"Adoptees Seek Change in Law"

Adoptees seek change in law
Many say closed records hamper their right to know

January 24, 2009 - 11:07 PM
By SARAH GRONECK
For The Telegraph

Anita Walker Field of Skokie was weeks away from a much-needed
vacation when she learned that the federal government had denied her
passport application because of her birth certificate.

"It was very frustrating," Field said.

Field found out the reason for the rejection was that she had been
adopted.

"I didn't have a proper birth certificate that showed where I was
born," she said. "It was a Catch-22, because the documents that I
needed were sealed by the state of Illinois."

Adoptees are given amended birth certificates with the names of their
adoptive - rather than biological - parents. These amended slips
should fulfill all the requirements of a regular birth certificate,
but sometimes - as in Field's case - they don't.

Field's story points to a fact that few know: Adult adoptees from =
Illinois are not allowed access to their birth records or to
information about their biological parents.

According to the Illinois Adoption Act, "All adoption records
maintained by each circuit clerk shall be impounded ... and shall be
opened for examination only upon specific order of the court."

The act also requires that both the birth mother and the adoptee must
consent before information records will be released.

Field and other adult adoptees feel the laws that once protected them
as children now are stifling them as adults.

"The issue here is dealing with a civil and human right of every
citizen to know his or her identity," Field said.

Politicians have been debating adoptee rights for years. State
lawmakers such as state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, an adult
adoptee now seeking the seat in the U.S. Congress that was vacated
when former U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel resigned to become President
Barack Obama's chief of staff, have worked to amend adoptee laws.

In 2008, Feigenholtz and other representatives worked to amend the
Adoption Act with House Bill 4623, which would allow a liaison - a
confidential intermediary - to give an adoptee 21 or older
"non-identifying information," such as some medical records.

But not all adoptees felt that HB 4623 was fair.

"(The) legislative proposals would create multiple classes of
adoptees, and some would be denied access to information about their
own identities," said Triona Guidry, Midwest coordinator of the Green
Ribbon Campaign for Open Records.

Guidry and others opposed to HB 4623 formed the coalition, Adoption =
Reform Illinois, which worked to rethink the bill.

One of the biggest problems that ARI supporters had with HB 4623 was =
with the concept of a confidential intermediary, or CI. The
Confidential Intermediary System of Illinois, run by the Midwest
Adoption Center, has been providing CI services to adult adoptees
since 1993.

"Our focus is to provide post-adoption services, including support
and counseling and post-adoption search services," said Gretchen
Schulert, co-director of the MAC.

The program works to find the adoptees' birth relatives. It equips
and appoints trained officials to work as go-betweens for adoptees
and their biological parents. The CIs have access to court records,
birth certificates and agency record information to set up
communication for the families.

The success rate of finding a relative through the CI program is
high, according to the MAC's Web site. It has located more than 90
percent of sought relatives, 63 percent of which resulted in
successful communication, according to a 2006 chart.

ARI representatives say that they oppose the CI method, mainly
because adopted individuals can obtain birth records only after
establishing contact with their birth parents.

"You may or may not find your birth mother with a CI, but you won't
get your certificate," Field said.

ARI would like to establish open records, which would allow adoptees
full access to their records without an intermediary. But the right
to privacy remains a factor for involved parties.

"The whole philosophy behind the CI system is to balance the need of
people to find a relative and the other person's right to privacy,"
Schulert said.

Schulert also said the representatives at MAC believe that "it would
be better for everyone if the adoption records were not secret and
sealed for adult adoptees."

But even that would create problems for those who wish to leave the
past behind them.

"It's a tough situation," Schulert said. "Opening everything up would
not be so perfect for those that don't want their privacy violated."

As of last May 31, HB 4623 was re-referred to the Rules Committee in
the Illinois House of Representatives, and officials did not want to
comment as to whether the bill would be re-addressed by the new
General Assembly this year. In the meantime, ARI members hope to
lobby for open access instead of an intermediary program.

Field eventually was able to get her passport application approved,
thanks to the hard work of friends and a local congressman. She
remains active in ARI and hopes the legislation will change someday.

"I just think that when you're an adult, you need to know about your
background," Field said. "You should have the right to access your
birth records just like anyone else."

In self-published book, Fairfield woman tells of priest who fathered
her son
BY AMY CALDER
Staff Writer
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5847796.html
01/25/09

MEMORY: Judy Soucier of Fairfield on Monday speaks about her book
"Perfect: A Love Story" she wrote about her past relationship with
local priest Father Marcel Dumoulin that led to the birth of her son
Christian.
FAIRFIELD -- Judy Soucier sits in her Fairfield living room and talks
tenderly about the Roman Catholic priest who fathered her child 36
years ago, but who would not commit to a lifelong relationship.
"He still was the man I loved," she says. "He still is, to this day."

Soucier, 65, wrote a book about her love affair with the priest called
"Perfect: A Love Story."

Self-published in 2008 as an autobiographical work, but with
characters that have fictional names, it describes the priest's
alleged, but futile, attempts to convince Soucier to abort her child
and the church's alleged insistence that she go out-of-state to have
the baby and then give it up for adoption. She was 28 at the time; he
was 36.

Soucier now identifies the priest as the Rev. Marcel Dumoulin, who
until 2004 served as pastor at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in
Fairfield. He also served at parishes in Augusta and Winthrop.
Dumoulin, 73, lives at a nursing-care facility in Lewiston, where he
has Alzheimer's disease. Their son, Christian Soucier, is 36 and lives
in New York City.

Catholic priests are required to be celibate; however, the Roman
Catholic Diocese of Portland last week acknowledged that Dumoulin
fathered Soucier's son. But the Diocese says the church would never
support an abortion, as the book suggests, and would not encourage a
woman to give her child up for adoption if she did not want to do that.

Soucier took Dumoulin to court in Androscoggin County on Nov. 17,
1983, seeking child support when her boy was 11. The court awarded
Soucier a lump sum of $6,000, plus monthly payments until he was 18.
The case was entitled "Judith Soucier vs. Marcel Dumoulin."

Soucier says she didn't at first plan to publish her story, which she
initially wrote as a memoir intended for just her son, Christian
Soucier.

"I wrote it because I wanted to give it to my son for Christmas in
2006," she says.

But she self-published the book and approached the Morning Sentinel
after friends and family read the manuscript and convinced her it was
a story she needed to share with the world.

"They said, 'This must be told.'"

Romance turns a corner

Soucier's book recounts her life as a teacher, friend, daughter and
lover of the sea whose life takes an unexpected turn when she meets a
Roman Catholic priest -- Dumoulin -- who in the book is called
Matthew, in Lewiston, and falls in love. It forever changes her life.

