When my husband and I were taking the PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education) classes in order to become licensed foster/adopt parents we were assigned with creating a family tree for a future child. It was fun and I got to know more about my husband’s family. My dad has all of us signed up at Geni.com where we’re building a very nice family tree. Millions of people may not feel that deep sense of connection with their families because their families did not give birth to them.
When I first learned what adoption was all about I thought that once a child went to live with a family that any contact with the birth family was severed entirely. The concept of family for me was the people you grew up with and I couldn’t imagine wanting more. Early adoptions were pretty much just that; hand off the baby and the baby wasn’t able to look back.
This was unfortunate for the children who grew up in adopted families. They wanted to know more about the families that were gone. They wanted to know heritage and medical history. They wanted to know if they had siblings.
A woman who fought hard to have those doors opened to adoptees died on July 11, 2010, at the age of 83. Annette Baran was a social worker in an era when privacy and secrecy were the norms. One of her clients was a birth mother who wanted to meet the people who would be rearing her child. The event changed Annette’s perspective and focus. She set out to learn opinions about open adoption, and she got them. Her book The Adoption Triangle: The Effects of the Sealed Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Adoptive Parents is the results of that curiosity.
Thank you, Annette. The world of adoption is grateful for your work.