Identity through Injury: Unfit Mothers and Direct Contact

Abstract

I have prefaced this chapter with two very different quotations from my archive study. The first is from an interview I conducted with the adoption manager where she elaborates her views on direct contact after adoption. The second is from a social worker report describing a mother’s unscheduled contact visit to her child in foster care at a time when his new adoptive parents were also visiting. By placing them together I am clearly implying a relationship — a manager opposed to direct contact visits for unfit mothers and an unfit mother’s anguish at the prospect of losing her direct contact with her soon to be adopted child. Consistent with the account that I gave in Chapter 6, this manager views direct contact as the controversial and problematic open adoption practice, particularly when linked to unfit parenting. In her view unfit parents are disqualified from direct contact with their children, but can remain in touch by letter exchange, a position that the adoption files commonly reflected throughout the period of my study.

She [the adoption Manager] outlined her position on direct contact more unequivocally, saying that Ryburn’s cases were ‘artificial’ and could not be applied to her local authority families who were ‘drug abusers’ and ‘prostitutes’ … ‘How can you expect a baby to get on in a new family’ if it is having contact … ‘I have no trouble with letterbox, but face to face contact is the problem. (Research diary, January 2003)

She arrived unexpected and was very upset and crying, shouting ‘I want to see my baby. Why don’t those fucking gutless people come out here and see me, they won’t fucking face me, will they.’ I spoke to birth mother and explained that she could not have contact then but should see her social worker … Mother said ‘you’re saying I’ve no fucking rights for my own daughter. (Adoption, 1996)