Post-adoption Contact and Relationships with Birth Family Members

Abstract

The chapter draws on data collected through responses to an online survey concerning 93 adoptees (44% of the cohort), completed on average 18 years after placement, and interviews focusing on 24 adult adoptees. Face-to-face post-adoption contact was a legal requirement. After placement with adoptive families, 93% of adoptees had contact with birth family members; at follow-up, 56% still saw at least one member of their birth family; 69% of both adoptees and adoptive parents thought contact was ultimately beneficial. There was minimal evidence of contact with birth parents destabilising placements. However, it introduced a ‘painful transparency’ for all parties and could be problematic. Over time, contact supported children’s identity needs by incorporating knowledge of their antecedents and could mitigate their difficulties with attachment, separation and loss. It forced all parties to engage with one another and helped adoptees achieve closure.

Introduction

There is now considerable evidence that adopted children benefit from some knowledge and understanding of their birth family and antecedents, and that past practices, in which adoption was shrouded in secrecy, were detrimental to the wellbeing of adoptees as well as their birth parents (Brodzinsky, 2006; de Rosnay et al., 2015; Triseliotis, 1973). Nevertheless, open adoption remains a contentious issue in many countries and there is considerable debate as to what level and type of engagement with birth families is optimal (e.g. Boyle, 2017; Brodzinsky, 2006; Chateauneuf et al., 2017; Grotevant et al., 2011; Neil, 2009). New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory appear to be unique in both legislating for and implementing regular face-to-face post-adoption contact with birth families as a prerequisite of the adoption order. This is reflected in the Barnardos programme, which has incorporated the core principles of transparency, communicative openness and post-adoption contact with birth family members throughout its history (see Chap. 1). An exploration of the nature and impact of these arrangements has implications for the development of adoption policy and practice not only in Australia, but also in a wider, international context.

We have seen from the previous chapter that adoption enabled most of the children to achieve legal, residential and psychological permanence. This growing sense of permanence was part of the process through which the adoptees were able to become integrated into their adoptive families and develop close attachments which might form the foundations for healthier developmental trajectories. This chapter explores how far ongoing face-to-face contact helped or hindered this process. It presents data showing the prevalence of face-to-face contact and how long it lasted and then explores what the contact was like, what the advantages and disadvantages were for the adoptive parents, and how far it was thought to have benefitted the children concerned. Subsequent chapters also consider the impact of contact on outcomes.

Interpreting the Data

Data used in this chapter come from the responses to the survey (concerning 93 adoptees) and the interviews held with adoptive parents and adoptees who had completed it (20 interviews with adoptees and 21 with adoptive parents, concerning 24 adoptions). Two points should be noted. First, the majority of the follow-up sample spent a lengthy period living with their adoptive parents before the adoption order was made: about three-quarters (71/93: 76%) of them were there for two years or more, and about a quarter (24/93: 26%) for five years or more. During this period, most children had contact with birth family members, with extensive support from Barnardos. After the adoption order was made, face-to-face contact persisted, specified in the adoption order and left to the families to organise. The adoption plan may in some cases have required a change in frequency of contact, or a different venue, but there do not appear to have been radical alterations. Most interviewees did not clearly distinguish between the two periods, and it is likely that respondents to the questionnaire would not have done so either. So the data refer to experiences of contact from the time the child entered the adoptive home, rather than from the time the order was made. Second, many birth parents dropped in and out of contact arrangements, seeing the child for a few years, disappearing, and then perhaps reappearing when they were older. Some adoptees also refused to see birth relatives for a while and then later changed their minds. Both the survey and the interviews provide data concerning contact at a particular point in time; had they taken place a few months or years earlier or later, the picture might well have been different.

Post-adoption Contact

Birth Parents

Policy and practice concerning contact for children who have been separated from birth families tends to focus on the primary relationship between the child and the birth mother (Boddy et al., 2014). Less attention appears to be given to contact with birthfathers or to wider family networks in both practice and policy (Boddy et al., 2014) and research (Iyer et al., 2020). Set against this context, considerable effort appears to have been given to ensuring extensive contact between the Barnardos adoptees and their birth families. Table 6.1 shows the number of adoptees who had contact with birth parents after they moved to their adoptive homes. Altogether, 76 (87%) adoptees had contact with at least one birth parent. This group includes 35 children who saw both birth parents, 35 who saw their mothers only and 6 who had direct contact only with their fathers. Only 11 adoptees (13%) had no face-to-face contact with either birth parent. One of these children had indirect contact with their birth mother; the birth parents of three others had both died before the adoption. Only eight adoptees whose birth parents were alive¹ had no contact at all.

Table 6.1 Face-to-face contact with birth parents post-adoption (core follow-up sample N = 93)

Siblings

Child welfare legislation and policy in England and Wales (Children and Families Act 2014), the USA (Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act 2008) and Australia (Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs et al., 2011) promote the placement of siblings together wherever it is in their best interests to do so. These policies are supported by research which indicates that joint placements can provide greater stability and a greater sense of psychological permanence, and that separating siblings can leave an enduring sense of loss (see Selwyn, 2018, for summary). There are, however, some indications that siblings who have been abused within their birth families may not always benefit from being placed together (Farmer & Pollock, 1998; Selwyn, 2018) and that consideration needs to be given to the needs of each individual child within the sibling group. One of the objectives of the Find-a-Family programme was to find permanent placements with adoptive parents for children in large sibling groups, who often come under the category of ‘hard to place’; throughout the period of the study, it was Barnardos’ policy to place siblings together wherever possible.

Responses to the survey indicated the extent to which sibling relationships were preserved when children were placed in adoptive homes (Table 6.2). Thirteen of the follow-up sample were single children at the time they were placed and 80 had birth siblings; 46 (58%) of those who had brothers and sisters had been placed in a home with at least one sibling and so had daily contact. However, a further 29 children (88% of those who had been placed apart) had post-adoption face-to-face contact with siblings from whom they had been separated at some stage. Only four (5%) adoptees had no subsequent contact with any birth siblings after moving to their adoptive families.

Table 6.2 Face-to-face contact with birth siblings after entering permanent placement (core follow-up sample N = 93)

Other Relatives

Children who are abused or neglected by birth parents often form close, compensatory relationships with grandparents or other members of their extended families (Hunt, 2018; Selwyn et al., 2014). Many of the adoptees had had close relationships with grandparents before being placed in out-of-home care. There is evidence from the interviews that several of them had been looked after by grandparents who had eventually decided they could not offer them a permanent home:

[He was] left with [maternal grandmother and partner] until [maternal grandmother] finally said, “He’s about to start school. You have to take responsibility”. He had been with them for probably two to three years, maybe. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 8 when permanently placed)

There is substantial evidence from both the survey and the interviews that efforts were made to preserve these relationships. As Table 6.3 shows, more than three-quarters of the children (59/76: 78%) who had a grandparent or other family members who could be traced continued to have contact with them after they moved to their adoptive homes.

Table 6.3 Face-to-face contact with grandparents and other extended family members after entering permanent placement (core follow-up sample N = 93)

Taken together, the data show a high level of continuing face-to-face contact with birth family members, indicating the strength of Barnardos’ commitment to open adoption in practice. Eighty-eight (93%) of the adoptees had direct post-adoption contact with at least one member of their birth family; one of the five adoptees who had no face-to-face contact had indirect contact; only four children had no contact at all. There are also indications that efforts were made to reunite children who had previously been separated from siblings and to re-establish contact that had previously been lost. Nearly two-thirds (13/21: 62%) of the children whose case files indicated that they had no direct contact with a birth parent at the time they moved to their adoptive home had subsequent face-to-face contact.