The book is set mainly in Brunswick and Lewiston, where Soucier lived
in the 1970s. It describes a happy romance that turns sour when she
becomes pregnant.

Father Matthew takes her to a trailer at the edge of what now is a
parking lot for the Marden's Surplus & Salvage store in Lewiston.
There, they meet with a tall minister and the two men arrange for her
to have an abortion.

Matthew then drives her to a clinic in New York City and she is
prepped for the abortion, but she cannot go through with it. The book
describes in detail the events that took place when Dumoulin drove her
to New York for the abortion and she decided not to have the
procedure, she said.

They drove home in silence. Once back in Maine, a diocesan vicar asked
her to come to St. Paul's Retreat Center in Augusta. Once she arrived,
the vicar urged her to leave the state, have the baby and give it up
for adoption but she refused, she said. She met with him again in
Portland at his request and he was unsuccessful in trying to convince
her to go away, have the child and offer it for adoption. That vicar
has since died.

Soucier says that afterward, another priest came to her home and said
he was a messenger from the bishop, who asked that she leave the
state, have the baby and give it up for adoption.

The priest allegedly offered her an envelope containing cash and said
the money was separate from any travel and medical expenses, which
would be paid by the church. Soucier said she did not accept it.

"He brought $3,000 and said, 'This is for you, and all arrangements
and expenses will be paid,'" Soucier said.

That priest also has since died.

'Why take the back door?'

After she gave birth to her son, Soucier had minimal contact with
Dumoulin; their romance ended after she became pregnant, she said.

The last time she saw him at the nursing home several months ago, his
mind was merely a shell of what it once was.

"He didn't even know me," she said. "It's just very sad."

Soucier's cousin and lifelong friend, Yvette Rousseau, accompanied her
on that visit.

Rousseau, 73, of Lewiston, introduced Soucier to Dumoulin many years
ago and her character is featured in the book. Rousseau was a
parishioner in Dumoulin's church, The Holy Family Church in Lewiston,
and he was a close friend who spent time with her and her family
during picnics, parties and snowmobiling trips, she said.

Rousseau, now retired after 52 years of nursing, describes herself as
a devout Catholic who is disturbed by the way the church handled
Soucier's pregnancy.

"I think the true message is, why doesn't the church deal with their
problems the right way?" she says. "Why take the back door? Why hide
it and deal with these poor little children that could have been put
up for adoption or aborted? I kind of blame the church for not taking
a stand. That's why the church has gotten away with so much. The
Catholic Church has to take a stand on important issues."

Rousseau says her first husband reported Dumoulin's love affair with
Soucier to the bishop and after that, Dumoulin stopped visiting her
family for a while. She and her husband ultimately divorced and he has
since died.

Rousseau says Dumoulin never acknowledged to her or anyone in her
family or circle of friends that Soucier's baby was his.

"He always kind of beat around the bush about it but never actually
came right out to say, 'I have a son and Judy was the mother,'"
Rousseau said. "He never was honest about it. I think now, why wasn't
he truthful? As close as we were, he never told us. I always felt bad
about that."

Rousseau says it was as if his position as a priest was more important
to him than anything else.

"He never let down his guard. The worst part was, he was trying to get
rid of the child. I don't know how he could sleep at night and then
preach in the pulpit. I just feel like he goofed, big time, and so did
the bishop."

But despite Dumoulin's foibles, Rousseau still holds an affection for
him.

"He made a mistake, he goofed, but he is human. He made a big mistake.
But he's still Father Dumoulin."

She says there is no question in her mind that Soucier is telling the
truth about his plans for her abortion and the church's subsequent
attempts to send her away to have the baby and then give it up for
adoption.

"It all took place," she says. "I've always admired her for staying
strong and taking a stand. She's the strong one."

Nancy Snow is another longtime friend of Soucier who is featured as a
character in the book. She saw Dumoulin and Soucier together in the
early 1970s. Snow says she also admires her for carrying her baby to
term and raising him, despite pressure to do otherwise.

A retired 33-year teacher, Snow, 75, of Brunswick, describes Soucier
as someone who loves children and is very good with older people.

"She's very kind, and if she does something, she takes on a project
and she does it 110, 120 percent. She always, always went above and
beyond."

Snow says she hopes big things happen with Soucier's book, which is
being sold in bookstores and on the Internet.

"I thought it was wonderful and I think it would make a great movie."

'Mon dieu. It comes back'

Father Dumoulin smiles and welcomes a guest at the nursing-care
facility in Lewiston, where he shares a small room with another patient.

The retired priest appears cheerful, lounging in a recliner, wearing
casual clothes and sporting a navy blue beret.

He talks easily, but does not seem to have a grasp of history. Asked
when he left Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Fairfield, he says he
does not remember.

But, shown a photograph of Soucier, his face lights up immediately.

"That is good," he says. "She's good. Judy Soucier. Mon dieu. It comes
back. She's so good, kind, you know. Look how beautiful that is. Oh,
it's good."

He then touches the paper on which the photo is printed.

"That was the lady that was the best for me, you know?" he says. "Tres
bien. It's wonderful."

The neat, simply decorated room has puzzles, books, and photographs on
a table.

The only clues to Dumoulin's spiritual past are a crucifix that hangs
on a wall and small statues of Mary and Jesus on a bureau.

'I still try to fly'

Dumoulin's son, Christian Soucier, is an environmental consultant and
marine biologist, married and living in New York City.

He declines to talk about his relationship with Dumoulin, other than
to say he is not comfortable discussing it because of the priest's
advanced age and medical condition.

The book, he says, is his mother's story, not his own.

"I support her 100 percent," he said. "It made her strong. What I'm
most proud of is where we are today. She gave me an opportunity to go
out and try to fly. I still try to fly, every day."

He says his mother worked hard all his life to provide for him and
make sure he went to college -- even working with pregnant and
parenting teens, ironically, for the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Portland. Christian Soucier ultimately earned a Ph.D in biology with a
focus on ecology evolution and behavior.

"I think that, obviously, a lot of what she experienced in our
situation drove her to the career path that she took," he says. "It
was the ultimate sacrifice."

When he read the book, he was horrified by the treatment his mother
received, he says.

"It's true hypocrisy -- there's no doubt," he says. "The hypocrisy of
the church in instances like these is appalling."

He hopes the book's release provides closure for his mother, whom he
never knew to have a relationship with a man while he was growing up.
He says he learned why, after reading it: She long harbored a great
love for Dumoulin that continues to this day.

