Lifton's Book About Search for Birth Mother

If you’re not a member of the so-called adoption triad, the name Betty Jean Lifton may not be familiar to you. But she was a pioneer in adoption reform. In Ms. Lifton’s New York Times obituary, Margalit Fox describes her as “a writer, adoptee and adoption-reform advocate whose books — searing condemnations of the secrecy that traditionally shrouded adoption — became touchstones for adoptees throughout the world.”

Ms. Lifton, who died on November 19 in Boston, was one of the first adoptees to write about the possible psychological harm of adoption. In “Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter,” published in 1975, Ms. Lifton chronicled her search for her birth mother. She covered similar territory in  “Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience” and “Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness.”

An outspoken advocate for unsealing adoption records, Ms. Lifton counseled adoptees and their families.

Ms. Lifton grew up in a time where adoptive parents often didn’t even tell their children they were adopted or, as in Ms. Lifton’s case, they waited until they were older before telling them (Ms. Lifton was 7 when she learned she was adopted). Adoptive parents often passed on a feeling of shame to their adoptive children and imparted false information to them (in Ms. Lifton’s case, she was told that her birth parents died, although that wasn’t the case).

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According to UK’s The Observer, biological parents are increasingly using Facebook and other social networking sites to track down the children they relinquished through adoption.

As I’ve written before on Strollerderby, it’s time for full disclosure in adoption. But full disclosure doesn’t mean presenting a child with information he or she never requested — or is not emotionally able to handle.

As an adoptee who did not want to be found by biological relatives, I can only imagine how upsetting it would have been for me as a teenager to be contacted out of the blue via Facebook. Adoptees had no choice in the matter of being relinquished for adoption so it’s important that they have control over the decision of whether or not to search for biological family or be found. Continue reading »

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“Infant R,” as he’s referred to in court documents, is at the center of a legal battle in which an Indiana Court will decide who can legally be listed as the baby’s mother.

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There’s a special place in Hell for people who take advantage of anyone in the adoption triad — the parents desperate for a child to raise and love, the birth parents who are making the most difficult decision of their lives, and of course the child who didn’t ask to be part of any of this.

And by that measure, Kevin Cohen of Roslyn, NY is a very very bad man (if he did what he’s accused of). Which is: Continue reading »

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