The new Evan B. Donaldson report is out on identity formation (link included) What are your thoughts on it?

"Contact with birth relatives, according to the White respondents, is the most helpful factor in achieving a positive adoptive identity." (I don't know about you but this speaks VOLUMES to me)

When asked to name the experiences or services that are most helpful in achieving a positive identity as an adopted adult, White adoptees rate contact with birth relatives as the most important. (again, speaks volumes)

A lopsided majority of the respondents - 86 percent - had taken steps to find their birth families. An unexpected finding was that a high percentage (49%) of the Korean adoptees had searched as well and 30 percent had experienced contact with birth relatives, despite the common assumption that those adopted from Korea have little access to information about their families of origin. For Whites, 45 percent reported having contact with birth relatives. (I'm disappointed that the percentage is so low)

This finding - like the one above - underscores the essential fact that adoptees, like their counterparts raised in their families of birth - want to know (as the cliché puts it) "who they are and where they come from." (what a CONCEPT) A deeper understanding of this reality has broad implications for adoption law, policy and practice. (IT'S ABOUT TIME.)

Thanks Julie, as always your info is awesome.

If the people studied can admit that it's helpful why can't others? I mean, if you hear it from the "horses mouth"...... or do these people still not know what's best for them as individuals? only outsiders who have no idea what it feels like and simply push a pencil along with their strong opinion. You know what they say about opinions.

If you're not directly related to the situation that's really all you have.

I hope this info is taken seriously.

It's interesting that they are admitting that transracially adopted individuals will likely face discrimation and that adoptive parnets need to be aware of this. I think white folks tend to downplay racial discrimination so it is vital for those who adopt children of another race to be aware of the realities of prejudice.

I also think it's interesting that being "adopted" becomes a central part of identity for many adoptees. They noted that this "adopted" aspect of identity lasts for a lifetime.

Being "adopted" is not something that can be wished away or ignored.

To the 1st poster above, Artiststree... on your counsel, a lot of human beings decide directly to undertake inspite of no rely if or not they are able to have toddlers biologically. The term "foster" would not have everlasting connotations, while as "adoptive" does. possibly at some point your slender concept of "genuine" mum and dad will incorporate people who undertake extremely than in basic terms people who've organic and organic toddlers. as nicely, comparable to mixed households, it is not a rely of in basic terms having "one" set of mum and dad... extremely, adoptees have greater desirable than one set... even even though it is not a rely of choosing one over the different. related to the unique poster, I extremely have examine articles on the record, and confident, I completely help adoptees having get right of entry to to their delivery data. In Brodzinsky's "Being observed," the author makes the element that closed data are hypocritical in that there is not something "private" approximately them. "all people" has get right of entry to to those data, inclusive of case workers, government officers, etc... all people, that's, different than the adoptee. What a sham.

I think it's great. It makes me feel like so much less of a freak to see the kinds of things I've felt my whole life justified in a study like this. And hopefully it will help the next generation of adoptees fare better.

Whoah Julie, that is some heavy lifting this morning. :)

Wow, a TD already. well it is . 113 pages, and thick with statistics. Took me two cups of coffee to finish it.

I was wondering of the 179 Korean adoptees included in the study , if they had counted how many of them were from the mixed race GI babies that came over to the US after we left Korea.

Those babies and their mothers were being brutalized and rejected by the Korean community at the time.

To this day, Koreans are still hung up on Pure Blood lines.