Judy Soucier says she chose a life of celibacy after her breakup with
Dumoulin.

After giving birth, she stayed home for three years to raise her son
and then went back to work as a social worker for the Diocese for 11
years. She then worked for the March of Dimes for 21 years.

Judy Soucier was adopted at birth, grew up in the Catholic church in
Lewiston and describes her adoptive family as loving, caring and very
supportive. After her parents died, she searched for her birth-family
members and found them in 2003. She moved to Fairfield to be near them
in 2007.

She describes herself as a Christian but stops short of saying she is
Catholic.

"I go to church, but I go to the church God built," she says,
referring to nature. "I went to the Catholic church until I was
pregnant with Christian. I've always believed in God. I've never lost
my faith. Actually, I think I have a deeper, stronger faith than I
ever did. I do know that the reason I have Christian today is, God
wanted him on this earth."

Amy Calder -- 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

Obama's Story Inspires Search for Roots

Obama's story inspires search for roots

http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/20/1750694.aspx

By Mike Taibbi, NBC News Correspondent
It took awhile to find it. I'd just moved to a new apartment and a
new office location and there were still boxes to unpack in both
places – but there it was, a plain manila file with my handwritten
words on the tab, Records/Honolulu."

I read the first few paragraphs of the "Confidential Report of the
Department of Public Welfare, Territory of Hawaii," about Donald
Grant Funk Salinas, a "lightly-tanned youngster of Filipino-Dutch-
Chinese-Hawaiian background ... underweight and frequently ill ...
never under the care of his natural mother for any length of time."

The report, five single-spaced pages written by a social worker on
behalf of a couple looking to become foster parents, was about me.

Three years ago, returning to Hawaii more than a half-century after
I'd left the place where I was born, I'd made a formal request for
any records connected to my birth and early history.

The social worker's report was one of several documents in the
package I eventually received.

I'd read everything once and had a few conversations and e-mail
exchanges with a half-brother I'd been put in touch with, the oldest
of the three sons my "natural mother" went on to have after she'd
matured and married following a troubled childhood that included
having a child as an unwed teen. Her maiden name was Camila Salinas
and she'd died in 1998.

Once I had the bare bones of the story – mine as well as hers,
including two photos of her – I had put it all in the file and packed
it away, until now.

Search for own 'American story'
It was in Ireland at Christmas, spending the holidays with my wife
and her family, when I thought about that file again for the first
time in years, and it was the incoming president who made me think
about it. Specifically, it was finally reading his first
book, "Dreams From My Father," that made me see my own multi-racial
and largely unknown history in a different light.

As I read about Barack Obama's first trip back to Kenya, his late
father's home, it seemed to me his journey of self-discovery was only
partly a search for the unknown components of his racial and family
history. It was also the flesh on the bone to his frequent assertion
during the campaign that his was a peculiarly American story. In
Ireland, closing the last page of his book one midnight, sitting by
the fireplace, I thought, "I guess I'm an American in that way
too."

I'd always been deliberately incurious about my background, telling
myself and anyone who'd questioned me about it that I enjoyed the
mystery. I liked not knowing. In fact, I'd had just one substantive
conversation about it that I remembered, when I was 7 or 8, with
my "adopted" mother, Gaetana Taibbi.

She and her husband, Salvatore, had taken in three foster children
from the New York Foundling agency and had eventually adopted us and
given us their family name. In that one conversation, she told me I'd
been born in Hawaii – the same home state as Obama – to a 16-year-old
Hawaiian-Filipino girl who'd given me up to an orphanage, and that
I'd spent several years in Hawaii either there or in foster care
placements before somehow ending up in New York at the Foundling
Hospital. She never offered much more than that. I don't remember
asking for more.

Growing into adolescence, eventually leaving the Taibbi household and
beginning a reporter's life as a teenager, I was always oddly
comfortable not knowing any more of my own story. Neither black nor
white but ethnic in some undefined way, neither rich nor destitute,
privileged nor isolated by class or education, I used bits of my
scant biography as needed to gain entry into one different world
after another.

It wasn't until the mid-`70s, when Alex Haley published Roots, a
watershed exploration of one man's family and racial history, that I
was urged by a colleague incredulous at my lack of curiosity about my
own journey to at least look for a few answers.

Start of a long journey
I didn't exactly dive into the task but did go as far as to locate a
longtime official of the Foundling Hospital. A month after I'd
related information about the Taibbi family and the skeletal story
I'd been told about my birth and infancy, I received a short letter
from that official.

All she could add to the few facts I'd been told, she wrote, was that
my birth mother was "an attractive young Filipino-Hawaiian girl named
Camila, a girl of average intelligence, all of whose siblings died in
childbirth." My father, she added, was likely "An American
serviceman with the last name "Denny," address unknown.

Before Sal and Gae Taibbi took me in as a foster placement and gave
me their family name, she wrote, I'd been known as Loren Ames Denny,
though it appeared that my birth mother had originally named me
Keoni, Hawaiian for "John."

It wasn't much – less than a minute to narrate the whole fragmented
story – but it's what I had, and I didn't look any further until I
returned to Hawaii three decades later.

Sitting in my Manhattan apartment, looking through
the "Records/Honolulu" file again, I was surprised by all the details
I'd forgotten, though I'd surely read them before.

From the emails from my "half-brother": that his mother – my mother
too, of course – was quite dark-skinned "and had often worked as many
as three manual labor jobs to support the family after her first
husband died." That while she was "funny … and charming," she had a
dark and fiercely angry side too and seemed to be a "woman … full of
secrets." Apparently, I was one of them. Her father had been known
on Oahu as "the Mayor of Mauna Lui," a sort of corporate ghetto for
one of Hawaii's largest pineapple processing companies, a popular and
compelling figure with one especially tragic aspect in his life:
none of the six children he had with his common-law wife survived
childbirth except Camila, our mother.

That social worker's report added as many questions as it answered,
in my re-reading of it. The reference to my "Filipino-Dutch-Chinese-
Hawaiian background" wasn't all that reliable, the social worker
concluded, since the "Donald Grant Funk" on an early birth
certificate of mine was only based on "the putative father," and
possibly a name invented by my mother to avoid embarrassing my actual
father, "a Chinese-American who is reported to be a married man." The
report describes my mother as a "runaway" who in her teen years was
a "ward of the court" housed either in foster care or in a series of
detention facilities. One of those facilities was the Kawailoa
Training School, from which she was on parole when she became
pregnant.