Contact during childhood did not always translate into an enduring relationship through adulthood. Nevertheless, by the time of the survey, on average 18 years after placement,² at least 28 (40%) of the adoptees who had had contact with their birthmothers, and 14 (34%) of those who had had contact with birth fathers during the placement were still seeing them, and more than half of the adoptees (52/93: 56%) were still seeing at least one member of their birth family. The average age of those who were known to be still seeing at least one birth parent at the time of the survey was 16,³ compared with 26⁴ for those who had no contact with a living birth parent, indicating that post-adoption contact tended to reduce as the adoptees grew older. Although, as Chap. 5 has shown, about one in four adoptees had run away or temporarily left their adoptive home at some stage, often with the intention of returning to birth parents, only two were known to be living with birth family members at the time of the survey.

What Was Contact Like?

It is clear from the quantitative data that contact happened, and that it persisted for a relatively high proportion of children: qualitative data from responses to open-ended questions in the survey and from the interviews with adoptive parents and children give a fuller picture of what contact was like and how it affected their wellbeing and that of their adoptive families. There are also some indications of how contact affected birth parents and other relatives, but we were unable to interview them (see Chap. 1), and so all these data come from third parties (adoptees and adoptive parents).

Before making an adoption order, the court had to be satisfied that there was no realistic chance of a child being successfully placed with a member of their extended family or of being safely reunited with birth parents. Chapter 3 has shown that almost all adoptees (91%) had been abused by birth parents, or were the siblings of children who had been seriously abused; more than two-thirds (69%) of them had had four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before being placed in out-of-home care, and a third of them (32%) had experienced at least one failed restoration before entering their adoptive homes. Nevertheless, face-to-face contact was part of the plan for almost every child. Children whose parents had seriously abused or neglected them still continued to have contact, including one child whose mother had thrown her across the room as a baby, causing brain damage; another whose parents had been convicted of murdering one of her siblings; and two others whose parents had ‘rented them out’ to paedophiles in return for cash. Contact in cases such as these inevitably raised complex and difficult issues.

The stipulation was not simply that adoptive parents would comply with the contact plan, they were also expected to facilitate it and, in most cases, to accompany the child to contact visits, so this entailed making a relationship with birth parents and other relatives. Most adoptive parents received some support from Barnardos until the adoption order was made, but not afterwards.

A relatively high proportion of the children (28/93: 30%) had initially been placed with long-term foster carers who later applied to adopt them. In these families, the post-adoption contact plan was to some extent a continuation of existing arrangements and birth parents and other relatives were already known to the adoptive parents. For other children, who were placed with prospective adopters with a view to adoption, new arrangements had to be made, with birth parents knowing from the outset that the child was likely to be adopted.

Once adoption became the permanence plan for the child, Barnardos did not envisage contact as a means of building close relationships with birth parents so much as a way of helping a child to understand their antecedents and develop a strong sense of identity. This was reflected in Barnardos’ policy to recommend relatively infrequent contact meetings at between two- and six-monthly intervals. Most children who had contact saw their birth parents and birth siblings about four times in the first year of the placement. Meetings usually took place at a Barnardos office or in a neutral, public setting such as a park or a café, and an adoptive parent was expected to be present.

Uncomplicated Contact

In 34 (40%)⁵ casescontact visits had not been problematic; many⁶ of these adoptive parents indicated that they provided valuable opportunities to get to know the birth family and to reassure them about their children’s wellbeing:

Important that birth parents see that their child is being cared for as they had hoped and that there is good long-term relationship made as possible as practical. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 14 when permanently placed)

In our case it allowed us to form a friendship and that helped the child to feel comfortable. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

[Our child] enjoyed the contact and so did we. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 3 when permanently placed)

I found it nice to be able to talk to [child’s] birth family… and to just be supportive and involved in [child’s] life. (Adoptive parent of young woman aged 1 when permanently placed)

Problems Concerning Contact with Birth Parents

However, the adoptive parents of more than half of the children (60%) indicated that, at least at times, there had been problems. A few cited practical difficulties as the primary issue: problems in arranging meetings through third parties because birth family members did not have phones; the stress of trying to pin down birth parents, who were leading chaotic lives, to a specific date or time; or the sheer hassle of getting to contact meetings when they entailed taking time off work to take small children on lengthy car journeys. As outlined in Chap. 2, many children came from fractured or multiply reconstituted families and this could result in complex contact plans which were difficult to fulfil:

There are too many contacts. We have four with the birthfather, four with the birth motherand grandmother and six withsiblings(these are six separate siblingcontacts). (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 3 months when permanently placed)

Because some birth parents were considered to be a threat to the children’s safety, there were also numerous issues concerning security and secrecy. Several children had their names changed before the adoption order, and their addresses concealed, so that birth parents could not find them; one reason why contact was so often arranged in neutral venues was to prevent birth parents from finding out where the children lived:

We maintained communication via mail through a solicitor which worked best for us to avoid birth families knowing where we lived, despite one of them objecting to that arrangement but we felt it kept our family more secure. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 2 when permanently placed)

So we didn’t want them to know where we live. We didn’t want them to see our car number plate, and no telephone contact. So we were a little bit careful or cautious to not meet these people…. Well, they may turn up on our front lawn and possibly camp there or something like this. We didn’t want that to happen, because they had no home… (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

One child’s birth relatives had previously abducted another child and this added to the concerns around contact:

He was under our guard at all times. We never left him alone anywhere. So we just thought maybe there is some criminal connection maybe to other people. So we just were very careful. I mean, we turned up to the initial meetings… in a taxi,… and… we couldn’t be tracked home. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

However, practical difficulties were a relatively minor issue. The most common reason⁷ why adoptive parents found contact difficult related to the parents’ continuing problems.

Parents’ Problems and Their Impact on Contact

We have already seen (Chap. 2) that most birth parents struggled with complex and entrenched problems which had prevented them from safeguarding and nurturing their children. A wide body of research evidence indicates that changing such adverse behaviour patterns is a complex process that takes time to achieve (see Ward et al., 2014, for summary). Data from the interviews indicated that, by the time their children reached adulthood, only a very small minority of birth parents had succeeded in overcoming the difficulties that had led to the adoption order; many others continued to abuse drugs or alcohol, to maltreat other children in their care or to maintain relationships with abusive partners who had been the cause of the children’s removal.

Birth parents sometimes attended contact meetings under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some abused, or threatened to abuse, the children during contact visits. The interview data concerning 24 adoptees included three cases in which birth parents came to contact visits accompanied by an unrelated adult who had previously sexually abused the child. There were also cases where parents became physically violent: for example, during one contact visit the birthfather ‘just went ballistic and was breaking everything and the police had to be called’; during another, the child was physically abused.

While the instances of physical assault or the threats of sexual abuse during contact are the most vivid, a more frequent issue was parents’ emotional abuse or insensitivity. Some parents only wanted contact with one of their children or brought presents for one sibling but not the other; others constantly belittled the child. A common theme in the interviews was the adoptees’ perceptions of rejection, and these were reinforced when birth parents broke promises to be more involved in their lives and/or to attend contact meetings. Survey responses from 8/50 (16%) adoptive parents cite birth parents’ failure to turn up to contact meetings or last-minute cancellations as a significant issue. One of the unintended consequences of open adoption policy is that it makes such rejections more transparent: the adoptees knew that their parents could have contact, and questioned why they did not choose to do so:

[Birth mother] is saying to him “I’ll do this for you, and I’ll see you and I’ll write to you, and I’ll send you this”, and all of that sort of stuff, and I’m thinking ‘Yes, but if you don’t keep that promise, what does that do to a child?’ and it was a little bit like when she brought him to Barnardos for the handover, saying “Yes, I’ll write you letters and I’ll send you this”, and it was exactly the same spiel. And I’m thinking “But you didn’t. You wrote him one letter….”

