Who Searches for Their Birth Parents and Some Reasons Why They Do It

Which children search for their birth parents? Why do they do it? Several interesting university studies may provide a few answers to those questions.

Searching for birth parents is now a normal part of adoption. Between 1920 and 1980, adoption agencies tried to find close physical matches of children to adoptive parents and encouraged parents to pass their children off as their biological offspring. Searching for birth parents was believed to pose problems for both families. Today this has changed. Adopted parents often help their children locate birth parents. With open adoptions, birth parents often play a role in the child's life from the very beginning.

Girls search more than boys do. No one completely understands why, but the vast majority of "searchers" are female.

Part of the reason is that people adopt more girls than boys. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that in 2000, there were ninety boys for every 100 adopted girls.

Most couples working with American adoption agencies cannot choose the sex of its baby unless they already have other children of the same sex. However, when individuals or couples do have a choice, a majority prefers girls, regardless of the adoptive parents' race, socio-economic status or age. One expert believes that this may be because they perceive girls to be easier to rear and more compliant.

More girls are adopted internationally partly because of parental preference and partly because more girls are available to adopt from countries like China and Korea.

Some experts believe that girls tend to search for their birth parents because they identify with both their birthmothers and adoptive mothers. This raises issues of sexual identity for girls in late adolescence or early adulthood, because one mother had a baby she was unable to rear herself and the other was probably infertile. Many of the "searchers" are women ages 18 to 35 years of age who are facing motherhood themselves.

Children often wait until legal age to search for birth parents. The mean age of searchers is eighteen and a half. Searchers wait until they are of legal age so that they do not have to ask their adoptive parents to help them retrieve court documents. Some wait until their adoptive parents die. The reason may be that they do not want to hurt the feelings of their adoptive parents. In a study done in 2000 of 394 adoptees, 44% "non-searchers" said they did not want to upset their parents by searching.

Children who search are often well educated and do not have brothers or sisters. Author Christine Adamec notes that the only child often wants to find siblings, and that less-educated people may not understand how to search for their birth parents.

Searchers tend to have been adopted as babies or very young children. Common sense says that children placed later in life remember their birth families and have less curiosity about them.

Children who search are not more maladjusted or unhappy with their adoptions than those who don't. People used to think adoptees searched for their birth parents because they were unhappy at home. This is not true. After giving personality tests and interviewing family members, researchers found only slight variations in levels of adjustment, family functioning, and beliefs about adoption between those who search and those who do not. For example, one study found that 65% of the searchers were happy with their adoptions versus 80% of the non-searchers.

Most children want to find their birth parents out of a sense of curiosity or adventure. Searchers often tell others that they want to know their medical history, but this is usually a "cover story." Adopted children most commonly search because they want information about their histories and roots. Some want to assure their birth parents that they are all right. Those who search are usually not looking for parent/child relationships with birth parents.

The few children who want to find their birth parents as a way of therapy do not usually have happy reunions. If an adoptee believes that all her problems in life relate to her adoption, she may also believe that finding her birth parents will completely change her life. These children are the ones most likely to be hurt and disappointed by their reunions, and have problems forming relationships with birth parents.

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