But though she was judged to be "quite immature, impulsive and
negligent of her baby" and did sign consent papers to release the
baby for adoption or foster placement, she "expressed a desire from
the beginning … to keep her baby" and only gave up when she concluded
she was incapable of looking after the infant on her own and "…did
not want to see her baby moved from one place to another." And once
she gave up, she gave up for good: several attempts were made to
find her for further discussions, the social worker concluded, "but
her whereabouts … remain unknown."

'Wanted a better life for her children'
There was sadness in that story, without question, but as I read and
re-read the documents in the file I thought about what I knew and
could surmise about the story she left behind. The story of the
family she eventually had, the children she raised. And, as Barack
Obama says he did during his own journey into the past, I wondered if
it was fair to guess at what my mother must have dreamed for me, even
as she abandoned me, deciding she could not do the best job of
delivering me into those dreams.

"All her life," my half-brother told me in one phone call, "she
talked about wanting a better life, yes, for herself … but more than
that, she wanted a better life for her children than she'd had."

And she made that happen: After years as a struggling single parent
following the death of her first husband, she married again, her
second husband a good man who finally gave her and her three sons a
life of comfort and stability.

My half brother didn't know until he learned of my existence that his
mother probably wanted that better life for me, too, and had started
me on the way to exactly that when she made what seems from the
documents to have been a difficult decision to surrender me to
Honolulu's Department of Public Welfare.

It was apparently the right decision, though: My first stop was a
foster placement where, a subsequent report says, I was soon "making
steady progress, receiving good physical care and emotional
stimulation … a normal, happy youngster."

I was always lucky enough to make "steady progress" from there: from
Hawaii to New York, and from the Taibbi family that raised me to the
other friends and teachers and mentors who cared for me along the
way – including families of different races and economic
circumstances – with the help of the national "social contract' that
offered the possibility of incentives and protections in equal
measure. There was always the availability of "emotional
stimulation," always the chance for a "normal, happy" life.

Another "American story," as I now see it, in ways I never have
before.

Adoption Reunion and Identity

Joni Mitchell-Finding Her Daughter

Notebook: Are You My Mommy?

Ordinary Miracle

INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS

somewhere out there

"Invisible Veil"

© Photographer: Isaiahlove | Agency: Dreamstime.com
"Invisible Veil"
by Margaret Benshoof-Holler
http://www.burningofthemarriagehat.com/invisibleveil2.html

She could have been any of the veiled Afghani women that have been
written about in the U.S. media since September 11. But the woman I
stood listening to one Saturday afternoon last fall in Sacramento,
California was an American woman whose veil was invisible, whose story
had been silenced and hidden.

Her child had been taken away. It was as if it had died. Except there
was no funeral, no wailing wall for her to pound her fists on and cry!
The woman was expected to just get on with her life and pretend that
she hadn't just given her child away.

With thirty-some years of internalized emotion still causing her voice
to quake when she recalled signing her name on the relinquishment
papers, the fifty-six-year-old woman in Sacramento spoke of the pain
and grief of losing her daughter to adoption. As I listened, I was
reminded that here in the U.S. we often deal with loss by covering up
our emotions. I was also reminded that the U.S. was bombing
Afghanistan because we lost over 3,000 very dear people. No one,
though, ever went to war for these women whose losses were in the
millions of newborn lives.

The exact number of women who gave children up for adoption during the
era of the 60s is not readily obtainable. The numbers jumped from
"50,000 in 1944" to "175,000 in 1970," according to one source.
Another source estimated the number of women who relinquished children
to adoption in the 1960s and 70s reached a peak of 250,000 a year. The
stigma associated with getting pregnant out of wedlock then
contributed to a need for secrecy. The need to hide these pregnancies
meant complete information was not always gathered. Thus the reason
for approximates rather than exact figures. Nonetheless, it is
unquestionable that a large number of women gave up children for
adoption during the 1960s and reached a peak some time in the 70s.
And, if even half of the women who gave their children up for adoption
in the 60s had banded together their voices would surely have been
heard, but they had not been taught nor encouraged to use their
voices. Societal dictates, including puritanical attitudes about sex,
women, and pregnancy, silenced the voices of many women for many
years.

When one loses a child, mother, father, or husband to death, there is
a funeral and a time of mourning. That hasn't been the case for most
of the 6,000,000 birthmothers in the U.S. who have lost their children
to adoption. Relinquishing her child to adoption is looked upon as a
single mother's duty for getting herself into that situation to begin
with rather than a deeply painful separation of mother and child. In
that respect, not much has changed since the 60s. Societal attitudes
towards unwed mothers consider adoption a logical consequence to out-
of-wedlock pregnancies.

Guilt and shame kept unwed mothers' voices stifled during the McCarthy
and post-McCarthy era of the 60s, but a small group of birthmothers
began, in the 1980s, to find the children they gave up for adoption in
the 60s. They began to come to terms with their loss. It is only with
the advent of the Internet that more birthmothers have begun to come
out of the closet. Many still only talk about what happened to them
with each other in much the same way that veterans of World War II and
Vietnam only talked afterwards with those who understood what they had
been through. Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms effect a number
of birthmothers.

When President Bush proclaimed November as National Adoption Month in
2001, he did not mention or honor the large group of American women
who have lost their children to adoption. He did not present a plan of
prevention for unplanned pregnancies or a way to provide free daycare
to help financially-strapped mothers keep, rather than give up their
babies to the adoption industry. His strong adoption stance appears to
fall closely in line with one of his apparent supporters-the Edna
Gladney Home in Fort Worth, Texas, which was one of the biggest
contributors to the National Council for Adoption in their effort to
keep birth records closed. President Bush didn't address the issue of
opening birth records either. Closed birth records cut adoptees off
from knowing who they are and do not protect birthmothers because the
majority of them want to be found.

Even though U.S. women have progressed since the 60s in the areas of
education and upward economic mobility and many single women are
raising children on their own today, there is still a stigma about
anything related to a woman having a baby outside of the confines of
marriage. I see it in the way that stories about single mothers are
reported in the media. Young mothers are made to sound like criminals
if they want to keep their children.

One-hundred and forty million people in the U.S. have an adoption in
their immediate families. Engrained views and practices pertaining to
loss, sex, and adoption help keep many, like the birthmother in
Sacramento, veiled and hidden. In this respect, the U.S. tends to fall
behind every other industrialized country, most of which have stopped
separating the natural mother from her child after it is born except
in extreme situations.

The woman that I stood listening to in Sacramento was coerced into
giving her child up for adoption in the 60s. She was then encouraged
to keep the whole thing hidden. Her story stayed that way for over
thirty years. It is time that we recognize and honor her motherhood.

