&&&&&&&&&&&&&&Adoptee View: What Can a Tiny Baby Know?
Adoptee View: What Can a Tiny Baby Know?
The Psychology of Adoption Trauma and the Primal Wound
In her preface to The Primal Wound, Nancy Newton Verrier states her naivetée when adopting her daughter. She
undermining and discounting the very child that she was promising to love and care for. She believed that her own adopted daughter would never know or be negatively impacted by being adopted. After all, what can a tiny baby know? They are too young to remember any of the trauma. They just need love.
Admittedly, I too, even as an adoptee, thought this way. It was my perception that adoption does not have much of an impact on those adopted at infancy because, what does a baby know? Though I personally have spent a lifetime dealing with depression, fears of abandonment, relationship struggles, anger, low self-esteem, somatic complications and a myriad of other issues, I never related them back to being adopted. I just thought I was not very valuable or worthy, but didn’t see the link. I didn’t see what now seems so obvious.
The Mother and Child Bond and the Trauma of Separation
As a result of my research, I, among other scholars in this relatively new field of attention to the psychological and physiological impact of adoption, will argue that the relinquishment or separation of child from her birth mother is a traumatic event that deeply impacts the adoptee, creating special needs that must be addressed throughout the adoptee’s life.
I will often use relinquishment and adoption in somewhat synonymous terms. Understanding the definite differences between the two, I will continue to refer to adoption as a trauma recognizing the true trauma is at the point of relinquishment or maternal separation. However, subsequent actions do have the potential to exacerbate that trauma experienced.
Adoption is a trauma that happens to a child. The child is torn away from her biological mother, placed in the arms of strangers and is left with questions, doubts, fears and anxiety with no way to verbalize, express, mourn or contextualize those feelings. Though the common misconception is that a child won’t remember any of it many psychologists believe, with evidence to support, that children remember their birth and the following events, including relinquishment and adoption, up to the age of three.
Responses to the Adopted Child’s Trauma
At this age the only tools a child has to deal with this separation trauma is through crying or reaction to physical touch and anger. These tools can manifest in overt expression or a marked lack of expression. A baby may cry in response or rarely cry and be perceived as a good and peaceful baby, when in reality she is hurting. She may respond by recoiling from human touch or may become too attached to the sensation and have difficulty learning boundaries. A child may express her anger through yelling, kicking, screaming, crying or withholding emotional expression.
Every adopted child, allow me to reiterate, every adopted child falls into one of two categories. She either acts out and is difficult or is quiet, adaptable and compliant. Of course the degree to which each adoptee acts out or becomes compliant is individual.
Some who act out will go to the extreme of running away from home, threatening their adoptive parents, rebel academically and even attempt suicide. A 2001 study shows that of teens in grades 7 through 12, 7.6% of adopted teens had attempted suicide compared with 3% among their non-adopted peers. The compliant adopted child may become a model citizen in school as well at home or she may just kind of fade into the background, trying not to be noticed or cause trouble. Either way they are both reactions to the trauma of being adopted.
The adopted child who acts out, is, in essence, attempting to initiate some form of rejection from parents, teachers, peers and others in order to prove that she is unlovable or she finds herself rejecting these same people prior to being rejected by them. This type of child is obviously troubled and it is easy to identify as needing help. However, parents and therapists often try to counsel the child into acting more appropriately, instilling tough love or even unknowingly furthering the child’s abandonment issues by sending them to boarding school, camp or other such institutions. Rarely do adoptive parents and counselors see this behavior as a reaction to her adoption trauma. They are never truly treating the source of the wound.
For the compliant child the situation can actually be much more devastating. As a compliant child who is either not causing problems or actually well engaged and visibly successful, she is not seen as having any problems at all. Parents see this child as well adjusted to life, including being adopted, and with no outwardly troubling signs of concern, this child is often overlooked and not given any form of counseling or assistance in dealing with life or emotional wounds. It is difficult for anyone to see that the child who is often referred to as, “mature for her age” or “pleasant and articulate,” is actually in equal distress to the child who is acting out. Both are hurting, both are devastated by the trauma of relinquishment and both have no way to articulate, understand, contextualize or grieve the loss they have endured.
These two behavior types present themselves at various ages, though adolescence is the most common time for them to reach their strongest levels. Additionally, some may actually experience both behavior types, switching from one to the other depending on their environment or transition back and forth throughout maturity. Also noteworthy is that no matter the age of adoption, infant through teen, all adoptees essentially suffer from the same issues.
