the past and present work of the Salvation Army to abduct babies and hide their records (not to mention their abuse of mothers and total lack of accountability.)
I suggest - as part of the work I'm doing - that adoptees take a deep breath and dive into the discomfort of taking a closer look at any records we've managed to get. They are often so upsetting most of us tend to look but not quite see what they are trying to tell us. I call it 'revealing what they are attempting to conceal'. It often takes close and repeated close reading to see very small but potentially significant evidence of foul play.
Absolutely. I've had almost all my records since 2018, and I go through them over and over again and find more tiny details that reveal what really happened.
I regret to say I mislaid my paperwork excl OBC decades ago (though I recall obtaining it all easily enough). This discussion has reminded me of two things. One - that there was a redaction somewhere, but it was easy to see the writing through the back of the paper (a kindness? an oversight?) and two - that it was clear my mother signed the papers before I was born. I'm sure the law was that mothers were to sign after the birth. Given your advice, I wish I could recall what was redacted!
10 days after the birth was the legal timeframe in NZ. Anything before that was a form of coercion (10 days is a joke, as any new mother knows) It's trafficking.
Timeframes changed over time in AUS - going from what I note was 7 days in NSW, for example, to 5 days with the implementation of the 30 day "revocation" period (in the mid '60s). And that's another subject -the most manipulative and cruelest of "laws" that ensured the system ran 'like a well-oiled machine' (Rickarby, 2000).
But I also note adopters being given a "hint" but also written evidence of adopters knowing they were getting a baby, being "offered" babies two weeks before birth.
RESEARCH QUESTION: How many infant adoptions in the mid-late 20th century were legal?
And that is the question: "How many infant adoptions in the mid-late 20th century were legal?" My records show the doctor involved promised me to his nurse's sister, 18 days before I was born. Ten days before I was born, the adopter was demanding to know where her baby was." It's a great research question that would require, first, the right for an adopted person to access all their records. In my case, I have, what I believe to be, most of them through a court order, except those withheld under the most recent version of the Privacy Act, such as the police report on the adopters.
By that definition, then, I was trafficked, but my mother recently told me she went to MoM "committed to adoption". She and her parents and older sister/s had discussed in-family solutions, but someone passed round the Adoption Kool-Aid, and they realised that adoption would be best. At MoM, she may have been willing to sign early given her mindset (and probably no info about the law). Many readers here were taken by force which must be grievous to learn. In my case, I have adult parts of me that are glad my mother had some agency and some control, and I have younger parts that are ... devastated.
But then, also, who you are the day before you give birth and who you are the day after are entirely different. An unsupported mother is given the choice of no choice. Of course, for the infant, all maternal separation is forced.
My theory is - repetition of Adoption Orders, coerced society into believing in Adoption as "best" - a "solution" to the "problem" of single motherhood. By the 1970s infant adoptions had become so "normal" - thousands upon thousands of adopted babies growing up in "nice" neighbourhoods - women's magazines promoted the "joy" of adoption - infant adoptions were perceived as a "social good" but committing to adoption before giving birth can be seen as a form of coercive control.
I'm working with mothers of loss to adoption at the moment. Many may say or believe that they "made a choice" - the best choice at the time - but if we dig a little, they are repeating the words were designed to persuade women that they chose adoption. Your mother saying she was "committed to adoption" before your birth is quite possibly, her survival mechanism.
Once we were gone the notion of having made a choice, is the only choice.
Setting aside the gnawing pain in my insides that being confronted by systemic disrespect and disregard for adoptees always causes, what do you think is *really* going on? From your writings, the callous attitudes are evident across the ministries and the judiciary and have been for years. Newly-minted young social workers exhibit the same infantilising and cruel approaches as their elders [a password to access 3 fully redacted pages is utter mind-f***ery]. Judges narrowly interpret law to our disadvantage but can be compassionate and far-sighted when sentencing recidivist youth offenders, for example.
It feels like deeply entrenched organisational culture at work, the sort where you don't need printed policies to refer to because everyone comes to know that "this is how we do things around here". And perhaps that organisation culture is reinforced by the unthinking, unaware, unicorn and rainbow version of Happy Adopteeland that remains the default in society at large?