"Invisible Veil" © copyright 2002 by Margaret Benshoof-Holler

The Unknown Soldier

The Story of the Unknown Soldier

by Ron Nydam, Ph.D.

In June of 1998 a headline in the Rocky Mountain News read, "DNA Yields Identity of Unknown Soldier." The Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, overlooking the Potomac River, holds the remains of several soldiers from both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Fourteen years ago then President Reagan presided over the burial of the remains of a serviceman killed in South Vietnam whose identity was not known. DNA testing that could have determined the man's identity was not available at that time. This past summer a sample of mitochondrial DNA scraped from a pelvic bone matched the blood sample given by Jean Blassie, mother of First Lt. Michael Blassie, an Air Force pilot whose A-37 jet had crashed in flames near the Cambodian border, on May 11, 1972. Five months later, South Vietnamese soldiers recovered his remains: four ribs, his right humerus, and part of his pelvic bone. But tests in Hawaii could not conclusively match these fragments to Blassie and the bones were classified as unknown in origin. Blassie was listed as missing in action in Vietnam. In a solemn, symbolic state funeral, President Reagan laid these bones to rest in the Tomb of the Unknowns on Memorial Day, 1984, 12 years after Blassie's death. Today Michael's bones lie buried in St. Louis, next to the grave of his father, George (a World War II veteran who died in 1991). Now the bones have a name.

It was all of interest to me. The Tomb of the Unknowns is a sacred place, the centerpiece of Arlington National Cemetery, one of our national memorials to soldiers who died for the "cause" of our country. If you are "unknown" you represent everybody-all 2,087 MIA's from the Vietnam War. These bones were placed in the Tomb to remind us of the unknowns. He was the son of our country; he was related to all of us. (His bones reminded me of my high school friend, Len Chesley, who played baseball with me. Len died of a grenade blast running from one foxhole to another with medical supplies.) Our nation appropriately honors, even glorifies the Tomb; we are reverent before the markers of sons and daughters who died for our country. They gave their lives for the good of America... even if Vietnam was not such a "good" war.

But now, we as a nation took the bones out of the Tomb. We gave them a name, Michael, and a family, the Blassies. In so doing, we healed a wound. Jean and George are real people in the pages of history who had a real son, Michael, who sadly flew his fighter jet in a fireball into the ground near the Cambodian border. His bones were moved from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis, from a nameless national memorial to an ordinary family plot. Do we see what happened? We tampered with the Shrine to the unknowns because we gave the bones their name. Our nation could no longer consider Michael's four ribs, humerus and pelvic bones as without a name, without identity. These bones became real to his mother 26 years after Michael's death. He was once again a real person, a son who really died on May 11, 1992. And Jean, his mother, could stand over his grave and weep tears that every mother weeps with the loss of a child. Michael Blassie was not only identified by the DNA match with Jean's blood sample; if anyone looked further Michael could also be found in his mother's heart.

I was thankful! As a country we did the right thing... though the Pentagon obscured his bones for years. "If we give Michael's bones their identity, we may have to do the same thing with all the other bones in the Tomb of the Unknowns! All the bones will get their names...and pretty soon there will be no bones in the Tomb of the Unknowns." Well, what a wonderful day that would be! Every bone deserves its name!

In our American society the adoptee is, in part, the Unknown Soldier...a warrior, fighting for the greater cause of human dignity, but unknown, marching without a name. I am referring specifically to the part of the adoptee that cannot be relinquished and adopted, no matter how much their caring adoptive parents love them. This is the part of the adoptee's self which, historically in the closed adoption system, has been buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns. But this is a soldier, male or female, a fighter who struggles to stay alive despite all the mortar fire of people like Bill Pierce and others supporting the proposed Uniform Adoption Act who want to keep the bones in the Tomb unknown so that adoption can be glorified in a way that even harms adoption. (The practice of adoption must be honest about the names of the bones sealed in closed court record tombs.) Adoptees are the Unknown Soldiers who must fight their way through the barrage of everyone else's opinion about who they should be. The temptation for many is to duck, to compromise self, to sacrifice the need for identity and just obey orders. But the mission, the right mission-sometimes Mission Impossible-is to go to battle for the right to know your name, your heritage, your whole story. And for birth parents, as for Michael's mother, Jean, it is better to grieve at the grave of your son with his name etched in granite than to forever wonder about bones buried in an unknown tomb.

The adoptee foot soldier is faced with complex challenges which are unique to adoptive development. Yes, the relinquished and adopted person probably marches to the beat of a different drummer...and probably for good reason. It may look like everything is okay. It may look like compliance to parental orders. But, if we watch carefully, and walk closely by, and listen to the heartbeat of the adoptee, we will notice that something more is going on. Sometimes these soldiers even go AWAL because they hear something else...off in the distance in birth parent land.


Grief
Travis was one little soldier who will probably always remember the day that he marched. It was a humid Saturday evening when almost everyone in a northwest Iowa town gathered for a benefit in the local concert hall. At age eight Travis sat in the front row of the small auditorium with his friends and a bag of popcorn. His adoptive parents were sitting towards the back with the rest of nearly all the adults in town. Halfway through the concert the singers stopped to dedicate a song to all the boys and girls in the world who did not have parents. The reference was to the children of the back country villages of Uganda where the adult HIV infection rate is as high as 80%. But Travis heard it differently. He put down his bag of popcorn and, with tears running down his cheeks, walked back up the middle aisle in search of his parents. He curled up in his mother's lap and wept, telling her, "Mom, I miss my birth mother." Wisely, supporting his grief, his mother responded, "Honey, I know you do."

When relinquished and adopted little soldiers reach the age of seven or eight, they master the ability to conceptualize, to "get" an idea...like relinquishment. Usually, at that age, they experience some depression when they figure out the reality of the existence of their ghost birth parents. And, normally, they grieve. And adoptive parents are the resources that adoptees turn to, if they can, to do their grieving. But their grieving is normal-an additional developmental challenge for the adoptee foot soldier. If, however, relinquished and adopted children are taught not to grieve, but, instead, to make believe, as our society does, that relinquishment doesn't make a difference, then the adoptee is left feeling confused and partial, not fully self-honest or fully real. Many soldiers know that "you cannot fix a problem if you say it is not there." The grief is there.


