Barbara Sumner recounts her findings ‘In the Court of Public Opinion’ re the Submissions for the Adult Adoption Information Bill
“It is raining in Wellington and I’ve taken a wrong turn to get to Archives New Zealand, determined to walk everywhere in this most walk-able of small cities. I set out under blue skies with a view of the harbour scudded in moutons. One minute the sky is blue, the next I am trudging along a walkway beside the motorway in driving rain. By the time I arrive my hair is plastered and my shoes are soaked. The archivist is young, her hair in a messy bun, her loose dark blue smock exactly what I expect an archivist to wear. She has my pre-ordered files ready. A stack of five bulging plastic folios. Each filled with around one hundred and eighty submissions I carry them to a table and untie the green ribbon bow holding the first one together. I have a sense of wonder at the extent of these files, at the physical weight of them, and at the volume of submissions.
The files relate to the submission process for the Adult Adoption Information Bill. It was promoted as a way for mothers of loss and their now adult children to find each other.
Adoption is shrouded in secrecy. When adoption is spoken about publicly it is generally to uphold the ideal of adoption as a social good, of the fictive family as no different to any other. But here, in my hands, is a public conversation. I admit, I was not expecting much. The name and the usefulness of this Bill remains a thorn for adopted people. The only information it provides for is an often redacted original birth certificate. But it’s passage into law was a step towards truth.
I start out reading everything, scanning every page. There are submissions from Jigsaw, the Council for the Single Mother and Her Child, and other women’s groups in support of the law change. There are the expected church groups in opposition. But it is extent and the content of the private submissions that surprise me. The majority are from adopters writing against the reform. They say things like:
Will interfere with established families – may even break them.
Interfere with inheritance.
May have been conceived in incest.
Will leave parties open to blackmail.
Open old wounds and strife and prejudice.
The Bill pulls the legal security blanket from under “secret mothers.”
We adoptive parents jealously guard the rights of our child in the pursuit of their own happiness, untrammelled by the hang-ups and idiosyncrasies of others.
We did not want to know her name or anything about her. The law promised us, it was as if the child came from my own body.
Unwelcome contact (from mothers) will create problems of duel identity.
The birthmother is an uninvited stranger.
One submitter emphasised the contractual capacity and consent (in capitals and underlined) of the mother in the contract: “Adoption is a remarkably successful solution to a social problem.” She says the obnoxious bill will impose a draconian regime of humiliating confession. Many other adopters commented on the contractual nature of adoption, emphasising the mothers knew what they were doing. One commented if they were old enough to have a child they were old enough to read. Few expressed any empathy for the unwed mother.
The Christchurch MP Philip Burdon writes that any alteration in the existing right to privacy would be intolerable and a “gross breach of trust.” His long denunciation of the proposed change includes his canvassing of other adoptive parents:
“We have sought the opinions of other adoptive parents who as a group have had little voice. In any discussion and without exception they are adamant that our happy, well-adjusted children will not have their security and peace of mind intruded upon by anyone, no matter how well appointed, well meaning, curious or self-serving.” He continues: “Most children put up for adoption are the progeny of reluctant motherhood.” He says those children who “sadly” want to know the facts, which are likely to be distressing and sordid in the extreme will be hurt. He adds that the bill will legislate in favour of neurosis and will be an intrusion on privacy.
One submitter is from a group of twelve genealogists asking for free access to the original birth certificates of deceased adoptees to further their own interests.
A lawyer who says he was involved in a large number of adoptions urges the committee to be aware support for the Bill is supported by a small minority of adopted persons and natural mothers: “The Committee should not be persuaded by their petitions.” He, like others is clear the adopted person should have no right to information about their mother, let alone their heritage, extended families, heredity health issues or anything other than what is provided by the family they are adopted into..
Another noted her opposition to the Bill and signed off expressing her gratitude: “To those poor girls who made that difficult decision that enabled my husband and I to have the family we were looking forward to.”
