From Protecting Adopted Child’s Privacy Series:

9. Your child should not be the only person “out of the loop.”

It is human nature not to want to be left out, particularly from information about ourselves. When I was in high school, I took an IQ test, but I was not allowed to find out the results. It really bothered me that school personnel knew something that I did not know about myself. Even though they had good reasons for keeping this information confidential, it bothered me for other people to know this information when I did not. A child’s history is so much more important than the score on an IQ test, and it is not fair to the child for his history to be common knowledge among relatives while it is kept a secret from him.

When I decided to adopt, I frequently talked with an adult adoptee friend about parenting advice. She repeatedly told me never to lie to my child, but only answer the questions that he asks. In that way, the child is able to set the pace of learning about his history. A child does not need to know everything at once.

If a child does not know his entire history, it is not fair that everyone around him does. If everyone in the room knows that the birthfather is in prison except for the child, that is like keeping a secret from the child. Nobody likes to be the one left out of the “secret.” Also, the perceived secrecy might cause the child to believe that his history is “bad,” which means that he is “bad.”

When the child learns of his history and then finds out that everyone around him already knew this information, the child can wind up feeling betrayed. He also might then seek to know what else is common knowledge, resulting in learning more than he is ready to handle at this stage of development. Nothing good comes from everyone at a family reunion knowing the child’s history except for the child.

Related Topics:

• Adoptees Personal Information Needing to Remain Their’s


• Protecting Adoptees Past Information



• Saying Too Much



• How To Keep Your Child’s Story Private



• On Sharing Pre-Adoption History



• Sharing your child's story...or not