Identity
And what about marching without dogtags? For most of us in the non-adopted world, our identities are understood, known, and, for better or worse, accepted. But living with unknown identities, as many adoptee foot soldiers have been called to do, makes the road ahead less clear. It is difficult to know where you are going if you are not sure of who you are. What are the genetic givens? What are you good at? What ailments may come your way? What do you know of your parents' professions, skills, and talents? The closed adoption system has, for the last 50 years, kept the answers to those questions locked up in sealed courtroom records. So missing pieces of one's story are a problem. "Unknown" is a dangerous word. It is only when we really know about ourselves that we can forget about ourselves and move forward toward getting to know others. As long as our identities are on front stage, as is normal in adolescence, our attention to others gets compromised. It should come as no surprise that relinquished and adopted adolescents are over-represented in clinical populations in hospitals across our country. Again, it is normal for them to struggle when they know less about themselves than they need to know to be happy.

But there's more. Adoptees often have to march along taking in a negative piece of their personal histories as part of their identities. Unlike many of us in the non-adopted infantry, relinquished and adopted persons have to mold their identities out of stories of relinquishment, sometimes feeling like a mistake in time, unwanted, or optional. It is no easy task to march along without a clear sense of personal importance which gives confidence to fight the battles. But adoptees, often too "unknown" for their own good, are called forward to do so. Another extra challenge along the way.


Intimacy
There are days when relinquished and adopted people walk alone, without the rhythm and beat of a marching army. We all, adopted and non-adopted alike, avoid deep connections if we have trouble with trust. If our lives start out with breaks in attachment, then it is quite understandable that we might be gun-shy in the battle for closeness with others. Adoptees, for example, may struggle with relinquishment sensitivity, being fearful of taking risks because the sting of rejection has painful echoes from the past. If being relinquished is the organizing principle by which we guide our relationships, then our ways of relating to others, especially those we may love romantically, may be preconsciously loaded with conflict. We may avoid close connections with others altogether in order to do "an end run" around ever getting relinquished again. Or we may arrange close relationships in order to recapitulate the primal rejection. We may relinquish our mates because of an underlying belief that they will leave us, or hang on in very dependant ways to avoid rejection, or treat our mates in such a fashion that sooner or later they relinquish us. Intimate relationships always encounter problems, but, for adoptees, these problems may relate especially to the unresolved pain that often accompanies relinquishment...even if it is at less-than-conscious levels.

When Tom, the adoptee foot soldier, found himself "falling" for his 27-year-old secretary, though not in a sexual way, his wife threw the Rolodex at him and the next day dragged him into a counseling office. He did not know why his secretary had come to mean so much to him, but she had. Traditional marriage counseling did little to change things. After three months, Tom knew more about his adoptive history...but still "loved" his secretary. It was only when he brought in his 41-year-old adoption papers and read that his birth mother was 27 years old when she gave birth to him that Tom began his grieving of the mother he never knew. Unknown is a dangerous word. He had never mourned the loss of his birth parents. He had wished to leave his wife/adoptive mother and return to his secretary/birth mother. Interpretation of this painful reality slowly brought peace to Tom's conflicted marriage. Search and reunion with his birth mother helped more. If adoptees do not courageously deal with the pain of relinquishment, it often shows up in the middle of "love." Makes marching forward more difficult.


Fantasy and Reality
Sigmund Freud, one of the great generals in the army of psychology, suggested a hundred years ago that it is normal for children growing up to make believe that they are really from another family, a royal family, which would treat them with much more kindness and honor than the parents at home do. He called this the (other) "family romance fantasy" and suggested that it was a way that children used to deal with their anger at their parents as well as slowly separate from them. But what happens when the (other) "family romance" is real, meaning that there are real but "ghost" parents out there? The adoptee is left wondering about the reality of who these people are. No wonder adoptees often report rich fantasy lives about the who and what of their birth parents as well as about the why of relinquishment. Their fantasies connect them in important ways to their birth parents, keeping connection and hope for more reality with them alive. More to carry along the way as these foot soldiers grow up.

One relinquished and adopted adult recalls imagining that her birth mother was the president of a big company in Omaha. Another imagined the opposite-that her birth mother was a waitress in a greasy spoon restaurant. The first "borrowed" goodness in terms of her own self-image by making up a presidential mother. The second kept her birth mother at a distance, seeing her low in life, "not amounting to much." But our point is that regardless of how birth parents may be valued in imagination, they are significant. And adoptees need to know the truth about their birth histories in order to feel fully real. Ask them. Even bad news is good news because it is real news.

These challenges are the marching orders for adoptee foot soldiers, the Unknown Soldiers of our day. They each have to do the march of grieving, of identity formation, of managing intimacy, and resolving fantasy into as much reality as possible. With heart and soul they keep fighting for a sense of belonging and being complete as persons in the Great War on secrecy and denial and a society that, at least historically, does not even want to know that the Battle is going on. "We disavow any knowledge of their secret selves" are the words from the top. So they fight alone, without the backup of the very community that commissioned them, in adoption, to "figure things out and make their lives work." These Unknown Soldiers, who are battling for the wholeness of the next generation, need the Pentagon behind them. There are 47 states to go!

Now, back to Michael's bones buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns, resurrected to their original identity and brought to St. Louis to lie with the bones of his father. Every bone deserves its name. The truth is that bones come back to life when they have identities. So it is with the foot bones and the back bones and the heart bones of adoptees. Give them a name and they come back to life. The hidden and the unknown become seen and known and real in the light of the day of open records. Then, finally, soldiers can lay down their arms and be at peace with all the pieces of history. The Unknown Soldiers become the known sons and daughters of known mothers and fathers. And they no longer have to fight.


This article is a summary of an address made at the American Adoption Congress Southern Conference in Orlando, Florida, October 1998. Ron Nydam is the director of Michigan Adoption Dynamics and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care at Calvin Theological Seminary. His book, Adoptees Come Of Age: The Emotional and Spiritual Struggle with Relinquishment, will be published in August 1999 by Westminster/John Knox Press.

Money & Emotion: Who pays the real cost? Cody

There is something so beautiful about this story...that these parents refused to give up even though the entire adoption & court-system was/is flawed and an unjust custody battle was drawn out over years, when it should have been decided when Cody was still a baby.

His natural parents began rightfully contesting this adoption when Cody was a tiny baby, but the attorneys and court-system did their normal "song and dance" in these cases so they could use the argument of "best interest of the child is to stay with the adoptive parents because they are the only ones he has ever known." It isn't the child's fault that the adoption code and court system was allowed to create MORE trauma for Cody. The natural parents could have been JUSTLY awarded custody of their baby at the beginning of the appeal process.

Just think how many "birthparents" have tried to appeal adoption proceedings and gave up because of this flawed system...I am so proud of this family. Don't you think we should all write our newspaper's editors and use this opportunity to speak about the need for reform in the adoption and court system when adoptions are contested? When natural mothers are pressured and natural fathers are accused of abandonment when they, in fact, are not notified or given the respect or right to be the father of their own child?