I think we are clear about where the secrecy all started and why, but what do you think perpetuates it with such intensity and commitment to the status quo? So many other things in society have liberalised over the last 50-70 years, but not adoption.
This is an excellent question. The answers are as you state, an embedded corporate, social and legislative culture. But also, it is about that inconvenient fact that every pregnancy that ended in forced adoption was caused by a man. That man has legitimate heirs, his inheritance and succession ringfenced for those legitimate heirs.
Inheritance: a really powerful angle I overlooked. Someone (probably you :)) has written about inheritance laws, and how stepchildren have been incorporated into modern family law here, while adoptees remain forever severed, with no rights to biological inheritance. Of course, the severing protects birthfathers from any legal claims by their rapacious, double-dipping adopted offspring - but perhaps there's an unease in the patriarchy, a desire to keep worms firmly in cans, and everything simple and tidy for the important grown-ups. And therefore secret.
Yes. Keeping worms firmly in cans puts it so well. Why risk clouding nice tidy inheritance rules with possible claims by adopted people.
The guys who run things make laws to protect other guys from this sort of thing. After all the adopted person is still in some way "Illegitimate" so why afford them legal rights? If the adoption doesn't work out to be wonderful then the adopters have no obligation or am I just having a bad morning?
You make a good observation - we are, in some way, still illegitimate. We are without antecedents, without provenance and unknowable in some deep social way. Therefore, we are to be distrusted as social disrupters. Adopters have the obligations of biological parents, but without those deep blood ties, their motivations for staying close and supporting over a lifetime are different.
I think, also, an important point is that while the pregnancies were unplanned, the child was not unwanted, but the system ensured (in NZ) tens of thousands of mothers were denied any form of support to keep their child.
Agreed. DNA always. But we also search for source evidence of the how and the why, information contained in the records, information that we are denied. I guess because my mother died on her way to meet me, the need for those records was critical.
I received that advice several times when I was first searching for BF but had no idea about dna matching and ancestry etc I thought a dna test would require an identified, alive BF to match with me, so it took a while to understand how incredibly helpful it could be. I know from spending time in adoptee groups that many adoptees still don’t understand the ease and importance of dna testing.
I’ve just checked adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk - “This website is intended to be the first port of call for anyone thinking about searching for or making contact with birth and adopted relatives or researching an adoption that took place in the UK.” But there’s no obvious mention of dna testing there at all. No mention of dna testing for “found babies” even, which is a pretty shocking omission.
that is shocking.DNA undoes the promise of secrecy at the heart of stranger adoption. It proves that the adoptological family is NOT synonymous with the biological.
Thank you for writing this. I’ve been exploring similar themes in my own work—especially the silence women carry when no one knows what they’ve been through.
Don’t Let Me Die: A Mother’s Secret Buried for 30 Years
For three decades, Dana carried the silence like a second skin. No one knew about the child she bore—the life she thought had ended before it ever began. But secrets don’t stay buried forever. They have time limits.
This is the story of a mother’s hidden grief… and the miracle she never dared to pray for.
💌 If this story touched you, please consider forwarding it to a friend or loved one.
Your support helps me keep writing stories that matter.
The public servants and services re adoption in all countries are farcical. We have to “work” the system to have our identity reinstated and our files given to us.
It’s government sanctioned gaslighting all over the world to control us, and the narrative of adoption. I’ve had enough, and it’s now my life work to fight them with all my being to have our lives and rights reinstated.
They sit there with our files in front of them drip feeding us, funding people that won’t support us, time to rise up and have agency in our lives.
It makes me so angry to read these stories of patronising, patriarchal denial. Adoptees deserve so much better. We’ve had so much taken from us, and yet the truth still remains hidden and “protected” from so many. I cannot fathom why. Thank you, Barbara, for your relentless dedication to the pursuit of the truth, and your incomparably brilliant writing.
G'day Abe!
Did you see the Australian Association of Social Workers long overdue "apology" a couple of weeks ago?