…And of course, nothing happened. She didn’t write to him. She didn’t contact him. She didn’t send him anything, and that was it. I mean, in a very short space of time, [adoptee] isn’t silly. He would say “Yeah, but she said that, and she wouldn’t do it”. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 8 when permanently placed)

Some birth parents and other relatives refused to accept that the adoption order was permanent and tried to undermine the placement. These parents told the child they would soon be reunited; talked about the room they had prepared for the child’s return; or tried to persuade the child to run away. They also tried to undermine the adoptive parent’s relationship with the child, by denigrating them or by resuming a parental role:

She wanted to take control and she wanted to be the mother, and I’m thinking: “Hang on, but you’ve decided to relinquish your child, and he’s now in our family”. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 8 when permanently placed)

Almost all (94%)⁸ adoptive parents who responded to the survey thought that they should be present during contact visits. The most common reason (given in respect of 76% adoptees)⁹ was to protect or support the child, and particularly to monitor what happened:

We are now their legal guardians and we need to protect the child from possible abuse and misinformation being fed to the child by birth family contacts. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

As the above quotation indicates, the legal status conferred by the adoption order was sometimes perceived as giving adoptive parents additional responsibilities to protect the child against potentially harmful interactions with birth family members:

I don’t think young children should be left alone with criminals. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 5 when permanently placed)

By the time she [birth mother] attended visits she was like a stranger, which we would never leave our kids with unattended. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 9 when permanently placed)

Vulnerable children trying to make a new life shouldn’t be exposed to criminal and drug using parents without supervision. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 9 when permanently placed)

On the other hand, adoptive parents could feel that the change of status gave them less power to manage the child’s interactions with birth family members. For instance, adoptive parents sometimes felt that, without the support of a child protection order, they could not prevent a young person from returning to their birth family:

Adoptive mother: …and [the adoption] actually facilitated a situation where she was able to go back home because she was no longer a government child. So she didn’t come under any jurisdiction….

Adoptive father: So we couldn’t stop her from going home. (Adoptive parents of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

As the adoptees grew older, and they got to know birth parents better, adoptive parents sometimes became less worried about the potential dangers and allowed teenagers to go to contact visits unsupervised. Some of these meetings were successful—one young man, for instance, used to visit his birth mother regularly after school. However, some teenagers were exposed to potentially harmful situations:

There was one time I went and stayed with [birth father] for a week… and that was just – that should never have happened… Again, just the circles that he was involved in and he was still involved in drugs and didn’t work and was in a housingcommission place and it was just – what I was exposed to, and seeing that, and seeing people using drugs and it was… It should never have happened. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

When he was 15 we’d agreed that he could go and spend a week with her, and live with her for a week. And we were all fine and happy about that, and then on the third night he rings up and says, “Mum, you’ve got to get me out of here. She keeps giving me marijuana”. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

Lack of Engagement

Contact could still be difficult where there was no threat to the child’s safety. Birthparents and children who had never had a close relationship did not always find it easy to spend time in each other’s company—parents could be ‘difficult to relate to’, ‘hard to communicate with’ or ignored the adoptee during contact:

I felt so let down by my birth mum, by my grandparents. It wasn’t – I’d come home and we’d be driving back for two hours and I’d be sitting in the car crying until I fell asleep because we spent three months pretty much apart and I would see her and she wouldn’t spend time with me. She’d be on her phone or she’d be off doing something else. Or when I’d spend time with her, she wouldn’t want to talk to me. So it was hard for me to want to go back but she was my birth mum, so there was always a part of me that was very excited and I’d see her and it would be a huge let down. (Young woman, aged 3 when permanently placed, aged 23 when interviewed)

Some children were also described as disengaged or bored during the visit:

So I felt so sorry for her. She’d come along to see this kid and to say, “Hi, I’m your mother”, and [child] had nothing – really had no interest in engaging with her. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 17 months when permanently placed)

It felt like a bit of an inconvenience in my life, even at a younger age, because there I was trying – not being forced but sort of being forced to do something which really had no meaning in my life or no – it wasn’t going to be productive. I wasn’t going to achieve anything out of it. I was just going to go and visit this lady and my sister. I could’ve done other stuff in that day’s time. It wasn’t for my benefit. It definitely wasn’t benefiting me in any way. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 19 when interviewed)

Those birth parents who had overcome past difficulties had sometimes ‘moved on’; they could be insensitive when they talked about their new families, in which the adoptee continued to have no place:

My birth mum, she likes to brag about what her life is like now and it’s hard to hear. She’ll say she’s married, and that the husband has a child and that that child will do Mother’s Day with her and those sorts of things that of course are hard to hear because she’s never taken any pride in my life or has done anything like that with me. (Young woman, aged 3 when permanently placed, aged 23 when interviewed)

Children’s Difficulties Around Contact

Given their previous experiences of abuse and neglect and their birth parents’ continuing adversities, it is perhaps unsurprising that most children became stressed before and after contact, an issue that was cited as significant by 30% (15/50) of survey respondents. Some children were frightened of birth family members who had previously abused them. Others found the whole experience confusing and destabilising: ‘it just brings back emotions and feelings that don’t really need to be there’. Some clearly did not want to attend:

It was stressful and sometimes inappropriate. My daughter did not want contact with her mother especially. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 3 when permanently placed)

Then it got to a stage where he really did not want to go. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 12 when permanently placed)

She never wanted to go. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

It was also difficult for children and young people who had been leading relatively sheltered lives since they moved to their adoptive families to be confronted with parents who were under the influence of alcohol or drugs:

She was slurring her words and as a – however old I was, 12 or 13, I probably shouldn’t have seen that. I didn’t need to see it. I don’t think she wanted it any more than I did. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

Inevitably the tensions raised by contact were reflected in children’s behaviour. Some children regressed or were described as angry, out of control or withdrawn. Those who had experienced significant abuse displayed bizarre or challenging behaviour both before and after the contact visits:

I understood it, but I didn’t like it because it was so unsettling for him. Every three months he’d get better and better and then he’d go mental again, every time he saw her. He’d come home, he’d have those crazy eyes on and he just – it was horrible. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

When her birth mothertold her she was going to go back to court to get her home, [adoptee] let rip and broke the light bulbs in her bedroom and danced on them… she was like the girl from exorcist. Her eyes would go grey and she’d throw knives at you. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

[She] usually went backwards a little bit. Maybe started wetting herself and things like that. And she was very insecure again. She used to, like, hide in her room. But it took her a while to come out of it. She wasn’t good after an access visit. It always upset her. Then she’d be fine. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

The interviews reveal only a handful of cases where contact was reduced or curtailed in the face of children’s obvious distress. The adoptionplans stated that ‘from age 12 the child’s wishes regarding contact will be a consideration but not the final determiner as to whether contact takes place’. This was the preferred wording of the Court. Before then, unless the birth parents dropped out, contact usually persisted regardless of the children’s wishes.

Why Contact Ceased

Table 6.4 outlines the reasons why contact with birthmothers had ceased for the 42 (42/70: 60%) adoptees who had stopped seeing them by the time of the survey. The most common reason‚ cited in 15/42 (36%) cases, was that the adoptee had decided to curtail it, often when they reached their 12th birthday and their wishes could be taken into account. In almost as many cases (14/42: 33%), however, the birth mother had ended the contact, either by refusing to attend or by placing herself out of reach. By the time of the survey, contact with birthfathers had also come to an end for 21 (51%) children, with siblings for 14 (25%) children, and with other family members for 14 (24%) children. In the majority of these cases relatives had died, or contact had withered away as adoptees and relatives lost touch with one another. However, some adoptees had also made proactive decisions to end contact with birthfathers (3: 7%), siblings (2: 4%) or other family members (6: 10%). It is noteworthy that a higher proportion of adoptees took proactive steps to end contact with birth mothers than with other relatives.