The pictures of this family on the newspaper website below are really touching.

Saturday, January 17, 2009
Birth parents' battle: Custody dispute is costly in money and emotion

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090117/METRO/901170377

Karen Bouffard / The Detroit NewsECORSE

For most of his short life, he answered to two names, called
two couples Mom and Dad, was schooled in two religions and lived in
two cities.But by a court ruling Christmas Eve, the twin identities of 5-year-old
Cody Barnett were narrowed to one.Kenneth Barnett and Christine Wolfe of Ecorse learned Dec. 24 that the
state Court of Appeals sided with them in a nearly five-year battle
for their birth son Cody -- a battle that cost them their savings,
their home and precious years with their child.But the decision devastated Phillip and Phyllis Unthank of Dearborn,
prospective adoptive parents who had custody of the boy since his
birth but lost it last February when Barnett and Wolfe were granted
full custody. The Unthanks have until Feb. 4 to decide whether to take
their battle to the state Supreme Court. Birmingham attorney John F.
Mills said this week they have not yet decided whether to file a leave
to appeal."My mom and dad won me. They blocked my (other) name," Cody said about
the family's trip to Caesarland, a kids pizza joint and playground,
after the ruling.Asked if he misses the Unthanks, he replied, "A little bit."Advocates laud the ruling, which underscores parents' constitutional
rights to raise children regardless of their circumstances as long as
they are fit. They say birth parents frequently give up or lose such
battles because adoptive parents typically have more money to spend on
qualified representation and extended court fights. But adoptive
parents and their supporters sympathize with the Unthanks, and say
courts sometimes favor birth parents over the best interests of the
child."I would like to say a lot, but I don't want Duane, Cody, whoever --
that sweet little boy -- put in the middle of this," said Phyllis
Unthank, 51, who refused to comment further on the case.Child advocates on both sides say this case -- marked by lengthy
delays, jurisdictional wrangling and questionable rulings -- should
never have lagged so long in the Wayne County court system. The Court
of Appeals ruled both Wayne County's probate and circuit courts erred
in the case.Experts say the case illustrates why Wayne and other counties should
have just one court and one judge to decide all of a family's issues,
from divorce to custody -- something mandated by state lawmakers in
1996, but which many counties have not fully implemented.The case mirrors the 1993 "Baby Jessica" case in which Jan and Roberta
DeBoer of Washtenaw County were forced to surrender a 2 1/2 -year-old
girl they had raised since birth to her biological parents, Cara
Clausen and Daniel Schmidt of Iowa.In both cases, the birth mother initially gave the child to a
prospective adoptive couple, and the birth father later came forward
to claim custody. The birth parents, in each case, later got back
together and united in their fight to reclaim the child. In both
cases, the child lived and bonded with the couple who hoped to adopt
while the case dragged on in court. But ultimately they lost the child
to the birth parents.In deciding on Cody, the state appeals court cited the Michigan
Supreme Court's ruling on Baby Jessica. In both cases, it was
determined that the prospective adoptive parents had no claim to the
child simply by virtue of the child having resided with them.Father doubted paternityCody's case opens old wounds for Roberta DeBoer, who said she still
grieves over parting with the baby she called "Jessica.""Adoption is a legal term; it has nothing to do with parenting,
nothing at all," DeBoer said. "Once you have a baby that you care for
day in and day out and you in every right believe that child is yours
-- those parents became parents the moment they took that child in
their arms."In Cody's case, the entanglement started even before he was born on
Jan. 23, 2003, at Dearborn's Oakwood Hospital, six weeks after his
parents' bitter divorce. Wolfe admitted she had strayed from the
marriage, and Barnett refused to acknowledge paternity without a DNA
test. Wayne County Circuit Judge William Callahan entered a divorce
judgment that awarded the two joint legal custody of their older
daughter, Samantha, but made no provision for their unborn child.Wolfe, a hairdresser, was fearful of raising two children as a single
parent. But a relative knew the Unthanks, a childless couple anxious
to adopt, and urged the adoption as a solution.The Unthanks took the baby home from the hospital with temporary
custody and a written power of attorney to decide his medical care.
But genetic testing in February proved Barnett was the father of Cody.Barnett filed motions for custody in both circuit and probate court
and was denied. Meanwhile, the Unthanks were given temporary custody
while motions were argued in both courts.When Cody was about 18 months old, Wolfe revoked her power of attorney
and demanded her child back -- but the Unthanks refused. United by
common interest, Wolfe and Barnett reunited as a couple. Already
parents to Samantha, now 7, they had another daughter, Brooklyn, now 2
years old. They now wanted Cody to join the family.Jurisdiction in questionThe case lagged in part because Wayne County Probate Judge June
Blackwell-Hatcher believed Circuit Judge Callahan had jurisdiction of
the custody issue, since he had settled the divorce. Callahan
disagreed. Both judges ended up hearing some motions in the case.
Ultimately, the State Court Administrative Office temporarily named
Blackwell-Hatcher to the Circuit Court for the purpose of deciding
custody."I don't think its very frequent that this kind of rat's nest occurs
with this level of confusion, but this case points out general flaws
in the system," said University of Michigan law professor Donald
Duquette, director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the University
of Michigan Law School.Duquette said the jurisdictional dispute between Callahan and
Blackwell-Hatcher wouldn't have happened if the county had a family
court division with just one judge handling the divorce, child
support, custody and juvenile issues.Some counties have implemented such courts, but many -- including
Wayne -- still have more than one judge involved."If there had been one judge, if the circuit judge had taken
jurisdiction for the whole case, it wouldn't have gone down this
road," Duquette said.Duquette also said Barnett should have been granted legal custody from
the beginning -- and probably would have if he'd had legal
representation. Barnett said he didn't have a lawyer until later in
the case.Although Barnett had been in trouble with the law, and even served
time in prison for writing a bad check before Cody was born, there was
no history of child abuse or neglect.Callahan defended his decision to turn down Barnett's bid for custody,
saying he appeared not to be fit."There were questions as to Mr. Barnett's fitness; he didn't respond
to a lot of stuff," Callahan said. "Mr. Barnett was not present in
court on most dates."Wolfe and Barnett pooled their resources to hire Ann Arbor attorney
Marian Faupel, who represented the birth parents in the Baby Jessica
case.The couple has paid about $30,000 in legal fees. At times, they
couldn't make mortgage payments, and their home in Dearborn Heights
was foreclosed on. They are in debt for about another $80,000."Most people would have lost their child -- that's the tactic," said
Wolfe of the many motions and counter-motions brought by the Unthanks.
"It's to force you to give up."In July 2005, the probate judge allowed Wolfe visitation, starting
with a few hours a day several days a week.Visitation was slowly increased until the child was spending half his
time with each couple. Thursday evening through Sunday he was Cody
Thomas Barnett. Sunday evening to Thursday, he was Duane Farrell
Unthank.That abruptly ended Feb. 20, when Blackwell-Hatcher issued her
decision granting full custody to Wolfe. Cody hasn't seen the Unthanks
since, and knows the Dec. 24 ruling means he never may again. He's now
known simply as Cody Barnett.Asked which name he liked better, Cody or Duane, he said, "I liked
them both the same."You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com .