This idea of the ‘poor girls’ is echoed in a private submission from the then Leader of the Opposition, Rob Muldoon. He speaks for therights of the elderly woman who’s given up a child for what she believed to be a secret adoption many years ago: “These women became pregnant at a time when abortion was a back street crime attended with grave physical dangers.”
He goes on to explain that most women put the experience of adoption behind them and went on to have a normal family life: “In many, probably the majority of cases the husband was not told of the earlier experience.”
He says women are terrified of the passage of the bill: “It is this terror that has been brought to my notice.” He describes the bill as torture that: “equates to physical pain and I do not believe that the reasons for passing the bill are adequate to solve the mental anguish inflicted on so many women.”
Muldoon describes the suffering women as a prominent sports woman, a single lady who may be a headmistress, and a Catholic nun. He then rails against using newspaper advertising to let mothers know they can lodge a veto:
“…it is the fact that many women paid little attention to the news media some of those affected. Some women would not, in fact, know who the Registrar General is or where to find him.”
He declares the Bill written from the perspective of the rights of the child. And then the zinger. Had their mothers become pregnant in today’s society they would have been aborted: “I am sure that without exception, they would prefer a permanently secret adoption to that alternative.”
He ends by stating: “I cannot recall ever having seen a piece of legislation that inflicts much mental anguish and cruelty on such a large number of women whose only offense was a very common form of human frailty.”[1]
All this from a man whose political career was rife with allegations of extra-marital affairs and infidelities.[2].
Muldoon and the majority of the submitters were writing from the perspective that adoption must remain sealed forever to protect the birthmothers. And as with the scant documents from the Salvation Army, the fathers are not mentioned.
Arthur D. Sorosky addresses this in his 1978 book The Adoption Triangle - The Effects of the Sealed Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents.[3] He says the original reasons for secrecy date from 1940 in the United States. Secrecy was sold as a twofold benefit. Adoptees and adopters were protected from disruption by birth mothers. The flow on effect would:
“…allow the birth parents to make a new life for themselves, free of the responsibility for the child and safe from the disgrace resulting from errors of the past. It
has been discovered however, that the original purpose was neither of the above, but merely a means of protecting the adoptive family from intrusion by uninvolved persons.”[4]
Quote Keith Griffith in here about adoption as ownership Keith Griffith also quotes Sorosky in his book on adoption procedures and statistics.[5]
As others have said, the Adoption act 1955 was designed to render birth mothers invisible.[6]
The Act declares: “The adopted child shall be deemed to become the child of the adoptive parent, and the adoptive parent shall be deemed to become the parent of the child, as if the child had been born to that parent in lawful wedlock.[7] This enabled adopters to act “as if” the child in their care was their blood child.
My wet feet are aching and my eyes are glazing. While the hundreds of submissions are a snapshot of the time, it is not a conversation. It is an onslaught of ownership. They expose the deep sense of entitlement. And fear that the system that privileges them, and the secrecy they rely on to present as a ‘normal’ family will be exposed.
Not one submitter appears to consider the right of the adopted person to an authentic genealogy, to anything at all, beyond the fictive family they find themselves in. The ‘adopted child’ does not appear to exist as a person in their own right, outside of their adopted status. When the adopters speak of their ‘adopted child’ it is with a sense of ownership. The few times the ‘invisible’ mothers are mentioned it is with a edge of superiority, as though they are a different type or even class of person to the women who find themselves married but infertile. It is clearly easier to view them as ‘poor girls’ who got into trouble.
The idea of settling in to read a broad conversation on adoption is long gone. And then I find a quiet, polite letter.
Joanne Willis, a twenty-five year-old adopted woman explains carefully how meeting her birth family was a rich and rewarding experience: “I can accept myself as an individual and equal to those around me, as for many years I could not. Low self-esteem, no heritage to lean on and society's opinion on those who seek to find their heritage and themselves has dramatic effects on all those involved in the adoption triangle: “The right to one’s origins is a basic human right.”
Today, Joanne Will says:
“On one level I feel proud I did it but I hate that it was so polite because they wouldn’t take it seriously if it wasn’t. Also my naivety. While I genuinely felt that at the time, little did I know that just below the surface about to emerge was a crippling wound and a trajectory of healing that was to take the rest of my life to work through.”