Table 6.4 Reasons why contact withbirth mothers ceased (N = 42)

John

Before Entering His Adoptive Home

John’s mother used drugs during her pregnancy and John believed that he experienced difficulties because of this. He remained at home with his birth parents for two years, during which time he could remember witnessing certain frightening events and being maltreated. By the time he was placed with his adoptive family, together with his younger sibling, he was almost three years old. He had a physical disability which had not been addressed, resulting in poor speech and language and communication difficulties. He presented as a nervous, anxious and insecure child, who was worried about being removed and who did not feel safe in his adoptive parents’ home unless all the windows and doors were locked. Throughout his childhood, he was very loyal to his birth family and reluctant to talk about his abuse.

Contact After Placement

After being placed with his adoptive parents, John had regular contact with his birth parents, siblings and extended family. Initially John experienced contact as ‘trying to have fun’, but it became more difficult as his birth parents attended contact with people who had abused John, other family members were violent and John’s birth mother was often drug-affected. John reacted to these events by becoming more stressed and anxious, both before and after contact, and by deliberately breaking toys his birth mother had given him. He saw contact as an ordeal which brought back bad memories and flashbacks from his early life experiences. Despite this, he remained respectful to his mother:

I know she’s my birth mum. I know she gave birth to me. I give her respect. I’m not rude to her.

This attitude was encouraged by his adoptive parents:

If the boys see me be respectful and caring… they will follow suit and be like that themselves, so you have to lead them the right way. There’s a lot of respect there because she got herself out of a dark place, and got herself together for seven years. She’s not so good now, but within that seven years, she was trying her hardest, and it really showed, and the boys could see that.

John’s adoptive parents encouraged him to attend contact, but also gave him the choice as to whether this continued into adolescence. John decided to cease contact when he was 13 years old but considered the emotional and physical health of his mother in his timing of this. His decision was based on his growing awareness that his birth mother did not protect him from harm and that parents should not be given endless chances:

Just the fact that every time we went, something bad like – it went from being all right to something bad happening most times. And then it just got out of control. And then just we got over it, I got over it. And I said, “No, this is it. Can’t do it anymore. Don’t want to do it anymore”.

Impact of Contact on Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents

Contact was not only difficult for many of the adoptees. It could also raise painful issues for both birth parents and adoptive parents. Each contactvisit could be a reminder to birth parents that the child was no longer theirs. Hearing birth children calling their adoptive parents Mum and Dad (and refusing to do the same for them) could be particularly painful. One adoptive mother who empathised with her child’s birth parents explained:

There is that deep hurt and deep sadness if life doesn’t turn out the way we want it to, and we’ve got no control over it to make it how we want it to. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed)

Birth parents’ attempts to undermine the adoptive placement, as described earlier, could be seen as a way of dealing with their ‘deep hurt and sadness’. There were also indications that some birth parents failed to turn up for contact meetings or stopped coming altogether because they found them too painful:

And I think it just brings back emotions and feelings that don’t really need to be there. I don’t know. I think it just really stuffs up your mind and your heart, and everything like that… And I think that’s why it ended, because it got too much for [birth mother]. So I think that’s why she stopped coming, which, again, I don’t know, breaks your heart. (Young man, aged 9 when permanently placed, aged 36 when interviewed)

Contact could also be painful for adoptive parents. It shattered the illusion that theirs was a tightly knit biological family and reminded them that they were not the birth parents:

[Contact] probably just reminds you of reality, that you really don’t want to think about too much, prefer to just have the illusion that she’s your child, then you’ve got to face this reality, and she’s not. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

Contact is a constant reminder to the adoptive parent that they are not the natural mother of the child. It is hard watching and encouraging a bond between a birth motherand child when you wish in your heart that YOU were the birth mother…. On an emotional level and everything else, I’d wish [contact] never happened, because it wasn’t just upsetting for him, it was upsetting for me too. It was like a constant reminder, you’re not his mum, you’re not his mum. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

There were some indications that contact was a particularly difficult issue for women for whom infertility had been their primary reason for adopting, as was the case for both the adoptive parents quoted above.

Why Did Contact Persist?

For many children, adoptive parents and possibly birth parents too, contact was extremely difficult. It was described as something to be endured, rather than enjoyed:

For me it was like wow we’ve got through another one and that’s good. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

For me, personally, nothing, to be honest. I haven’t got anything out of it. I don’t think the girls have, only I know it’s got to be ongoing and know it’s the right thing. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

I used to tell him that morning because he used to get really anxious over it. His brother used to go, “It’s only two hours, and we go to McDonald’s afterwards”. So, his brother was more at ease than [adoptee]. [Adoptee] used to get anxious, but then he started getting flashbacks of his past, and that made him more anxious. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

Nevertheless, in spite of all the difficulties, data from the survey show that the adoptive parents thought that the majority (54/78: 69%) of their children had benefitted from face-to-face contact with birth parents. The same proportion of adult adoptees (22/32: 69%) also thought they had benefitted, though the interviews indicate that they were generally less positive about contact than their adoptive parents. Only one adoptive parent, whose child had eventually returned to his birth parents, indicated that issues around contact may have been a factor in destabilising the placement.

Contact with Grandparents, Siblings and Other Relatives

Grandparents

Most grandparents had been asked at some stage whether they could offer a home to the adoptee, but for various reasons this had not proved possible:

From what I’ve been told, my mum was a drug addict, and she already had two other children. She couldn’t look after a third one. She couldn’t look after the oldest one, and my biological father was an alcoholic, so, he couldn’t look after another child either, and my biological grandparents on his side said, “No way, we’re not looking after a child”, and my biological mum’s parents were already looking after one and said, “We can’t look after another one”. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

Nevertheless, contact with grandparents was extremely important to many of these adoptees. The young woman quoted above, whose grandparents might appear to have rejected her initially, nevertheless developed a strong, positive relationship with them, despite being adopted:

I used to see them every day, and then when I started Year 7, I’d walk to my grandma’s house, and I’d have afternoon tea with both of them every day. So, from Year 7 to Year 12, I would still see them every day, and then when my maternal grandma went into the nursing home, I’d visit her every Saturday and every Sunday, and then when my other grandma went into the nursing home, I would, yeah, still see her every Saturday and Sunday. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

Relationships with grandparents can be particularly important to children whose birth parents have not been able to provide safe and nurturing homes (Farmer et al., 2013; Grandparents Plus, 2017). Just over one in three (7/24) of the adoptees in the interview sample had a good relationship with grandparents, and contact visits with them appeared to be extremely positive:

So, with my birth grandparents, my birthfather’s parents, that was very positive. So, they were a regular part of our lives and I have very fond memories of their house at Christmas time, every year… It was a Brady Bunch, grandparent/grandchild relationship. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

She [grandmother]’s always been a constant, positive thing in my life. (Young woman, aged 1 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

[Re contact visits] I was like, really excited – exciting feeling, because, you know, it’s grandparents, and they also love you. (Young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

[She] had a lovely grandmother. Her mother’s mother was a big influenceon her early life. She was a very caring lady. We had access visits with her in the earlier times, and I think she did a lot of caring for the children. She said, “I feel terrible they’ve gone into care, but I just feel I couldn’t manage them”. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed)

Maintaining the relationship was important for these grandparents as well as for the adoptees:

I think for [maternal grandmother], it was meaning that she wasn’t losing her grandson, because there were no other grandchildren… I think, for her, it was important that she still was able to have that contact. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 8 when permanently placed)

However, contact with extended family members was not always positive. Some grandparents and other family members were abusive themselves, or complicit in the parents’ abusive behaviour. One young man ‘would experience bad nightmares after the visit with grandmother’; the adoptive parents of another very vulnerable young woman had grounds for thinking that she was being groomed by her paternal uncle, with whom she claimed to have a very close relationship. The evidence suggests that contacts with both birth parents, grandparents and other family members should be promoted according to the needs of each individual child and carefully managed where there have been concerns about abuse.