Vital Records: The Debate on Adoptee Rights Pt 3

Adult Adoptees

A Beautiful Reunion...

Local Woman Reunites With Birth Mother
Jan 9, 2009 11:20 pm US/Eastern

http://kdka.com/local/Mother.Daughter.Reunite.2.904716.html
There's a video on the website; very emotional reunion!

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
It was a moment they never imagined would happen, but after more than
four decades and many miles, a local woman and the mother who put her
up for adoption were reunited in our area.

The last time Irene Malloy set eyes on her daughter was January of
1963. After giving birth to Angela in a home for unwed mothers, she
held her and gave her up to adoptive parents in Trenton, New Jersey.

Today she had her arms around her first child once again.

"I never felt closer to God in all my life - it's just unbelievable -
it's still, it's still unbelievable, " Irene says.

"It felt like I was missing something all my life - and I feel that my
life is complete," Angela Murray says.

Irene grew up in Camden, NJ. At 16, she fell in love with her high
school sweetheart and got pregnant. But her grandmother and
grandfather who was a minister decided that her baby would be adopted.

"I just needed to pray for her safety and pray that if it's God's will
we'll meet again," Irene said.

Angela was 14 when she learned she was adopted. Her adoptive parents
have both died. She loved them a lot. She's now married and has two
children of her own. But connecting with her birth mom is the answer
to many prayers.

"And I wanted to tell her that, you know, that I forgave her - there
was no anger in my heart," Angela said.

The connection was made through the website AdoptionRegistry. com. On
New Year's Eve the call came. Irene's daughter Livette answered. It
was her big sister.

"It dawned on me that it was true and so many years of searching,"
Livette said.

Over the past week, Irene crocheted a blanket for Angela because she'd
done that for all her babies.

Years ago, Irene's other three children gave her a necklace with all
of their birthstones. They included one for Angela too.

"Our lives have been forever changed - it's just a miracle," Irene said.

What makes this whole story even more remarkable is that today is
Angela's birthday and you can bet meeting her birth mother is her
favorite gift this year.

Every Thought...

You are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the
game you want to see or meal you want to eat, when suddenly
a sound unlike any you've ever heard fills the air. The
sound is high above you. A trumpet? A choir? A choir of
trumpets? You don't know, but you want to know. So you
pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As you do, you
see you aren't the only curious one. The roadside has
become a parking lot. Car doors are open, and people are
Staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of the grocery
store. The Little League baseball game across the street has
come to a halt. Players and parents are searching the
clouds. And what they see, and what you see, has never
before been seen. As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes
of the atmosphere part. A brilliant light spills onto the
earth. There are no shadows. None. From every hue ever seen
and a million more never seen Riding on the flow is an
endless fleet of angels. They pass through the curtains one
myriad at a time, until they occupy every square inch of the
sky. North. South. East. West. Thousands of silvery wings
rise and fall in unison, and over the sound of the trumpets,
you can hear the cherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy,
holy... The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four
silver-haired elders and a multitude of souls who join the
angels in worship. Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is
quiet. The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns and
there He is. Jesus. Through waves of light you see the
silhouetted figure of Christ the King He is atop a great
stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud. He
opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by his declaration:
I am the Alpha and the Omega. The angels bow their heads..
The elders remove their crowns. And before you is a Figure
so consuming that you know, instantly you know: Nothing else
matters. Forget stock markets and school reports. Sales
meetings and football games. Nothing is newsworthy. All that
mattered, matters no more...Christ has come.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - * O Come All Ye Faithful

I got to see their Christmas concert a few days ago, and it was awesome!

Study Finds Facial Expressions are Genetic, Not Learned

Julia Roberts was born with a beautiful smile
Study finds facial expressions are genetic — not learned
By Jeanna Bryner

From sneers to full-blown smiles, our facial expressions are hardwired into our genes, suggests a new study.

The researchers compared the facial expressions from more than 4,800 photographs of sighted and blind judo athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games.

The analyses showed sighted and blind individuals modified their expressions of emotion in the same way in accordance with the social context. For example, in the Paralympics, the athletes competed in a series of elimination rounds so that the final round of two athletes ended in the winner taking home a gold medal while the loser got a silver medal.

The blind silver medalists who lost their final matches tended to produce "social smiles" during the medal ceremonies. Social smiles use only the mouth muscles. True smiles, known as Duchenne smiles, cause the eyes to twinkle and narrow and the cheeks to rise.

The researchers say sighted athletes who lost their final rounds also showed social smiles.

"Losers pushed their lower lip up as if to control the emotion on their face, and many produced social smiles," said researcher David Matsumoto, a psychologist at San Francisco State University.

The athletes also painted anger, sadness and disgust on their faces in a similar fashion. "When a blind and a sighted athlete show sadness the same facial muscles are firing," Matsumoto told LiveScience, adding that sadness is depicted with a downturned mouth and the raising of the inner eyebrows.

One idea on expressions had been that people worldwide learn how to match facial configurations with certain emotional states by watching others.

The new study, which will be published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggests that's not the case, since blind individuals would be unable to carry out such observational learning.
(Left: blind athlete; Right: sighted athlete)
"Individuals blind from birth could not have learned to control their emotions in this way through visual learning, so there must be another mechanism," Matsumoto said. "It could be that our emotions, and the systems to regulate them, are vestiges of our evolutionary ancestry. It's possible that in response to negative emotions, humans have developed a system that closes the mouth so that they are prevented from yelling, biting or throwing insults."

Matsumoto was involved in a past study using the same data collection, which revealed blind and sighted athletes show similar gestures of pride (head tilted up and puffed-out chest). Both studies suggest an innate ability to express certain emotions with gestures and facial expressions.

© 2008 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28423638/

* I've seen this truth at work to my complete amazement in reunion. Sitting around a kitchen table watching my own facial expressions, hand-gestures, voice inflections, & subtle tilts of the head FINALLY being mirrored in REAL people, my people. What a relief it was.