If not https://www.aasw.asn.au/aasw-news/2025-2/aasw-historical-forced-adoption-practices-apology/
I've had a phone conversation (nothing in writing - hmmm) in response to my letter of complaint - addressing the fact that they called us "children" - used the 19th century pre-Adoption legislation archaic and inappropriate term "adopted out" - which I suggest comes from the term "boarded out" - which was the first foster care or "out of home care" system. But "to adopt" a child means: to take a child - or to 'take up' and to raise "it" "as if" one's own. So the term "adopted out" ("out" of where exactly?) is nonsensical - it literally means 'to take up out' but worse, as I argues, it is CODE for what happened to us. It silences - it obliterates the time of our trauma and the truth of what was done to us.
And lastly, they chose to include, in the same sentence as the 'mothers, "children", fathers, siblings' etc. they apologised to "adoptive parents".
The woman who called me claimed that they 'consulted with a broad range of people and decided to be "inclusive" of all parties.
Hope you're well.
Dr A.I. xx
Thank you, Dr A.I. It is essential we continue to call out the daily 'othering.' While there is unlikely to be apology anytime soon in NZ, the Ministry of Justice discussion documents on adoption reform from 2021 and 2022 were replete with these microaggressions, othering and diminishment language. Using phone calls instead of putting things in writing is an old trick. I encourage everyone to insist on written responses or record the conversation and have it transcribed.
Yes - I knew the phone call was a protective legal move - no records was the objective.
But I insisted on hearing back re: my suggested amendments to their inappropriate language.
I also said, if my suggested amendments have not been implemented then I will follow up. So, I'll take your advice on board too and ask for a written responses. I know they're unlikely to provide it and unlikely to amend the micro-aggressions within their text but I intend taking it further.
We too should catch up re: some collaboration perhaps?
Hope you're well. A x
In these situations, I follow up with a memo of our conversation as best as I can remember it. I ask if this is not their recollection, to let me know.Itt then becomes part of the official record.
Yes - I can do this too. Thanks - great suggestion.
I love how you hold them to account on language, Ali - it matters! I have felt exhausted and jaded by all things adoption-related. The lip service from the WA government to the inquiry recommendations has been particularly disappointing. But then I read Barbara’s work and can’t help but feel energised. She’s revealing the truth of adoption in a way no one else ever has. I believe she’s galvanising the adoptee community in an unprecedented way, and Australian adoptees should be drawing on her inspiration.
Thank you, Abe. Together, we are all doing our part to work towards changing the paradigm.
just FYI - I am similarly working towards helping. I got some funding this year Abe and have been working with VANISH and ARMS to create two new plays and an Oral History Archive for PUBLIC consumption. So, I guess I should be making myself and my work more visible. I started by creating an online pilot program -a series of SIX Workshops - helping adoptees to interpret their records, to see the language as constructed and continuing to dictate how WE speak/write - rather than reiterating the language THEY created to make adoption palatable to prospective adopters and to think critically about the language we use - to change the narrative and to educate others. So, yes, Barb is doing great work and if I continue working towards my objectives, I hope I too, will make a difference for Australian adoptees. We should catch up. I'm about to begin interviews for the Oral History Archive. When I'm ready to branch out to other states, perhaps you'd like to be included? A x
Oh, to receive some funding. Well done, Dr. There is absolutely nothing for this work in NZ. I've been turned down for every grant I've applied for. 70 years of stranger adoption and not a single adult outcome study. Is adoption in the best interests of the child? Of anyone? We have no idea. No evidence, only anecdotes - and those are not positive.
Well...maybe we should be thinking/talking about collaborating Dr Sumner! I'll call you sometime soon - to discuss some ideas.
Cause there is little to no research examining outcomes for us here either.
The Commonwealth Inquiry Report - from the AIFS- was very generalised and minimising.
From my thesis FYI:
In the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), Past adoption experiences: Final Report (2012), Kenny et al., surveyed a total of 1,528 respondents comprised of: 823 adopted individuals; 505 mothers; 94 adoptive parents; 94 other family members; and 12 fathers.
Kenny et al., found that...
