The Family of Adoption Quotes

“Open adoption is not joint custody. Parental rights are transferred, but relationships can be maintained, with roles and responsibilities changed and enunciated.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Temporary and foster or foster/adopt family. With regard to kinship adoption, and all other adoptions, it is important that the original/emergency foster placement of a child be temporary, and that those parents be part of a team that will work together with the birth family, kin connections, and professionals to determine—as quickly as possible—whether the child will be moved to a kin placement, or moved to another foster family that has been determined to be an appropriate family for that particular child, should the placement become permanent. All parents in this position should know that in fostering a child, providing a bridge family, and making a permanent kinship connection, they are doing a great deal to foster health and healing. If they should become the permanent family of that child, they will have understood the need for the more positive connections to birth family and community. If they should be a bridge to a placement with birth parents or kin, they should be honored and respected as extended family in that process, having played an integral role in providing safety and continuity for that child.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“all cases should involve concurrent planning with birth parents, birth family, and extended kin, along with potential outside foster and/or adoptive families.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“the problems that exist for children in foster care today exist right up the chain of the administration that serves them. Professionals should be aware of their own personal feelings of insecurity (about the salient issues in adoption), confusion about their roles, manipulation, and fear of loss or change that is also replicated in the system as a whole. These problems, as they are played out by the government, the agencies, workers, caretakers, parents, and other adults, do not give a child much hope for change.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Apparently many professionals do not truly believe that the need to honor our connections is an essential part of family life, as this belief is not reflected in the way that they work with families in stress who are dealing with complex issues of foster care, guardianship, kinship, and adoption. Whether it was a closed or open adoption, an adopted child must learn to integrate at least two distinctly different families—the birth family and the adoptive family. The biracial or other-culture child must also integrate two distinctly different cultures. The challenge to adoptive parents, and to others connected to this child, is to help the child to develop his/her own identity within the framework of both cultures. The challenge to professionals is to help the whole family to see itself as a multicultural family, and to develop its identity while integrating—not ignoring—the distinctively different cultures. How can that happen if the professionals don’t see the importance of respect for culture? How can that happen if the professionals don’t see any difference in culture because the race is the same? The psycho-education and modeling done by the professionals who are initially involved in building these complex families can set a tone, and begin a process of respect and integration. Without this education and modeling, the parents might be so busy with other essential psychological and emotional issues, and with possible trauma management for this child, that they might ignore the very important issues of culture and development of identity. Without that awareness, how will the parents be prepared to model and teach the larger community—the schools, courts, religious institutions, and neighborhoods—thereby creating a holding environment for that child that both honors and respects all of who he/she is?”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“There are certainly ways to educate people, and to dispel myths and fears that the birth families (or birth countries) are bad, dangerous, and unsafe for the child, and should not be part of his/her life. There is a small percentage of cases where the danger may be real, and in these cases the child should certainly be protected, but—even then—not from everyone in his/her family of origin.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Adoption shows us that families are not only related by blood, but also by choice and by chance.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Adoption is intergenerational. It lasts a lifetime and beyond. It not only affects the families of the birth parents and the adoptive parents, but it has an impact on future generations as well. Often, when an adopted person has not done an inner search, or a search for origins, the children of that adopted person become the searchers. It is their legacy as well. The winds of change blow into the next generation.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“goals of open adoption: •    To minimize the child’s loss of relationships. •    To maintain and celebrate the adopted child’s connections with all of the important people in his/her life. •    To allow the child to resolve losses with the truth, rather than the fantasy adopted children create when no information about or contact with their birth family is available.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Fortunately, open adoption has become increasingly common since the 1970s, when research and practice began promoting the principles of open adoption.2 As of 2004, there are fifteen states with some form of Access to Birth Certificates, and seven of those changed their laws in the last seven years. There is legislation pending in some twenty-one other states as well. Adopted people are the only citizens of the United States who do not have access to their original—and only true—birth certificates. This is a civil right. It is encouraging that states are passing legislation that gives adoptive parents access to their child’s original birth certificate; further, if the parents do not choose to share it with the child, he/she has the right to access it at age of maturity (ages eighteen to twenty-one, depending on the state).”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“adoption (or emotional adoption: placement in a foster family or in any other significant, life-altering family connection) is not an isolated event. It is a lifelong process and an intergenerational journey. As such, each member in the family nexus changes, and certain developmental transitions occur that need to be addressed with loving attention.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“how wonderful it would be, in American culture, if adoption were an honor—if each adopted individual were held in such a revered and respected position, and in turn felt this pride and respect toward both sets of families.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“it is a great honor to be a hanai person, as you are the reservoir that holds the lineage of two great families; you are the place and the person where they connect and become one extended family. It is a prestigious position to be the connector of two families.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“in Hawaii there is an ancient custom of adoption called hanai. In a Hawaiian marriage, when you become “related” to the in-law family, you are then considered one family, and you would not “war” against each other. The same is true in hanai—if you place your child with another family, the two families become connected, and are considered one large extended family.