Adoption P What is Birth Trauma
Relinquishment in the adoption process is a traumatic experience to a child. I am working with the definition of trauma as defined by the 2000 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders where a person experienced an event that threatened their physical well being and that person responded to that event with fear, helplessness or horror. It is important to recognize that in adoption the birth family and the adoptive family are allowed to choose, however to the child adoption is something that happened to them.
When I shared with my adoptive mother that I was studying adoption and its related impact, along with her warmth, support and encouragement came the words I knew she thought, but never thought I would hear. She said, “What does a baby know?”
She had spent some time talking about my adoption and sharing a little bit of added information I don’t recall previously knowing. After being relinquished I lived in a foster home with an elderly couple for two weeks prior to my being placed. I had yet another piece of the puzzle and another incident of attempted attachment and abandonment in my life. She went on to say how she didn’t think a baby would know any better and that all I needed was a loving home. “What does a baby know?”
This line of thinki it was the prevalent school of thought regarding adoption and was widely professed by the “experts” of the time.
In speaking with friends and acquaintances alike about my studies I find I am often challenged in the legitimacy of my work. I share my findings regarding the two behavioral patterns and am met with the challenge that, “every kid goes through that.” I am met with resistance from people who claim that I am finding an excuse to be a victim and dismiss ownership of my behaviors. Explaining about the bonding of mother and child on a cellular level and the evidence of an infant recognizing its own mother at birth, I am challenged with skepticism and, as if we have all learned the same response, “What does a baby know?”
The Importance of Maternal Infant Bonding
Mother child bonding research shows that, at birth, a baby is able to recognize her mother’s voice. Within a few days of birth she will recognize familiar faces, voices and smells and be drawn to them. With research showing that babies do have a memory, in contradiction to long held beliefs, it becomes unreasonable to assume that a baby would not remember or recognize (at a visceral and thus almost imprinting level) the loss of her mother upon separation through adoption.
I have not undertaken an exhaustive study in the area of what newborn babies are aware of immediately following and the days after birth. Therefore, I will not try to answer, “What does a baby know?” However I will answer, “What does an adopted baby know?” She knows her mother, she knows her loss, sadness and hurt, she knows that those who hold her today may be gone tomorrow and that she will be the only one left to pick up the pieces that no one seems to think are broken.
About the Author
When my daughter was born, they did the usual taking her to the nursery to be cleaned up and assessed.
They got me settled into my room and after a while I heard a baby crying coming down the hall.
Up to that point I had only h nevertheless I recognized her voice.
The nurse opened the door and began to wheel her bassinet through and I said her name and immediately my daughter quieted.
She hadn’t even seen me yet and it wouldn’t have
her first look at me was through eyes that had had ointment applied, and her vision would have been blurry anyway.
They know.
It’s only silly grownups with no talent for observation who don’t know.
I’m raising her, by the way.
It was her big brother I lost to adoption and he was almost three when he left me.
But that is a whole ‘nother story.
Spam protection: Sum of 1 + 2 ? *
Check here to Subscribe to notifications for new postsThis year’s male title went to the winner of the BBC’s Any Dream Will Do talent search Lee Mead.
He said: “It’s such an important cause and although I feel a bit overwhelmed, it’s great to raise awareness.
I keep my bum in shape by plenty of gym visits – and, of course, doing Joseph eight times a week.”
Mr Mead’s friend Joseph was unavailable for comment but a neighbour stated that although he agreed it was an important cause surely the country was already all too aware of Mr Mead’s bum.
In an unrelated matter Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell defended Lembit Opik MP’s latest magazine appearance. A feature on Mr Opik, the party’s Welsh leader, and Cheeky Girl twin Gabriela Irimia appears in Hello! magazine, discussing the couple’s happiness and her cosmetic surgery.
“It should be easier to tell the twins apart in the dark now. Viva la difference!” said Opik in his native Welsh.
My survey says that most people spend a large proportion of their working day playing solitaire, chatting on msn, compiling their Fantasy Football team or shopping on ebay.
Walking past the council offices this morning I could see all these activities going on.
One woman even has two screens, no doubt she can shop on one and play cards on the other.
This explains why, despite the IT people telling us that technology is saving us time, we are all still so busy.
Instead of working half the day and messing about the other half – why don’t the bosses just let us go home at lunchtime?
I’m sure we could all finish our messing about in a morning if we tried.
My mate Dunston ‘phoned to say that he is well on the way to his new island home.
He’s got to Whitstable and, once the weather calms down a bit, a local fisherman is going to take him out to it. The island is called ‘Shivering Sands’ which sounds very exotic.
