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Earlier this week I had lunch with the director of an adoption agency. We discussed the communication agreement that birth parents and parents adopting domestically sign. These contracts are legally-enforceable in some states; in others, they serve as “good faith agreements.”
My friend noted how sad it makes her feel when Christian families neglect to abide by the terms specified in the communication agreement. More than a few parents fail to send letters and pictures at the required times, she said. And some adoptive parents send blurry photos of the child, taken from 10 feet away.
I can understand that the advent of a new baby drastically changes your life. The lack of sleep, combined with work, household chores, baby care, and everyday activities make writing a letter and putting together a packet of pictures every few weeks a challenge (I know; I’ve been there). But that’s no excuse for neglecting to send them!
It particularly irks me when Christian families are the ones at fault. Because of our faith grounded in agape love–self-sacrificing brotherly and sisterly love we are to extend to others—Christians have a moral obligation to be honest, trustworthy, and dependable to a fault.
Where is the agape in failing to abide by the terms of a legal contract—in failing to provide a grieving birth family with information and pictures of the child they entrusted into your care?
Where is the agape in sending a quick note you dashed off because you had to—a note that sounds as if it could describe any baby, anywhere?
Where is the agape in sending a stack of blurry pictures that don’t even show the child’s face?
There’s this great invention called a digital camera, where you can delete all the blurry, unattractive pictures and download just your best shots. Then you can store them on a free photo sharing site such as shutterfly.com, where members of the birth family can access your best shots and print pictures to their heart’s content. Or you can print them yourself on your color printer or at your local Wal-Mart and pop them in the package with your letter.
It sounds like a no-brainer to me.
In the next post, I’m going to continue my rant by speculating on more reasons why I think people fail to abide by the terms of the communications agreement.
Hear, hear! Beautiful, much-needed post.
I agree with Heather – great post!! Adoptive parents nee to keep in mind that when they break promises to us birthmoms about pictures and letters it makes us question if they are breaking other promises they made to us, like the way they would raise our child.
Great post. Hopefully it encourages people to remember Christ’s love.
Though I must add that while some states do have them and others don’t, thus letting some agencies encourage the families to sign good-faith agreements, some agencies don’t even go that far, never bringing up the subject at all. Just a heads up to readers that unethical agencies do exist!
I completely agree with this posting. As a birth mom, I just received photos of my six year-old after nearly three years. The last time we actually met as a family was at the home of the adoptive parents. It was at that time that the adoptive mother decided that it was in the child’s best interest that we didn’t continue with visits until the child was much older. I asked her, “How much older?” The reply was so short and too impersonal .. she said, “When *I* decide when she’s old enough!”
To make matters more interesting, the child just recently found out that she is adopted. I was so outraged because they also agreed that they would give her information from the time she was a toddler, i.e. “I’ll bet your birth mommy is thinking of you today, knowing that it is your birthday” … something to that effect.
I try so hard to understand why they made this decision, but I guess it’s not up to me to understand why .. just to be understanding. I also live in a state where the co-op agreement is NOT legally binding. Oh well … I guess I should just leave them alone and ‘get on with life.’
I hope someone can help me understand all this.
In addition to the Christian angle, I think that failing to follow through on promises made to the birthmother is very disrespectful to the child and could possibly damage the relationship between the adoptive parents and the child.
I agreed to send my son’s birthmother pictures and letters twice a year throughout his childhood. His birthmother is now out of contact with the agency, so the agency told me not to send them any more pictures and letters for her because they have no place to store the packages. I am still putting those packages together and storing them at my house. I am doing this for two reasons:
(1) I made a promise to the woman who enabled me to become a mother. I plan to keep that promise, even if she chooses not to read the letters. Until she personally releases me from that promise, I plan to fulfill what I promised to do.
(2) I want my son to know that I always treated his birthmother with respect.
I think that adoptive parents who are disrespectful and/or deceitful to a child’s birthparents are being extremely short-sighted. I would not want to have to explain to my child why I chose to deceive his birthmother by making promises that I did not intend to keep.
- Faith