"..Compared to Australian population estimates, adoptees...had lower levels of wellbeing and higher levels of psychological distress, and almost 70% of
adoptee survey respondents agreed that being adopted had resulted in some level of negative effect on their health, behaviours or wellbeing while growing up. These negative effects included: hurt from secrecy and lies surrounding their adoption and subsequent sense of betrayal; identity problems; feelings of abandonment; feeling obligated to show gratitude throughout their lives; low levels of self-worth; and difficulties in forming attachments to others (p. xiv)".
Confining recognition of psychological distress and negative effects of being adopted to the period of ‘growing up’ suggests skewing the data against analysis of the adult’s ongoing distress.
However, Kenny et al., (2012) also recognise that...
"...regardless of whether they had a positive or more challenging experience growing up within their adoptive [sic] family (roughly equal proportions of each participated in this study), most participants identified issues relating to problems with attachment, identity, abandonment and the parenting of their own children (p. xiv)".
So...very bland generally minimising language and since then, ZIP - NADA - NIENTE to follow since. Talk soon. I'm flat out at the moment but will call soon. A x
As bland as it is, it shows significant harm hiding in plain sight. Yes, we need to join forces, I agree. Any study done in NZ or Aus is transferable to the other.
P.S. I was turned down for every grant I applied for here too. Only the Forced Adoption Support Services small grants program accepted my project and even then, both were received under the auspices of VANISH and ARMS.
What is most glaring to me is the (NZ), 'Ministry for CHILDREN'.
Similarly in AUS, adoption records are held by state 'Child Protective Services' (WA) for example.
Why are our records held by govt departments that see people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, as if perpetual children? Who is being "protected" and who "excluded" by an archaic legal construct which denies our adulthood/citizenship?
If our parents are deceased why aren't our records automatically made available to us - transferred to us, upon request - completely un-redacted?
Because...we would then see "other parties" who are also protected by adoption law. We would be able to analyse the content and take legal action against the state and/or religious institutions, whose employees were in the business of covert human trafficking.
We would see the illegal actions of those who manipulated our mothers - the "almoners", the doctors, the hospital/mother-baby-home staff and the many adopters who were "given" babies despite evidence of their inadequacies.
FYI Barb, I am currently preparing to apply to CPS in WA for my paternal (deceased) sister's Adoption file. But, I first have to sign a legal document so that a search can be done by authorities in NSW - for my "putative" father's name in my adoption file.
I can only apply for my sister's WA file IF my "putative" father's name appears somewhere in my NSW file.
The required document makes a legal declaration that I, 'will not contact him or any of his family'. But, I cannot swear that I will not contact my deceased father - who's name I already know - nor any of his family - my other (deceased) sister and brother in Greece. Additionally and adding to the absurdity, his grandchildren in WA are NOT (legally) his family, because their mother was adopted.
I have known my father's identity since 1988 (my mother told me his name) and I have since proven his paternity via Ancestry DNA with one of my WA sister's sons. But to get my sister's Adoption file (she was taken from our then single father when she was 5.5yrs of age) I must PROVE to CPS WA that my sister and I have the same father.
I have his DC - because he died in 1986.
So, I'm not going to sign the document - it is not only inadequate but nonsensical. I have ALL four of my parents DC's - my sister's DC - my mother's medical records upon which my father's name is written on several pages and I am going to apply without signing the blatantly inappropriate legal document - declaring that I will not contact my deceased father.
It's a joke and oddly enough, I now find it FUNNY that we know so much more than all of the "Departments of Secrets" (crediting Sue S for the term).
Adoption did not remove the stigma of our "illegitimacy". Adoption has made us forever "bastards" - forever fatherless - forever, "children" by the law and forever "suspect" - like bastards of the 14th and 15th centuries - we are forever "outside the law".
great post. Thank you.
And right there is another powerful angle I overlooked in my question above: the authorities' ongoing commitment to secrecy stops us seeing the "other parties" who aided, abetted and actioned flawed processes (at best) and flagrant law breaking (at worst).
That is undoubtedly true. In a coming series on here, I'll be covering the past and present work of the Salvation Army to abduct babies and hide their records (not to mention their abuse of mothers and total lack of accountability.)