In the last folder I find four pages typed on green and blue paper: Summary of New Zealand Adoption Survey – by L. Langridge, M.A.[8] The survey allows mothers to voice their feelings about adoption law and practice: A total of four hundred women replied in full, most of them including pages and pages of extra content: “The strength of feeling was obvious in the replies.”
The women ranged in age from 16 to 65 years. Adoptions had taken place between five months and forty-seven years ago. The ages at pregnancy ranged from fourteen to thirty-nine. Leigh Langridge’s survey discovered:
67.5% of mothers want to see their child and almost all are unhappy about adoption law and practice.
61% say they did not know enough about adoption when they made the decision and were given inaccurate legal information.
Only 4% did not want to see their child again. These were mostly older women who’d hidden their pregnancy.
64.5% said they think if their child frequently.
67.5% want to see their child: “under any conditions the child might want to impose.”
40% have tried to find their child, some going to extraordinary lengths.
50% who tried to get information were told to “go away.”
40% were given inaccurate information about their child or were lied to about their rights to keep their child. One wrote that she was told her child was “fine and happy” only to discover he was a battered baby in hospital.
81% reported emotional disorders after the loss of their baby. These ranged from months of crying to depression through to repeated suicide attempts.
96% said they had no choice in who adopted their child.
93.6% did not meet the adopters.
86% were little or no information about the adopters.
70% felt pressure to adopt from social workers, hospital staff, religious figures and parents. Many reported the pressure ranged from advice to threats to physical violence.
The survey is unique in that it presents the authentic voices of mothers who lost their children to stranger adoption. Some said they were assured they could have contact, only to never hear a word after their baby was handed over. Several women were genuinely convinced adoption was for the best. They did not want their child to turn up because their mental health depended on believing it was a success. Langridge comments: “It is clear that birth-mothers are placed in a double bind over their decision to adopt. They are told ‘if you love your child you will give it up’ – and then as soon as they do they are told, ‘you’ve given it up, so you don’t love it and you’ve no right to know anything about it.’”
It was, as Ann-Marie says: “As if the church and state were in it together. One wanted to punish us for having sex and the other wanted our babies. How does a young woman without support fight that?”
Lorraine describes that time in her life as really confusing, where she was constantly overwhelmed, with a misplaced sense of trust in people: “I thought the purpose of Bethany was to give accommodation to unmarried mothers primarily. But it was a social band aid in a time of social stigma. A stigma I would argue they helped create and continue to support.”
Ann-Marie says she had nowhere to live and finding a roof over her head was her priority. She thought the purpose of Bethany was to provide shelter and guidance and accommodation and care while she caught her breath and figured out what to do:
“Once I was through their doors, it became increasingly obvious that they wanted to punish me and to take my child. On hindsight, I was there to supply a baby to meet the demand of the adopter market. They abused me and broke me down and took away my most basic human rights.”
[1] Submissions to the Statutes Revision Committee, Adult Adoption Information Bill, 11 October 1984, New Zealand Archives
[2] https://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/all-decisions/decision-number-1994-112
[3] Arthur Sorosky, The adoption triangle: The effects of the sealed record on adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents, (1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1978)
[4] Arthur Sorosky, The adoption triangle: The effects of the sealed record on adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents, (1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1978)
[5] Keith Griffith, Adoption: Procedure, documentation, statistics: New
Zealand 1881-1981, 100 years.
Birth Mothers: Adoption in New Zealand and the Social Control of Women, 1881-1985
MA thesis, Gillian R. Palmer
[6] Reuben Pannor, Annette Baran and Arthur D. Sorosky, "Birth
parents who relinquished babies for adoption revisited,"Family
Process, 17 (September 1978): 335.
[7] Adoption Act 1955 Section 16(2)(a)
[8] Summary of New Zealand Adoption Survey – by L. Langridge, M.A.
Barbara Sumner
PhD Researcher
International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML)
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Victoria University of Wellington│ Whare Wānanga o te Ūpoko o te Ika a Māui