Siblings: Placed Together

About half (46/93: 50%) of the adoptees in the core follow-up sample had been placed in a home with at least one birth sibling. The data from the interviews show that adoptees tended to regard all children living in the adoptive family as siblings—birth siblings, birth parents’ biological children and other non-related foster and adopted children. Most continued to have close relationships with them into adulthood. Nevertheless, birth siblings were special. They had often been the only reliable source of support within the birth family, and relationships could be very close. Not all were beneficial: some adoptees felt they had no relationship with a birth sibling with whom they had not lived before entering the adoptive home; some birth siblings were intensely jealous of one another and risked jeopardising the placement. Moreover, some birth siblings were abusive; for instance, one young woman was placed with a brother who had been sexually abused in early childhood and became a perpetrator himself:

He was just weird and strange, and I never liked it. And he used to pull himself out – like pull his pants down and show his you-know-what and ask me to have sex with him while we were on holiday. I used to get sick a lot of a night-time, just freaking out. I used to have to go to sleep with the music on, because I’d hear [brother] walking around and stuff like that. I used to wake up and throw my guts up in the middle of the night. Just have a lot of nightmares. (Young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 32 when interviewed)

This young woman was one of the few adoptees who questioned the decision to place siblings together. For others, even when the relationship was not particularly positive, it was symbolically important, representing a link with the past:

…[siblings placed together] can have someone to talk to if they don’t want to turn to their parents. If they want someone there – like if they don’t be separated, then they don’t have that empty feeling. (Young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

Siblings: Placed Apart

Considerable efforts were made to facilitate contact between adoptees and siblings who had remained with birth parents or been adopted by other families. However, the interviews indicated that, by the time of the study, adoptees tended to be closer to the siblings and other young people who had lived in their adoptive home than to birth siblings from whom they had been separated many years previously, or who had been born after they had left. Several struggled to remember the names of these birth siblings or described them as follows:

I don’t feel like they’re my siblings – I don’t know them. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

[I think of them as]friendsrather than relatives. (Young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

They feel like a very extended family that you meet at the occasional family barbecue, and you’ll talk to them, and then go for four years without seeing them, and not think twice about it. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

One of the main reasons why close relationships were less likely between adoptees and birth siblings who remained with birth parents was that they often followed very different trajectories. As Chap. 7 will show, the majority of adoptees moved into a very different culture when they entered their adoptive homes: they were placed in families that were better off, better educated and more stable than their birth families, and efforts were made to help them overcome educational, social and emotional disadvantages. Siblings who remained at home had none of these experiences and many of them followed similar trajectories to their parents. Birth siblings could be jealous of an adoptee’s good fortune, and adoptees could feel uncomfortable that their siblings had not had the same opportunities, but they often felt they had little in common. There may have been closer relationships between adoptees and siblings who had been placed in different adoptive homes:

I guess I do feel like I have more of a connection to them, and I don’t know why, maybe because of the same thing, from the same mother removed, fostered, adopted. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

However, maintaining these relationships requires commitment from both sets of adoptive parents, and this study shows little evidence that they endured (see also Ward et al., 2006).

Those adoptees who did have a relatively close relationship with birth siblings who remained with birth parents sometimes felt responsible for them and tried to help them or to act as role models. After his elder brother went to prison, one young man said:

The only ones I have in contact are the youngers now. And so I’m kind of that role model. I’ve got to be that role model and step up to the position that [elder brother] should have been in. And so I see it as my responsibility to show them what’s right and what’s wrong, rather than complaining to them about what’s going on sort of thing. And so I’ve got to be that older brother that [elder brother] wasn’t, sort of thing. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 19 when interviewed)

Adoptees who continued to accept responsibility for siblings who remained at home could, however, risk jeopardising their own life chances. One young woman insisted on leaving her adoptive home at 15 and returned to her birth family to try to protect her siblings:

I just didn’t feel that they were safe. I didn’t think anyone was ever paying attention to them to actually help them. And from what my brother was saying, he was going on trips with this guy that was in my past, that did things to me, and stuff like that. And I feel that, you know, who was there to protect him? (Young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 32 when interviewed)

However, she then became pregnant at 16, moved out to live with her boyfriend and had two children who were placed in out-of-home care following allegations made by her birth mother.

The interviews indicated that close relationships between separated siblings might be established when adoptive parents included them as additional ‘honorary’ members of their extended families. One birth sibling had been fostered by the adoptive parents before returning to birth parents but continued to be seen as part of their family; other adoptive parents actively promoted the relationship by including birth siblings in family gatherings or becoming their advocates in negotiations with statutory services. The creation of an extended family through open adoption is discussed later in this chapter.

Long-Term Consequences of Contact

The statutory grounds for maintaining contact with birth parents post-adoption are underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that states should respect ‘the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child’s best interests’ (Article 9.3). While in the short term, contact with birth parents was often painful and frequently negative, in the longer term it might achieve two objectives: it could support children’s need to develop a strong sense of identity by incorporating knowledge of their antecedents, and it could promote children’s resilience by mitigating the difficulties with attachment, separation and loss experienced by those who had been transplanted from one family to another (Boyle, 2017). The data from the interviews show the part that face-to-face contact with birth parents and other family members played as adoptees sought to resolve these issues and achieve some form of closure.

Developing a Sense of Identity

Several studies have shown that a sense of belonging and connectedness are key factors in enabling young people to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood (Chandler et al., 2003; Ward, 2011). This is supported by a body of empirical research on young people’s perceptions of self which has found that a key element of the identity formation process is:

acquiring a working sense of one’s own personal persistence in time (…an understanding that, despite all the changes that life and time has in store, you can claim confident ownership of your own past and feel a strong commitment to your own future). (Lalonde, 2006, p. 56)

The secrecy surrounding traditional, closed adoption is now known to be damaging to adoptees’ sense of self (Brodzinsky, 2006; Kenny et al., 2012). Data from the interviews show how transparency about their origins and continuing contact with birth family members enabled adoptees to develop a strong sense of identity as they made the transition from one family to another. At a concrete level, photographs and life story books were valued as providing a sense of continuity with the past. Some face-to-face encounters were important for the same reasons:

The fact that I’ve met them as well. And I know what they look like. I know where I’ve come from, all that. I think if I didn’t know any of that, I don’t know. I think it would be a lot harder. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

Those who had not had such basic connections could feel cut off:

Yeah, because I don’t know, aunties, uncles, cousins. I could walk past them in the street and wouldn’t even know. I don’t know anything about my family history. I don’t even know what her frigging last name is because I can’t remember it. I don’t know what I should look out for. (Young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed, aged 33 when interviewed)

Not only did these adoptees feel they had ‘missed out on finding out who I am’, they also found they had insufficient information about their family medical history and their genetic inheritance.

The interviews indicate that contact had often enabled young people to develop a sense of continuity and a sense of belonging to their past as well as their present. Grandparents and siblings could play a valuable role in this process:

Yeah. I think if I didn’t have that contact when I was younger and now, I would have a lot more questions and I probably wouldn’t be as comfortable talking about it…, I’m glad that we’ve stayed in contact because if I hadn’t, I’m sure there’d be lots of questions I had unanswered, and both of them, my nan and [sister] have got photos from when I was younger and stories from when I was younger, and it’s just nice to have the full picture. So I think if I didn’t I might feel a bit empty. (Young woman, aged 1 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

Even those adoptees who were closely integrated into their adoptive families could value opportunities to retain this connection with their past:

Even though I’m adopted, there’s a small emotionalattachmenttowards a previous family. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 19 when interviewed)

Frank

Before Entering His Adoptive Home

Both of Frank’s parents had drug and alcohol issues. Following multiple reports of domestic abuse and neglect, Frank was removed at the age of four and a half years. He then experienced several temporary placements, including kin care, and was abused in foster care. Following his placement with the foster carers who later adopted him, Frank experienced a protracted restoration attempt, which was distressing and unsettling for him, and it was eventually determined that he should return to his foster carers with a view to adoption. His birth mother did not agree with the plan of adoption, so Frank decided to delay it because he did not want to hurt or upset her.