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“We all search for ourselves in various ways. We visit the ancestral lands and homes of our grandparents. We look within us and around us to find out who we are and what our purpose is. This is true for everyone. The search for adopted people is thwarted by closed records and legal fictions—false birth certificates. As adopted children grow, they begin to wonder more and more about the story of their lives. They may ask questions, and often, as we’ve seen, their parents do not have answers.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“David Kirk, in his book Shared Fate, talks about how the most healthy adoptive families are the ones in which there is acknowledgment of difference. The most difficult adoptive family situations, according to Kirk, are those in which there’s absolutely no acknowledgment of difference. Many adoptive parents in our closed system were led to believe that the birth mother would just get on with her life and forget about this episode, and that the adoptive parents would have their baby”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Even more than legal openness, I’m concerned about emotional openness in the family of adoption. I often see families with adolescents who are acting out in some way and parents who don’t accept that they are all being affected by the issues that inevitably arise in an adoptive family. Although they may talk openly about adoption in general, they are rigid when they talk about it in terms of their own family. There’s a sense of closedness which makes it difficult for the children to feel they can gain information about themselves without hurting their adoptive parents. These families are often committed to appearing as if they are a biologically related one. This is stressful and demeaning for the children, who know that this is not true.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“If you know that children have certain people in their lives who are their connection and their lifeline or attachment, then it is essential to keep those attachments intact for them. Repeated emotional disconnection is devastating and irreparable.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“The greatest gift that one can give children is to tell them their truths and to help them make sense of these truths, especially when they are complicated and harsh.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“I believe there is no such thing as “termination” in the relationship between children and their birth families. Even if the birth parents die, it’s not “over.” By creating a ritual based on the pretense that the relationship has ended, the child’s internal reality is at odds with the external one. Most of the children we see clinically, especially those who are older at the time of their placement (both domestic and international) are emotionally preoccupied with these dissonances. They may not have words to describe the depth of their confusion or longing or rage, since these experiences most often occurred precognitively and preverbally.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“In the 1990s there has been greater recognition of the wide range of children’s needs and families’ needs in the more complex situations that our adoptions present, including infant, older child, transracial, international, special needs, foster adoptions, and guardianship.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“The 1989 Children’s Act emphasized an awareness of the birth parents’ involvement and the value of a connection between birth and adoptive parents for the child. There was a recognition of the importance of the contract in adoption.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“In 1975, the Children’s Act was the first consideration of issues “in the best interest of the child.” Adopted people gained the right to have access to their birth records (although this is still not upheld in most states); adoption allowances for families adopting special needs children were allotted; and the prohibition of private placements without the involvement of child welfare agencies to protect the children’s rights and to counsel the birth and adoptive parents was endorsed.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“In the 1970s there was a decline in the number of infants available for adoption because of efficient contraception, liberalized abortion laws, and support for single mothers. This was the beginning of the placement of older children and special needs children, and the increase in international adoptions and transracial adoptions.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“In the 1960s there was increasing awareness of the effects of loss and separation on the child. The peak year for documented adoptions by strangers was 1968, and 66 percent of these were babies under one year of age. Agencies began to concern themselves with family dynamic theory and to study the dynamic interplay between the adopted person and other family members.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“In the 1950s, after the Korean War, the first large number of international adoptions took place. These were done predominantly through church organizations. The 1958 Adoption Act is the basis of our current legislation, and, though the world has changed dramatically, our practice of adoption has not changed in many ways.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“The courts and agencies became involved in adoption in the 1930s, with the legalization of adoption. The movement to close records, referred to by some as the “Nosy Neighbor Act,” occurred at the same time. The clear focus was upon the adopted person, who, child welfare workers argued, should not be held responsible for the “sins” of the birth parents. The adopted child was “reborn” as the child of the new family, with a new identity and a new identification in the form of a birth certificate, executed exactly as if the adoptee had been born to the adoptive parents. The original birth certificate was sealed and replaced with the new one, replete with lies—a legal fiction.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Control is another prevalent issue for young adopted children. After all, if you’d been separated, moved, had your name changed—your whole life changed in an instant—might you not worry about control? Adopted children know it’s not just a fantasy that things can happen to you. They know you can lose parents. You can be taken and moved. These things happened at least once to every child who is adopted. As a result they often need to know everything that is going to happen and to have it explained many times. They may have difficulty at night falling asleep. This difficulty is not simply a ploy to stay up later and later (although this may enter the picture), it’s an expression of the fact that when you go to sleep, you lose control. Some adopted children seem to adapt quickly to nearly any situation: it is a resilient skill. Internally, however, the transitions are very difficult.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“We have learned in recent years that it does not help the child in the long run to disguise the reality of any situation; that it is better to tell the truths and to help the child learn to cope with them. It is much easier to teach a child who is angry how to deal with his anger than to comfort a child who is severely depressed. Anger is dynamic—it moves. Depression can seem more like paralysis. There is reason for an adopted child or foster child to be angry, and the best gift is to set the limits and to teach them ways to deal with anger. It is a real emotion and one that’s warranted under the circumstances.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

“Too often, teachers seem to be making diagnoses and suggesting medications and treatments to parents. This is inappropriate and unethical, and it is one of the reasons I feel the curriculum in schools of education must include information concerning the special circumstances of adoptive families.”
― Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated