(This feature first appeared in the Fall 1998 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

I've been amazed recently at how the adoption agencies here in Texas seem to have forgotten their own history. They go around hollering about confidentiality -- but I think I can start to prove that this is not how they felt as recently as 1972. Here's some of what I've run across.

Myth: Adoption agencies have always opposed reunions between adoptees and birth parents.

Fact: Through the 1930's and 40's, it was common practice for adoptees to "just show up" at the agency when they turned 21, and the agency would arrange their reunions for them -- even holding parties to celebrate. (Reunions "celebrated" at the agency that won't give me my records in spite of a court order to do so are described, sometimes with photos, 17 times in the Dallas papers between 1918 and 1963.)

Myth: Adoptive parents were promised that their adopted children would never search.

Fact: In seminars for adoptive parents taught in the 1940's and 1950's, prospective adoptive parents (15-25 couples for each adoptable baby) were warned that their children would likely want details about their natural parents, and the adoptive parents should prepare themselves for the day when their children would "claim their heritage". (Hope Cottage employees are featured speakers at these seminars along with others from Catholic Charities, written up in the News six times during the 40's & 50's.)

Myth: There are more private adoptions now than in the past.

Fact: In 1952, only 14% of children adopted in Dallas County were adopted through the four adoption agencies in town. In 1996, 33% of children were adopted through agencies. So there are FEWER private adoptions now (percentage wise) than before.

Myth: The wait for a child to adopt is longer, and there are more couples on waiting lists now than in the 1950's.

Fact: Today, an average of 20 couples apply to agencies for every child available for adoption. (Source: Hope Cottage brochure, 1997) In 1947, the average was 15 couples per child (Source: Hope Cottage annual report, 1948). In 1952, the average was 25 couples per child. (Source: Dallas Morning News report of testimony by Hope Cottage personnel before a state commission considering changes in the adoption law, 1953.)

Myth: All of the mothers who went to maternity homes relinquished their children for adoption.

Fact: Hope Cottage statistics showed that between 1938 and 1963, approximately 60% of the children who were placed in their care by birth mothers were "reclaimed" before the four-month waiting period was up.

Myth: Most mothers of children adopted through agencies in this century were unwed.

Fact: Between 1918 and 1952, nearly 60% of the children placed for adoption in Dallas County were legitimate offspring of married women who were simply considered "too poor" to raise their children. (Source: Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who held hearing on black-market adoptions in 1952.)

(This feature first appeared in the Fall 1998 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

Copyright 1998 Deb McAlister
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