TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100989/10098900.030

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.6 KB | 113 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 90

Are You My Mother?


Adoptees and birth parents move mountains to find one another

By Elizabeth Taylor


    Patricia Szymczak was 36 years old when she decided to
pursue a quest she had contemplated since childhood: finding her
mother. Adopted in infancy, Szymczak, a reporter with the
Chicago Tribune, attacked the task as if on deadline. She knew
the woman's name and hometown from a 1953 Illinois adoption
decree, obtained when she turned 18 from her adoptive mother.
Szymczak called the local post office, found a retired mailman
and got him talking about the family -- her family. She
contacted old neighbors, who led her to friends. Some had seen
the woman, who now lived out of state, at a recent high school
reunion. Finally, she got her phone number.

    But before tremulously placing the call, Szymczak journeyed
to the tiny public library in her mother's hometown 300 miles
from Chicago. "My fantasy," she explains, "was to open a high
school yearbook and see a woman who looked like me." On page 15
of the 1952 yearbook, Szymczak's fantasy came true. The smile
was the same one Szymczak saw in the mirror; the graduation
quote: "I'm just the girl you're looking for." The long search
ended with a three-hour call from a pay phone. By the end of the
conversation, it was after midnight on the second Sunday in May.
Patricia Szymczak smiled and wished her newfound relation a
happy Mother's Day.

    According to the North American Adoption Congress in New
York City, there are more than 60,000 Americans engaged in
quests like Szymczak's: mothers anxiously seeking children they
gave up at birth, children hunting for their biological parents.
Desperate, obsessive, their searches have, over the past two
decades, ceased to be merely a matter of individual effort and
have become a national movement. There are more than 450 support
groups for searchers. Many conduct meetings modeled on
Alcoholics Anonymous, in which new participants rise with the
passion of the converted and state their mission: "I'm Sarah,
and I'm looking for my daughter born on . . ."

    At the forefront of the movement are the N.A.A.C. and ALMA
(Adoptees Liberty Movement Association), which lobby to change
state laws protecting the confidentiality of adoption records.
Three states -- Alabama, Alaska and Kansas -- have completely
open records, available to all adoptees over 18. Other states
require the consent of a birth parent, the child and one or both
adoptive parents before documents may be unsealed.

    Those intent on recovering their past often start by
contacting one of the voluntary registries set up by 22 states
to match adoptees with birth parents who are looking for them.
The most successful effort is the International Soundex Reunion
Registry in Carson City, Nev., a private, nonprofit center that
since 1975 has matched more than 2,200 people.

    The seekers sometimes hire "search consultants" and go to
great lengths, even illegal ones, to find their kin. "I'm
calling about a probate matter" and "I'm doing genealogy" are
typical little white lies. Many justify their actions with the
claim that they are victims of adoption, robbed of their
heritage or shamed into giving up an illegitimate child. Their
anger and desperation have led some psychologists to conclude
that adoption leaves a permanent wound. "Birth parents and
adoptees are amputees in our society," says Los Angeles
psychologist Annette Baran, who specializes in adoption-related
counseling. Says she: "I think reunions are excellent, even when
the outcome is bad."

    And sometimes the outcome is very bad. Some search for
decades to no avail; others learn that their child has been
abused, that their mother committed suicide or that they are the
product of incest. Even a happy reunion can produce "an
overwhelming feeling of anger and confusion, and rearrange
everything in one's life," says Linda Brown, co-author of a
forthcoming book on the subject, Birthbond.

    Searches can take unexpected turns. San Antonio public
school counselor Claude Thormalen, 49, not only found his mother
but learned from her that he had an older half sister Nancy, who
had also been given up for adoption. To his amazement, Nancy
turned out to be a high school acquaintance. Gayle Beckstead,
55, who now works as a search consultant in Simi Valley, Calif.,
learned of a sister -- who hadn't been put up for adoption. When
they met, Gayle found a depressed high school dropout who had
given up four out-of-wedlock children. The sister regarded the
middle-class Beckstead with obvious envy. Beckstead recalls,
"Her anger was, `How come I was kept, and you were given away?'
She saw the advantages of my life."

    Reunions are not for everyone. Some birth mothers would
slam the door if their relinquished baby came knocking. In fact,
the search process is the focus of a great debate in adoption
circles. Critics contend that it breaks legal contracts, that
confidentiality should be the cornerstone of adoption. Says a
woman who gave up a child 28 years ago: "The mere thought of
being found by this baby is so upsetting. I made a new life for
myself, and it doesn't include her."

    Not every adopted child wants to open that door. "A search
would rob me of a certain amount of security, the security that
comes from believing that the family I know is my real family,"
argues Rhonda Brown, 34, a New York City lawyer. "I'm the one
who has finally defined my identity -- not someone from the
mysterious past."


-- Mary Cronin/New York and James Willwerth/Los Angeles