A point of disagreement with her, that adoptive children are disinterested in their birth parents. I have helped some adopted children find their birth parents, admitted with mixed results, but in all cases, it was an intense desire to “know” about their birth parents.
I came up with a technique, that when I had a lead on a possible birth parent, to notify them in a non-threatening manner, which would give them the option to follow up or not. A simple postcard, that said that the adopted person *might* be their child, and would like to contact them for “medical reasons”; and if they were interested, they could contact the adopted person at a phone number. If not, do nothing.
The least successful case was interesting, in that the birth father did contact the adopted son, oddly and honorably enough, to let him know that his father was a worthless reprobate, who would have been a truly rotten father. He even met with his son, and convinced him that he was far better off with his adoptive parents. After the meeting, the son thanked him for his honesty, and agreed with him.
The most successful case was of an adopted girl living far away from home, and horribly depressed to the point of committing suicide. She knew her birth mother lived near her adoptive family, and after her friends had taken up a collection for a bus ticket home, literally as she was getting on the bus, I handed her the name and address of her birth mother.
Once she was home, with her adoptive parents, she contacted her birth mother, and her world was changed. As it turned out, her birth mother was only 16 when she had her, and was *forced* to give her up for adoption, and had suffered about her lost daughter ever since.
She had married, and had two more children, now both adults, yet had always pined for her lost daughter. Reunited, the adopted daughter said that she now had two mothers, as well as a new brother and sister, and in the course of a few months had gone from Hell to Heaven, and met her mother there.
Her adoptive parents were thrilled for her, and she and her birth mother would spend hours hugging each other, at first through tears, but then as two souls reunited.
My mother was adopted as an infant and has really had no desire to find her birth parents or even know anything about them. I offered years ago to research and see if I could find her birth records. After thinking about it for a while, she decided not to do it. She had a wonderful childhood as she describes it and was close to her parents.
I’m also adopted but only by my step-father, I didn’t have much of a relationship with my birth father or his family as a child. I also didn’t have a great childhood and am not close to my parents as an adult. I always wanted to find my birth father and his family and as an adult I found them. I now have a wonderful relationship with my biological sister and fathers family. He passed away years ago without me getting to know him.
Like you I’ve helped people locate their birth parents and families and it seems to me that the desire to find birth parents outside of curiosity or for medical reasons has more to do with how happy and/or close an adopted “child” is with their adopted parents. Of course I have no statistics to back this up but it does seem, and in my experience, adopted children with great childhoods and good relationships with their parents do not feel as much of a need to find their birth parents while those of us who do not have good relationships with their adopted parent(s) seem to need/desire to find their birth parents more.
Of course, there is always the fear of rejection when looking for birth parents. I had been told for many years that my father and his family had absolutely no interest in seeing or knowing me. It was not until I searched out and found my sister did I learn my bio-father spent years looking for me, never actually signed away his parental rights (long story) and even on his death bed talked about me. His family welcomed me with open arms and treats me as if I’ve always been part of the family. Others are not so lucky. Even with the risk of rejection though, the desire to find and be accepted by someones birth parents when the adopted relationship was not good is so strong many people are perfectly willing to take that chance, just to know.