Contact During Childhood

Throughout his childhood, Frank had regular contact with his mother and extended family on both sides, with contact with his mother varying from monthly to twice per year.

While contact with Frank’s paternal family was always positive, his maternal family had drug issues and frequently dealt and used drugs from their home when Frank was there for contact. At times Frank felt very unsafe, scared and upset, being reminded of the chaos of his early life. When he was young, he did not quite understand his feelings and, as he grew older, he found the visits more difficult until he arrived at the stage where he could control his attendance, with the support of his adoptive parents:

When I was really young, I just had no idea how bad it really was. But as I grew older, I was just upset. Contact visits were just so awful for me… There’s nothing else easier about it, really. Oh, as I get older, I know how to – I just leave as soon as it – now I just have this threshold. I just leave as soon as it turns bad. I just don’t put up with it anymore at all.

Contact in Adulthood

Frank’s adoptive family helped him distance himself from his birth mother, as well as encouraging and showing respect for her, which helped facilitate an ongoing relationship. For Frank, much of his contact with his mother was extremely stressful; he became increasingly aware of her inability to be a parent, becoming angry, distressed and confused as he tried to “converge two separate identities”. However, despite the difficulties, Frank was very clear about the importance of maintaining a relationship with his mother:

So most of the time, she’s stressed and anxious when I see her. Therefore, the contact just isn’t enjoyable for me. But I still want to see my mum. She’s still my mum. So even though it is not enjoyable, I wouldn’t not want to see her….

Not all adoptees wished to retain this continuing connection. Once it had been acknowledged and understood, some felt ready to leave it behind:

Thanks for putting me up for adoption and giving me a fantastic life. Thank you that I could be part of your life for a little while, and now I’m saying goodbye, and closing that chapter. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

Coming to Terms with Separation and Loss

Adoptive parents were very clear that contact was also necessary to help prevent children from fantasising about their birth families and to understand why they had been placed away from home. These were the major reasons why contact visits continued despite some children’s obvious distress. For instance, one young man who was very frightened of his birth parents and convinced that they would try to kidnap him, nevertheless continued to have contact visits until after his 13th birthday. While he ‘kind of just did as much as I can to keep my mind off it’, his adoptive mother thought:

It’s better for them to see the parents, because it makes it easier when they’re older, because if they don’t see them, they put them up on a pedestal, and they’re more likely to stray back to them. But knowing them, and seeing them during the years, they know what they’re like, so they don’t have any questions. And I think that makes it easier for carers. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

Contact was also seen as a means of reinforcing the message that birth parents were not good role models:

My emotions told me… I don’t want all that. Let’s just keep them isolated from it. But then my head tells me that’s not the way to go because I didn’t want her growing up and getting to 16 or 17 and have visions of this mother in a rosy light that she’ll run off and look for her or want to go and live with her. Because I thought doing it gradually, she saw her for the warts and all. She saw the good part of her but she saw the warts. So she always left thinking, “Don’t want to live there”. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

I want her to know where she comes from and what the problems in the past were. That maybe she doesn’t repeat them because up to now her family background has seemed to be in this cycle of abuse. It’s gone on from the grandmother to the mother and passed down to [adoptee]. I don’t want it to go on. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

In fact, in some ways, I think [contact] was positive for him, because she was such a terrible person, that he realised that the future was with us, and not with her. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 9 when permanently placed)

Contact also meant that the adoptees became very conscious of the disparities between their current lifestyles in their adoptive homes, and those of their birth families. Some became concerned that they might revert to their birth parents’ lifestyle in adulthood; one young woman who had decided to cut off all contact with her birth family when she was 12, arranged to see them again when she was older in order to reassure herself that she would not turn out like them:

I wanted to see them again when I was 15, just to – I don’t really remember my reasons, but I think just to make sure that I wasn’t actually like them, because I had put this – not so much phobia, but insecurity in me that I’m this bad person and I’m going to turn out like my biological parents. (Young woman, aged 6 months when permanently placed, aged 24 when interviewed)

However, most adoptees were more ambivalent and contact simply served to remind them of the distance they had travelled from families with whom they had increasingly little in common:

[birth mother] was a drug addict and I guess when I was younger [birthfather] was a drug addict and had been in jail and how do you explain that to people? Again, being in an environment where you don’t – I don’t know anyone still. I don’t know anyone now that’s been in jail. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

Regular contact with birth parents also helped adoptees understand the reasons why they could not safely live with them, and why they had been placed in adoptive homes. Ongoing contact with birth parents who had significant mental health problems could help adoptees maintain a positive relationship despite their parent’s inability to look after them. When birth parents arrived at contact visits under the influence of drink or drugs, adoptees were reminded of the realities of previous adverse experiences. When birth parents brought an abusive partner with them, buried memories of maltreatment could be reawakened:

And then, as I was getting older, my understanding was getting stronger. And so I went from being a kid trying to have fun to, like, realising what these people, like, actually done. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 19 when interviewed)

Although knowing that they had been abused helped young people understand why they had been adopted, it could be painful to learn what had happened. It was difficult for birth parents to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the past and this became a sticking point for some adoptees, who resented what they perceived as a refusal to admit past mistakes or apologise for them.

Open adoption also meant that adoptees could access their case files and find out more about the reasons why they had been separated from birth parents; those who decided to do so could find this a harrowing experience:

After he read his files, he was pretty wild. I mean, we were having a fairly tricky time anyway. But he was really angry. And he was quite devastated, as you can imagine.… he had some more counselling, I think, around that time, to try and process that. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 6 when permanently placed)

Only two of the interviewees claimed that their adoptive parents had discouraged contact; neither of them had accepted the reasons for their separation, and both continued to fantasise about returning home to their birth families. On the other hand, there is ample evidence from the interviews that transparency and openness enabled other adoptees to come to terms with the separation and to understand why it had happened. Nevertheless, accepting that separation had been necessary could be a painful business, and the adoptees’ experiences raise questions concerning whether it could have been achieved in a less stressful way.

Closure

The interviews provided data concerning the extent to which the experience of abuse and neglect, followed by separation and then adoption, continued to dominate the lives of the adoptees. Data were searched for evidence of whether the adoptee had come to terms with their birth parents’ limitations; whether they understood and accepted the reasons for the adoption; and whether they perceived themselves as defined by their past experience. Of the 24 adoptees for whom these data are available, 9 appeared to have achieved closure in these areas; 9 appeared to be moving forward towards closure and 6 still seemed to be far from closure.

Coming to Terms with Birth Parents’ Limitations

Achieving Closure Group (9/24 Adoptees)

Adoptees in the closure group had come to accept that their birth parents would never be able to provide them with a nurturing home. All of them had had face-to-face contact with birth parents since being placed in their adoptive homes, and six of them still continued to see them at the time of the interview (a few months after the survey). Those who continued to have contact were in control of the situation. They arranged the meetings, and guarded themselves against over-intrusive phone calls and texts by blocking them:

She calls me daily, but I don’t answer every call. I talk to her – it depends. If I’m really stressed at uni, it can go for like two or three weeks. But I try to talk to her once every two or three weeks. (Young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 21 when interviewed)

These adoptees no longer expected that their birth parents would be able to support them; in fact, they tended to speak of a role reversal in which they were parenting the parent:

Why is she just such a dysfunctional parent? She’s never going to be able to – we’re never going to have a normal parent-child relationship. I’m basically the adult in our relationship. Every time I see her, I feel like I’m counselling her. I just listen to all her problems, and I’m the adult in our relationship. (Young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 32 when interviewed)

They also spoke about their parents objectively, as people with whom they might keep in contact, but would not expect to engage in a real relationship:

I’m happy to see them, I’m happy to interact with them, but I don’t chase a relationship with them, because I don’t feel there is one. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 41 when interviewed)

Those adoptees in this group who had decided to curtail contact had also benefitted by being in control of the situation:

No. I just think he’s a grounded boy, because we gave him the choice in the beginning, “You tell us when you’re finished with contact”. We had to give him that, because we had to give the power back to him, and I think that’s why he’s so well grounded now, because we gave him that power back. (Adoptive parent of young man, aged 2 when permanently placed)

Adoptees in the closure group were often judgemental about their birth parents:

If a parent would rather take drugs than take care of its child, then it doesn’t belong with them. And some people say, “Oh, send them to rehab. Give them another chance”. I say do they really deserve that next chance if, like, they had one shot? It’s not a video game. You don’t just get chance after chance. You sort of mess up, that’s it. (Young man, aged 2 when permanently placed, aged 19 when interviewed)

Nevertheless, one of the features of this group of adoptees was their ability to show kindness or empathy towards their birth parents, or at least to accept that they were people who had made bad decisions. Two of these adoptees delayed their adoptions so as not to upset their birth mothers. One young man who had dreaded contact visits because his mother would sometimes arrive under the influence of drugs or accompanied by someone who had abused him, nevertheless delayed curtailing them for several months because she was going through a difficult pregnancy when he reached the age at which he could make the choice, and he did not want to upset her at this time; another young man felt guilty that he had nothing in common with his birth parents; and a third was critical of the authorities because they had not removed his mother from an abusive household and given her the same chances that he had had.

Far from Closure Group (6/24 Adoptees)

The six adoptees in the far from closure group present a rather different picture. This group includes the only two interviewees who claimed that their adoptive parents had discouraged or prevented post-adoption contact with birth family members; both these adoptees had subsequently sought out their birth families. In fact, four of the adoptees in this group had returned to birth families at some stage after entering their adoptive home. However, none of the adoptees in this group were having face-to-face contact with a birth parent at the time of the interview, and relationships between them were sometimes acrimonious. Two adoptees who had returned to their birth parents’ homes as adults had then been told to leave. One young woman hated her mother and refused to see her. Another young man had cut off all relationships with his birth family:

There really isn’t a relationship. Yeah, I don’t have a relationship with them. Very, very miniscule on what is there. (Young man, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 40 when interviewed)

While adoptees in the closure group had come to terms with their birth parents’ limitations, those in the far from closure group were often still yearning for them to be able to nurture them:

I just wanted my mum, my real mum. I just wanted my real mum. I just wanted my real mum… I never got the mother out of her that I wanted to see. And then she died. (Young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed, aged 33 when interviewed)

I didn’t really grow up with a mum, so I’d think about it, and I thought about it more as an adult than I did as a child. Not having a mum hurts… mums are supposed to love unconditionally. You should be able to go and talk to them about anything, and they’ll back you up. I’ve never had that. (Young man, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 40 when interviewed)

Accepting the Reasons for the Adoption

All nine of the adoptees in the closure group had positive relationships with their adoptive parents. Two of the adoptees in this group had been through an unstable time during which the relationship had reached breaking point: one had been ‘kicked out of the house a number of times’ and moved into lodgings at 18 because at that stage she and her adoptive mother ‘could not live under the same roof successfully’. The other had walked out of his adoptive home in his 20s, had had no contact for three years and had since returned and been reconciled. Both these adoptees and their adoptive parents had been able to show sufficient flexibility to repair the relationship. Adoptees in this group had accepted that the adoption was permanent (and justified) and clearly regarded themselves as full members of their adoptive families, while at the same time often continuing a relationship with birth relatives.

Adoptees in the far from closure group had not accepted that the adoption was necessary:

Help should have got brought for the family, to deal with the situations, to deal with who I was, because I was obviously the black sheep and an emotional kid, rather than just remove a child, that’s pretty bloody disgusting. I classify myself as part of the stolen generation, because I was just taken. The family unit wasn’t helped, as far as I could see. (Young man, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 40 when interviewed)

Three of the adoptees in the far from closure group had broken off the relationship with their adoptive parents, and the others had relationships that were troubled or uncertain. All the adoptees in this group had also broken off relationships with at least one birth parent or other family members, leaving themselves increasingly isolated.

I don’t talk to [three of my brothers]. The only ones I do talk to is [my sister and another brother]… I prefer not to because they’re on drugs, and I have no time for that. My sister, I know she’s on drugs. I don’t like it, but at least she talks to me.

Well, we had a disagreement with – [adoptive mother], and I left. And that was it. I came away to Sydney and started trying to look for my brother – my brothers and all my sisters. (Young man, aged 9 when permanently placed, aged 35 when interviewed)

Instead of successfully combining relationships with adoptive parents and birth family members, adoptees in this group were often left in limbo, feeling that they belonged neither to one family nor to the other.

Moving On

Almost all the adoptees who were interviewed had been displaying significant emotional and/or behavioural problems when they first entered their adoptive homes. They were commonly described as ‘angry’, ‘out of control’ or ‘fearful’ and were clearly demonstrating the consequences of past maltreatment, sometimes compounded by adverse experiences in out-of-home care (see Chap. 3). The factor which perhaps most clearly distinguished between the two groups of adoptees in adulthood is the extent to which, at least ten years after placement, the events of their early childhood continued to dominate their lives. Adoptees in the far from closure group were still suffering the consequences of the abuse they had experienced; for instance, the sister of one of the young men who had been sexually abused as a child explained that, by now, he had virtually cut himself off from both his birth family and his adoptive family:

But now that he’s gone out and moved out and is on his own, I think that’s what worries me the most because he’s out there and – I don’t know. He probably never leaves the house because he’s a hermit sort of type thing. It still bothers me but I think, oh, geez, you know, are we one day going to get a phone call saying he’s done something that we don’t want to know about? Like that he’s hurt someone or done something to a young person that he shouldn’t have done. And I think even Dad, in a sense, sort of expects that too. I think he’s waiting for the day that we get a phone call…. (Young woman, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 32 when interviewed)

Many of the adoptees in this group were still angry at the way that they had been treated, and at times this dominated their conversations:

I like to talk about the issues of what went on with [adoptive parents who were perceived as abusive], and I think they just want to bury it. [My sister] just wants to bury it away and I get a lot out of talking stuff out, even now in relationships, I like to talk it out. I find that they don’t like to talk it out. Families don’t do that. They just forgive and forget, whereas that didn’t really happen with me, so I haven’t had that skill. I don’t forget, and I sure as hell won’t forgive unless you’re apologising for it. So, I bring it up. I’m the bringer-up in front of everyone. I’ll confront it head on, and they won’t. (Young man, aged 10 when permanently placed, aged 40 when interviewed)

Adult outcomes for this group of six adoptees were generally poor, with these young people engaged in violent behaviour and substance misuse, and becoming victims, or suspected perpetrators, of sexual abuse. Only two had educational qualifications; four members of this group had had no regular employment since leaving school and the others had a history of short-term, casual jobs. One of them told the researcher: ‘I look at it as in I’m glad I never went to jail, then at least I was able to achieve that’.