I suggest - as part of the work I'm doing - that adoptees take a deep breath and dive into the discomfort of taking a closer look at any records we've managed to get. They are often so upsetting most of us tend to look but not quite see what they are trying to tell us. I call it 'revealing what they are attempting to conceal'. It often takes close and repeated close reading to see very small but potentially significant evidence of foul play.
Absolutely. I've had almost all my records since 2018, and I go through them over and over again and find more tiny details that reveal what really happened.
I regret to say I mislaid my paperwork excl OBC decades ago (though I recall obtaining it all easily enough). This discussion has reminded me of two things. One - that there was a redaction somewhere, but it was easy to see the writing through the back of the paper (a kindness? an oversight?) and two - that it was clear my mother signed the papers before I was born. I'm sure the law was that mothers were to sign after the birth. Given your advice, I wish I could recall what was redacted!
10 days after the birth was the legal timeframe in NZ. Anything before that was a form of coercion (10 days is a joke, as any new mother knows) It's trafficking.
Timeframes changed over time in AUS - going from what I note was 7 days in NSW, for example, to 5 days with the implementation of the 30 day "revocation" period (in the mid '60s). And that's another subject -the most manipulative and cruelest of "laws" that ensured the system ran 'like a well-oiled machine' (Rickarby, 2000).
But I also note adopters being given a "hint" but also written evidence of adopters knowing they were getting a baby, being "offered" babies two weeks before birth.
RESEARCH QUESTION: How many infant adoptions in the mid-late 20th century were legal?
And that is the question: "How many infant adoptions in the mid-late 20th century were legal?" My records show the doctor involved promised me to his nurse's sister, 18 days before I was born. Ten days before I was born, the adopter was demanding to know where her baby was." It's a great research question that would require, first, the right for an adopted person to access all their records. In my case, I have, what I believe to be, most of them through a court order, except those withheld under the most recent version of the Privacy Act, such as the police report on the adopters.
By that definition, then, I was trafficked, but my mother recently told me she went to MoM "committed to adoption". She and her parents and older sister/s had discussed in-family solutions, but someone passed round the Adoption Kool-Aid, and they realised that adoption would be best. At MoM, she may have been willing to sign early given her mindset (and probably no info about the law). Many readers here were taken by force which must be grievous to learn. In my case, I have adult parts of me that are glad my mother had some agency and some control, and I have younger parts that are ... devastated.
But then, also, who you are the day before you give birth and who you are the day after are entirely different. An unsupported mother is given the choice of no choice. Of course, for the infant, all maternal separation is forced.
My theory is - repetition of Adoption Orders, coerced society into believing in Adoption as "best" - a "solution" to the "problem" of single motherhood. By the 1970s infant adoptions had become so "normal" - thousands upon thousands of adopted babies growing up in "nice" neighbourhoods - women's magazines promoted the "joy" of adoption - infant adoptions were perceived as a "social good" but committing to adoption before giving birth can be seen as a form of coercive control.
I'm working with mothers of loss to adoption at the moment. Many may say or believe that they "made a choice" - the best choice at the time - but if we dig a little, they are repeating the words were designed to persuade women that they chose adoption. Your mother saying she was "committed to adoption" before your birth is quite possibly, her survival mechanism.
Once we were gone the notion of having made a choice, is the only choice.
Setting aside the gnawing pain in my insides that being confronted by systemic disrespect and disregard for adoptees always causes, what do you think is *really* going on? From your writings, the callous attitudes are evident across the ministries and the judiciary and have been for years. Newly-minted young social workers exhibit the same infantilising and cruel approaches as their elders [a password to access 3 fully redacted pages is utter mind-f***ery]. Judges narrowly interpret law to our disadvantage but can be compassionate and far-sighted when sentencing recidivist youth offenders, for example.
It feels like deeply entrenched organisational culture at work, the sort where you don't need printed policies to refer to because everyone comes to know that "this is how we do things around here". And perhaps that organisation culture is reinforced by the unthinking, unaware, unicorn and rainbow version of Happy Adopteeland that remains the default in society at large?
I think we are clear about where the secrecy all started and why, but what do you think perpetuates it with such intensity and commitment to the status quo? So many other things in society have liberalised over the last 50-70 years, but not adoption.
