Making the Decision to Search

September 5, 2004

The United States is one of the few countries in the world where adult adopted persons are not universally given identifying information about their births on request. In England, for example, when adopted persons reach adulthood, they can request and obtain this information by law. To those of us in the U.S. who weren't adopted in states that allow unrestricted access see State Laws on Access to Information, we may look at other countries with envy, wishing things could be as easy for us. However, a recent article from Adoption-Net.co.uk reports that The Children's Society found that "around 60 per cent of children who try to trace their birth parents end up wishing they hadn't started the process."

As you consider the decision to search for members of your biological family, it's important to remember that your hopes and expectations may be quite different from those of the family members you find.

Last update on May 2, 1:09 pm by Miriam Gwilliam.

novocosmos

September 18, 2004

Your quote, that 60% of those who search regret having started, is misleading.

According to the 1989 book "Birthbond," which includes over 30 stories of birth family reunion, at least 30 of those searchers did not regret it.

I could not find the article which you say reported the figure you wrote of. I did go to the website this article is supposed to be on (Adoption-net.co.uk) and found in their article "Tracing Lost Relatives" under "The Emotional Impact of Searches":

"...few people regret undertaking a search even if they are unsuccessful..."

and from that same site, same article, quoting the U.K.'s Post Adoption Centre's studies on adoption:

" 'Most adopted people say that contact with a birth parent, however minimal, has helped them to integrate the past with the present and given them a more coherent, anchored, and realistic understanding of themselves and their own identity.' "

In all of my research so far, in books and in person, I have found no exact figure or percentage; rather, I have found an overwhelming majority of reports that searchers in fact do NOT regret their decision, regardless of how the search turned (or is turning) out.

Lisa Starr

columnist

Missing Pieces

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