Abstract

Individuals separated at birth from their birth mothers may experience lifelong effects that can influence their ability to bond with adoptive parents, educators, and others. This document investigates the challenges facing adoptive parents, educators, and others who live and work with adoptees as they develop into adulthood, as well as provides a better understanding of adoption for all people. Many adult adoptees, as well as adoptive parents and birth mothers, are speaking about their lives in ways far different from those in the past. Information about what has been happening for adoptees suggests that a new interpretation of adoption is needed, one that acknowledges current beliefs about adoption and brings to light prejudgements related to those beliefs in order to develop a more accurate recognition of what happens to individuals alienated from their personal histories and cultural traditions through separation from birth parents and later adoption. ;The theoretical foundation of this study is principles of philosophical hermeneutics. These hermeneutic principles were applied to conversations about adoption. Taped recordings of all conversations were made, and transcriptions of these taped conversations were provided, and from the data collected, an analysis was made to identify aspects of the study that demonstrate hermeneutic principles. ;The direction of this research was to search for participants' understandings of what adoption has meant to them and of what effects the separation of babies from their original mothers has done to their lives. When people make a decision to include adoption in their lives, they need appropriate preparation and continual reinforcement to allow them to see the situation realistically. ;Children without parents are always in search of loving homes. Deeper understanding of adoption results with a recognition that abandonment is experienced by all adoptees first. In this study I have shown the strength of the special bond between the original mother and her child. By recognizing and accepting it as completely different than any other relationship, we can begin to acknowledge need to recognize what happens when that bond is broken. We can honor that bond and make a difference