This is an excellent question. The answers are as you state, an embedded corporate, social and legislative culture. But also, it is about that inconvenient fact that every pregnancy that ended in forced adoption was caused by a man. That man has legitimate heirs, his inheritance and succession ringfenced for those legitimate heirs.
Inheritance: a really powerful angle I overlooked. Someone (probably you :)) has written about inheritance laws, and how stepchildren have been incorporated into modern family law here, while adoptees remain forever severed, with no rights to biological inheritance. Of course, the severing protects birthfathers from any legal claims by their rapacious, double-dipping adopted offspring - but perhaps there's an unease in the patriarchy, a desire to keep worms firmly in cans, and everything simple and tidy for the important grown-ups. And therefore secret.
[Except for DNA].
Yes. Keeping worms firmly in cans puts it so well. Why risk clouding nice tidy inheritance rules with possible claims by adopted people.
The guys who run things make laws to protect other guys from this sort of thing. After all the adopted person is still in some way "Illegitimate" so why afford them legal rights? If the adoption doesn't work out to be wonderful then the adopters have no obligation or am I just having a bad morning?
You make a good observation - we are, in some way, still illegitimate. We are without antecedents, without provenance and unknowable in some deep social way. Therefore, we are to be distrusted as social disrupters. Adopters have the obligations of biological parents, but without those deep blood ties, their motivations for staying close and supporting over a lifetime are different.
There is undoubtedly an unease within the patriarchy around the return of the illegitimate. I think it was this column - but maybe not - hhhmmm https://drbarbarasumner.substack.com/p/the-darling-man-syndrome
So right. Every single unwelcome pregnancy caused by irresponsible ejaculation !
I think, also, an important point is that while the pregnancies were unplanned, the child was not unwanted, but the system ensured (in NZ) tens of thousands of mothers were denied any form of support to keep their child.
Always start the search with a DNA test
Agreed. DNA always. But we also search for source evidence of the how and the why, information contained in the records, information that we are denied. I guess because my mother died on her way to meet me, the need for those records was critical.
I received that advice several times when I was first searching for BF but had no idea about dna matching and ancestry etc I thought a dna test would require an identified, alive BF to match with me, so it took a while to understand how incredibly helpful it could be. I know from spending time in adoptee groups that many adoptees still don’t understand the ease and importance of dna testing.
I agree. DNA led me to my father, but he’d already passed. It also revealed a new half-sister and that his ‘son’ was not his son.
I’ve just checked adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk - “This website is intended to be the first port of call for anyone thinking about searching for or making contact with birth and adopted relatives or researching an adoption that took place in the UK.” But there’s no obvious mention of dna testing there at all. No mention of dna testing for “found babies” even, which is a pretty shocking omission.
that is shocking.DNA undoes the promise of secrecy at the heart of stranger adoption. It proves that the adoptological family is NOT synonymous with the biological.
Exactly. You put it so well, thank you 🙏🏻
Thank you for writing this. I’ve been exploring similar themes in my own work—especially the silence women carry when no one knows what they’ve been through.
I wrote a story that touches on this, if you’re ever in the mood for a short read: https://www.ameliarenee.com/post/don-t-let-me-die
Don’t Let Me Die: A Mother’s Secret Buried for 30 Years
For three decades, Dana carried the silence like a second skin. No one knew about the child she bore—the life she thought had ended before it ever began. But secrets don’t stay buried forever. They have time limits.
This is the story of a mother’s hidden grief… and the miracle she never dared to pray for.
💌 If this story touched you, please consider forwarding it to a friend or loved one.
Your support helps me keep writing stories that matter.
The public servants and services re adoption in all countries are farcical. We have to “work” the system to have our identity reinstated and our files given to us.
It’s government sanctioned gaslighting all over the world to control us, and the narrative of adoption. I’ve had enough, and it’s now my life work to fight them with all my being to have our lives and rights reinstated.
They sit there with our files in front of them drip feeding us, funding people that won’t support us, time to rise up and have agency in our lives.
You are so right. It is exactly like this!