Product Description

Family Matters cuts through the sealed records, changing policies, and conflicting agendas that have obscured the history of adoption in America and demonstrates how the practice and attitudes about it have evolved from colonial days to the present.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1106585 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Do adoptees have the right to the identities of their biological parents? Carp traces the complicated history of adoption and attitudes to it to show how and why attitudes changed. Adoption of children not related by blood was not common in this country until the 20th century. And while adoption proceedings were usually conducted with "discretion," they were not legally confidential. It wasn't until the Progressive Era that reformers, hoping to remove the socialAand (thanks to eugenicists) biologicalAstigma of illegitimacy, successfully pressed for legal secrecy. After WWII, confidentiality gave way to obsessive secrecy as adoption officials feared biological parents might interfere with the new adoptive family and adoptive parents feared the insecurity and stigma of telling an adopted child the truth. But in the 1960s and '70s, changing sexual mores diminished the shame of illegitimacy and the adoption rights movement (ARM) rebelled against decades of sealed records, demanding instead openness and disclosure in adoption. Through the 1980s and '90s, the traditional secretive adoption became increasingly vilified, with wrongful adoption lawsuits and the "Baby M" custody case. But, as Carp notes, ARM's desire for complete openness in adoption records has come against "an insuperable obstacle"Abirth mothers' right to privacy. The most fascinating aspect of this very accessible study is the ups and downs of the often questionable belief in the primacy of blood ties. Bringing clarity, historical perspective and objectivity, historian Carp offers a book that deserves the attention of anyone with an interest in adoption.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this lucid and thought-provoking book, Carp reviews the controversies surrounding the management of adoption records in the United States. Identifying the concerns of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents, Carp surveys changing social attitudes toward the importance of family history, governmentally dictated secrecy, and the recognition of often conflicting rights of everyone involved in the adoption triad. Over the decades, government-supported, legally mandated concealment has prevailed, but the rise of search and reunion groups, adoption registries, newsletters, Internet bulletin boards, and web sites as well as experimental consensual open adoptions are beginning to force the records open. The debate continues (see, e.g., Katarina Wegar, Adoption, Identity, and Kinship, LJ 4/1/97), and Carp makes an important contribution. Highly recommended for academics, professionals, and the interested public.?Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
...a solid contribution to understanding adoption in the United States today. -- The New York Times Book Review, Judith Newman

...could be the most revelatory book written on the subject. -- The Boston Globe, Diane Daniel

Customer Reviews

It's a necessary read, and a necessary purchase.
Carp has a lot of great information about adoption agencies' and social workers' policies concerning the release of birth and adoption information to adult adoptees. It was fascinating to see all the quotes regarding their acceptance of adoptees' desire for identifying information up until the 1950s or so.

However, when it comes to information regarding the legislative histories of sealed birth and adoption records laws, he has little to contribute, and some of his information is wrong. Additionally, he seems to take it for granted that biological mothers in recent decades were promised absolute perpetual anonymity from their relinquished and subsequently adopted offspring, but this baseless assumption goes undocumented in his book (since it is, after all, an absolutely false assertion).

That said (or rather, written), for those who want further insight into the issue of sealed versus open birth and adoption records, this book is not just a necessary read, but a necessary purchase.

Interesting but flawed
Carp's book has some interesting info, but he shoots himself in the foot by decrying the lack of hard scientific evidence and research on the part of any group whose arguments HE doesn't like. After all, the book makes clear that almost NO ONE on ANY side of the sealed records debate has hard scientific evidence and research about anything concerning adoption, trauma, etc. Also, his constant use of the words "emotional," "drama," and "therapeutic entertainment" when he discusses adoptees in search (most of whom are female) and birthmothers is suspicious to the point of smelling like misogyny. This book tried to be even-handed, but the lack of gendered analysis renders many of his insights useless to any ongoing project of justice and ethics in adoption.

Lessons for us in the U.K.
As Parliament has finally determined to find families for children who have been languishing in care, I was keen to see if there were any favourable accounts about adoption in the U.S. that might be of interest. A search of the Amazon.com site led me to the Carp book, which I confess I read at my university library. It is an altogether fascinating tale, one that is uniquely American, of course. As a student of some of the fostering homes set up here, back as far as those of Rev. Muller in Bristol, I could not put the book down. I must say that the question of privacy was handled in an altogether fresh way for me. In particular, I found the academic examination of the claims that children adopted as infants suffer all sorts of trauma very helpful. It seems that the U.K. took quite a wrong turn when we set about changing our system based on wholly inadequate research. Many thanks to Mr Carp for his fine book.