The nine adoptees in the closure group had better qualifications and educational outcomes. They had not entirely overcome the consequences of abuse—even those who appeared outwardly successful indicated that there was an underlying fragility, an issue that will be discussed further in Chap. 8. Nevertheless, they had more insight into the way in which abuse had affected their development, and were able to take positive action to reduce its impact: for instance, one young man, who appeared to have achieved a very high degree of closure, was now trying to overcome a recurrent problem in his relationships:

I think it is tied to the unconscious memories of adoption. And I think I always was very – in my past relationships – always had a real inherent fear of being abandoned, a fear of people just – of them just leaving or me not being good enough. And that manifested itself in a lot of insecurities around relationshipsand would then manifest in behaviours that could be seen as controlling. (Young man, aged 1 when permanently placed, aged 25 when interviewed)

The Impact of Contact on the Adoptive Parents’ Roles

The policy of open adoption also had an impact on the adoptive parents’ roles. Openness meant that they were aware of the abuse and neglect adoptees had experienced, and were involved in helping them come to terms with the past:

And I’ve always said to [adoptee], “Look, you treat your childhood in two ways. You can say, ‘I had a terrible, traumatic, horrible childhood compared to a whole lot of other people around me, and I’m going to let that be the excuse for totally ruining my life, and getting into drugs, and doing this and that, or the other’, or you can say, ‘I had a really terrible, awful, horrible childhood. I’m not going to let it spoil my life.’”… You just make sure that [your birthfather] and [birth mother] were not able to spoil your life by rejecting you when you were young, by actually making a success of your life and doing well. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 8 when permanently placed)

Open adoption also meant that adoptive parents regularly arranged contact visits and accompanied adoptees to them; they also facilitated adoptees’ attendance at birth family events such as weddings and funerals and sometimes went to them themselves. In the process they were obliged to develop some sort of relationship with birth parents and other family members. Just as with the adoptees, contact prevented adoptive parents from fantasising about the birth families in a manner that exaggerated their shortcomings, and helped them develop greater understanding. It was not always possible for adoptive parents to develop a relationship with birth parents and other family members, and, when these relationships did exist, they were not close, but they were rarely acrimonious. Over time, some adoptive parents saw themselves as having ‘an extra strand of family’ with ‘all these extra layers of people in our world’ and included birth family members in invitations to family events and on Christmas card lists. Some of them took on a parental role towards birth parents and siblings and gave professional advice to other birth relatives. Not all adoptees wanted this level of intermingling: one young woman cut up and threw away the Christmas cards her adoptive father had written for her birth relatives. However, others were thought to have found that such efforts helped bridge the gap between the two families:

It gives her that sense of belonging and feeling of being in their family, being in both families, alongside each other. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 3 when permanently placed)

These open, inclusive relationships were very different from the popular image of adoption as a closed and secretive institution which severed all family ties. One adoptive mother responded to a solicitor who accused her in court of trying to end all further contact between the child and her birth family through an adoption order:

Oh, funny you should say that. But last weekend, we had them over for a barbecue, and we’re altogether for a barbecue. And in the summer, we had a holiday house in the Central Coast and we invited them over then. Oh, and by the way, I have just posted two parcels for the little ones’ birthdays. So, no, I don’t think so. (Adoptive parent of young woman, aged 4 when permanently placed)

All the nine adoptees in the closure group had adoptive parents who actively facilitated the relationshipwith birth parents; and all adoptive parents who regarded birth family members as an extra strand of family had adoptees in this group (although one also had an adoptive daughter in the far from closure group). Some, though not all, adoptive parents of young people in the far from closure group had had little contact with birth parents and had not had opportunities to get to know or understand them. These adoptive parents showed little empathy towards birth parents and were openly critical of them.

Conclusion

It seems clear that transparency and openness were necessary to enable adoptees to understand and accept the reasons why they had been removed from their birth parents, and to achieve some form of closure. However, while contact ensured transparency, this could be painful to all parties involved. It forced adoptive parents to acknowledge that they were not birth parents; it clarified birth parents’ problems and poor relationships with adoptees; and for some children, it brought back painful memories of the past.

Continuing contact with birth parents helped adoptees develop a strong sense of identity and understand where they had come from. This strengthened their sense of psychological permanence, enabling them to feel that they belonged to their past and their past relationships as well as to their present ones. It also prevented them from idealising their birth parents, helped them come to terms with their shortcomings, and decide whether they wished to continue with the relationship. There is only minimal evidence from this study to indicate that continuing post-adoption contact risks jeopardising adoptees’ relationships with their adoptive parents or destabilising the placement (see also Neil et al., 2015).

However, many children had face-to-face contact with parents who had seriously abused them: they found it frightening and stressful. It needed to be carefully managed; it was important for adoptive parents to be there and for birth parents to be aware of appropriate boundaries. Where children were reluctant to attend, more consideration might have been given to supporting indirect contact arrangements. The adoptees benefitted from being able to control contact as they grew older, and from being able to decide whether they wanted it to continue.

A recent evidence review of contact following placement away from birth parents concluded that the key issue was not how much contact was most beneficial, but ‘how best to facilitate positive experiences and the meaningful involvement of people who matter to the child’ (Iyer et al., 2020, p. i). Other studies have found that contact needs to be tailored to the needs of each child (Neil et al., 2015; Quinton et al., 1997). The experiences of the Barnardos adoptees confirm the importance of these messages.

Key Points

• New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory appear to be unique in both legislating for and implementing face-to-face post-adoption contact with birth families as a prerequisite of the adoption order.

• Altogether, 76 (87%) adoptees had face-to-face post-adoption contact with at least one birth parent. Only 11 adoptees (13%) had no face-to-face contact with either birth parent.

• Forty-six (58%) of those adoptees who had brothers and sisters had been placed in a home with at least one sibling and so had daily contact. Only 5% of adoptees had no post-adoption contact with their birth siblings.

• More than three-quarters of the children (78%) had post-adoption contact with grandparents or other extended family members.

• Ninety-three per cent of the adoptees had direct post-adoption contact with at least one member of their birth family; only four children had no contact at all.

• Most children had face-to-face contact with birth parents and siblings about four times in the first year of the placement; adoptive parents accompanied them to contact visits.

• By the time of the survey, on average 18 years after placement, more than half of the adoptees (56%) were still seeing at least one member of their birth family. However, younger adoptees appeared to have more contact than those who were older, indicating that contact tended to diminish over time.

• Contact visits had not been problematic for 40% of adoptees; it had given adoptive parents valuable opportunities to get to know the birth family and to reassure them about their children’s wellbeing.

• Contact had been problematic for 60% of adoptees. Issues included complex practical arrangements, and safety and security. Birth parents’ adverse behaviour during contact was the most significant problem.

• Contact also introduced painful transparency: it reminded adoptive parents that they were not birth parents; clarified birth parents’ problems and poor relationships with adoptees; and prevented children from fantasising about their birth family and helped them understand why they had been adopted.

• Almost all adoptive parents thought that they should be present during contact visits, to protect or support the child, and to monitor what happened. However, some adoptive parents felt that the change of status gave them less authority to manage the child’s interactions with birth family members.

• A third of the adoptees became stressed before and after contact. They found contact frightening, confusing or destabilising and their behaviour deteriorated.

• Unless the birth parents dropped out, contact persisted regardless of children’s wishes until they were 12, when the courts allowed their wishes to be taken into account.

• The most common reason given for the cessation of contact was that the adoptee had decided to curtail it.

• While, in the short term, contact with birth parents was often painful, in the longer term it could support children’s need to develop a strong sense of identity by incorporating knowledge of their antecedents, and it could mitigate the difficulties with attachment, separation and loss experienced by children who are transplanted from one family to another. Over two-thirds of both adoptive parents and adoptees (69%) thought that contact had ultimately been beneficial.

• The evidence suggests that contacts with both birth parents, grandparents and other family members need to be promoted according to the needs of each individual child, and carefully managed where there have been concerns about abuse.

• Adoptees tended to regard all children living in the placement as siblings. Relationships with same-placed birth siblings could be very close—but not all siblings benefited from being placed together.

• Adoptees’ relationships with birth siblings who remained with birth parents were often distant, particularly when they followed different life trajectories.

• Adoptees who had come to terms with their birth parents’ limitations understood and accepted the reasons for the adoption. They no longer perceived themselves as defined by their past experience. They appeared to have achieved closure and moved on with their lives.

• All the adoptees who had achieved closure had adoptive parents who actively facilitated the relationshipwith birth parents: many had incorporated birth family members as ‘honorary’ family members. Adoptive parents of some adoptees who were far from closure showed little empathy with birth parents, were openly critical of them and had had little contact with them.

• Adoptees who had achieved closure had more positive adult outcomes than those who had not.