Wanting to know more – or not (9 Apr 2010)

As adopted children grow older they often become more curious about their birth families, particularly when there has been little or no contact. We look at children who want to know more, those who don’t want to know more, and those who take the matter into their own hands...

Not all adopted children want to know or have contact with their birth families. The desire to know more is a very personal one – some adoptees will always want to know more, while others have little or no interest.

Those who are not interested may change as they get older – significant events such as becoming a parent can have this effect, or they may be happy to remain as they are.

With the development of the internet and particularly social networking, adopted children who want to know more can take the initiative for themselves and make unsupervised contact with birth relatives through websites such as MySpace or Facebook.

This accessibility has caused difficulties for a number of adoptive families, and Adoption UK would always recommend that children do not make this kind of unsupervised contact, and that adoptive families making contact initially go through their agency.

For parents concerned about the risks of online tracing, the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) advises:

Keep computers in a family room rather than in your child's bedroom. Children are less likely to engage in risky behaviour if family members are able to see what they are doing online.
Know what your children are doing online and who they are talking to. Ask them to show you how to use the packages they use.
Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details to online friends, and should not post their phone number or email address on their homepage.
Help your child adjust their account settings so that only approved friends can instant message them. This won’t ruin their social life – new people can still send them friend requests and message them, they just won’t be able to pester them.

Making contact after 18 – intermediaries

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 establishes a framework which gives both adopted people (over 18) and also their birth relatives the right to request an intermediary service if they want to make contact.

An intermediary is someone who acts as a go-between and a mediator between the adopted person and the birth relatives. This can be with a view to passing on or requesting information and this may lead to indirect or direct contact.

Adoption UK would strongly recommend that anyone wanting to make contact with birth relatives do so through an intermediary.

They will research the identity and whereabouts of either adoptive or birth family members, before then approaching the relevant person to see if they would be interested in the exchange of information and/or future contact and reunion.

Intermediary services can be provided only by registered adoption agencies (either local authority or voluntary) or registered adoption support agencies.

Not wanting to know more

Some adoptees are very definite that they do not want to make contact with birth relatives when they reach age 18, while others may simply feel they are not ready.

At age 18 you can register on the Adoption Contact Register a wish for no contact, or you can register a Qualified or Absolute Veto with the agency that placed you for adoption.

An absolute veto prevents an intermediary agency from making an approach in any circumstances. A qualified veto enables an agency to make an approach on behalf of a birth relative specified by the adoptee or in circumstances specified by the adoptee (e.g., where there is information about a hereditary medical condition).

Online Community users’ experiences

My son’s eight now and has been here since he was teeny. I'd thought that he may have started to become more curious about his origins by now. I have always been very open with him and have drip fed him information since placement with us so he knows the bones of his situation. It's invariably me who will start the conversation and he knows that if he ever wants to ask anything then I will always be honest with him. But he's just not that interested and he'll listen and then gets bored and doesn't want to know any more. I sometimes feel like I'm trying too hard and wonder whether I should wait for him to take the initiative. I've said that as he gets older then I imagine he will want to know more information and that he will become more curious - but he just looked at me as if I was mad and said no, not really interested. I don't want to force the information on him but then I don't want him to think that I'm embarrassed to talk about it either!
Donatella

Facebook is how my daughter’s birth mum tracked her down just after her 16th birthday and then had a number of clandestine meetings, although court had said no contact before age of 18 years with her. For a time we thought we had lost her forever but she slowly returned to us. My husband tracks all communication on Facebook between birthparents and our daughter - this is a hard won agreement we got with her. When we requested that her birth father be removed from Facebook as he is a schedule one offender we recieved no reply. We reported it to the online police exploitation unit in London who were great and followed it up, however the law says that as our daughter is over 16 years of age and as there is no direct contact there is nothing anyone can do. The local police did go and talk to him and ward him off from contacted her on Facebook. His response was to contact her via his girlfriend’s Facebook account.
Homerton

Our girls are desperate to find their birth parents and to know what is happening in their lives; I've spoken to the PASW (post adoption social worker) and team who look after post adoption contact here, but they have told me there is nothing they can do, they don't have contact details for three of them. They have said, that we can use whatever information is in the public domain, to search ourselves, and I just wondered if anyone had done this? I've checked the usual websites, but they're not showing anything, and I've found some pretty specialised ones that I could go through, but am wary.
Hippychick

I and my three siblings were all adopted at two or three weeks old. We always knew we were adopted from a young age. I was content not knowing about my birth family, and it was never an issue for me. My elder brother to this day has absolutely no desire to know anything about his past. Younger brother traced his birth mum about five years ago and is now thinking of tracing his birth family. My older sister has always had an identity issue. She had an insatiable desire to know everything and I am sure she must have traced her birth mum. I myself was never interested at all until now dealing with my adopted daughter's questions, at the ripe old age of 47, I'm thinking about tracing my birth mum. It's not a burning desire or anything, but she would be in her late 60s/early 70s and if I leave it too late she may have passed on and I'll never know. Every adopted person is different and some people are happy not knowing. You can't make someone interested if they're not. So long as adoption is mentioned from time to time and they know you are willing to talk about it.
JMK

Further resources

http://www.ceop.gov.uk/_ Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/_ Advice and guidance on internet safety

http://www.adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk/ information about searching for or making contact with birth and adopted relatives or researching UK adoptions

http://www.norcap.org.uk/ National charity supporting adults affected by adoption