His cat, Flump, and Justice, his dog have survived the train journey, although Flump found her way into the Buffet Car and frightened the Steward by goosing him with her nose when he was bending to pack his trolley.
He stood up very fast and his head connected with a tray of sandwiches which were catapulted into the train’s air conditioning unit.
As the sandwiches cooked in the motor various smells were pumped through the train.
In Dunston’s carriage they got egg and cress but in Coach A they were getting salmon and soft cheese.
A senior advertising executive travelling on the train told Dunston that it was a brilliant way of promoting a product and he would work on getting something similar on all trains.
It would make him a fortune, he said.
So if you’re travelling on a train in the near future and smell the odour of herring and spring onion, it’s not the overweight, unwashed and oily oik who is taking up half your seat and annoying you with his ‘personal’ music system, it’s the latest marketing campaign from Tesco’s Finest Range being pumped into your carriage.
My mate Dunston has decided to pack it all in, sail away and live on an island.
He’s sold his 3 bed-room Barratt Home, his Audi A6, his Armani suits and his Ikea furniture.
He bought his island from an internet site and it only cost him ?30,000 pounds so he’s got quite a bit of cash left over.
Today he said a tearful goodbye at the rail station and set off to the coast from where he will be ferried out to his new home.
Dunston is accompanied by his cat, Flump, who will no doubt put up with the whole thing with his customary cool attitude and his dog, Justice, who is deeply worried about the move.
Dunston has a clever lawyer who has intrusted all his (remaining) possessions to Flump, with everything going to Justice if Flump dies.
I think he said it was an EPC (Endearing Power of Catorney).
The best bit about it so far, says Dunston, is that he has been able to get rid of all the numbers and passwords that have been filling the front of his head.
He reckons that if he includes memorised ‘phone numbers, addresses and TV channels he has been able to free-up 500kb of brain hard disc and his RAM is under much less pressure since his cache has been cleared out.
Now he only has to remember his National Insurance number and Flump’s mobile ‘phone security PIN.
His mother always said he would make nothing of himself, and now he has.
Oh, God, Dunston, how I wish I was with you.
Run, run like the wind!
Now we can marry each other just about anywhere, in a castle, in the London Eye, on a beach or in The Falkirk Wheel (the world’s only rotating boat lift).
How it must annoy God to see non-Christian, non-church going, tasteless, over-dressed Mammon worshipers still clogging up his churches in order to make their special day complete.
On the other hand,
in the good old days, at least he knew where he was expected to be looking.
Now people pop up all over the place spouting “I dos” and “I wills”, it must make him jump.
Perhaps that’s what’s been causing all those earthquakes.
A spokesman for God said, ‘Surely you can’t expect him to be everywhere at once?
Now please get out of my church, I have a bride on horseback and a groom dressed as Aragorn son of Arathorn due in ten minutes!’
If it’s your birthday today you share it with Oliver Stone and Tommy Lee Jones.
It should be some party – don’t let Oliver get started on his conspiracy theories and if Tommy disappears he’s probably skinning-up in the bathroom.
If he gets weary and starts banging on about Pam you can slap him around a bit (it’s allowed under the Constitution).
Other than that, lay back and relax.
If they break anything they can definitely afford to replace it.
A hedgehog is recovering after surviving a spin in a 40-degree washing machine cycle. The female creature was nicknamed Lucky by staff who have been caring for her at the Brent Lodge wildlife hospital, near Chichester, in West Sussex. Hospital manager Penny Cooper said the hedgehog wandered into a private home and burrowed into a pile of washing that was then put into the machine.
The hedgehog has lodged a formal complaint against the Hospital, upset about her new nickname.
‘Lucky, my arse!
Lucky is if your lottery ticket comes up!
Getting a 40-degree, underwater, wall of death ride is bloody unlucky if you ask me!’ said the hedgehog.
‘I don’t know why she’s being so prickly,’ said a spokeswoman.
An Australian holiday resort in north Queensland called The White Cockatoo will hold a month-long, nude “anything goes” party in March aimed at combating the global credit crunch.
Here at The Open Wound we wondered what they mean by ‘anything goes’, and exactly how a month of hedonism will help the global economy.
Tony Fox, the owner of the resort said, “Tough economic times call for stiff measures.
It doesn’t take rocket science to work out what it means.”
We asked the Australian Rocket Science Engineers for their opinion.
“Here at A.R.S.E. we are asked for our views on many subjects,” said a spokesman.
“Strangely, we don’t get many queries
it’s usually to do with nudism or buttocks for some reason.
However, in my expert opinion a month long sex party will cause a sudden rise in inflation followed by a deflated, sticky patch.”
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