Each time I put together a panel of birth mothers to speak at one of our workshops for prospective adoptive families, I’m painfully reminded that I rarely have been able to have a birth father present on our panel.. It saddens me to think that so few birth fathers are able to come forward to present their viewpoint, feelings and experience of placing a child for adoption and what it is like to be a birth father in today’s society..I recall one birth father I worked with who for years came to Kinship Center’s Open Adoption Support Group..the group adored him . He helped to educate all of us, especially the new and waiting adoptive families who rarely thought about adoption from a birth father’s point of view…The adoption system is often not “user friendly” to birth fathers..they tend to be pushed out of the process, marginalized or seen as a mere legal inconvenience or impediment.. I recall how happy this birth father was after visiting with the adoptive parents and his birth daughter..he’d return to the the group beaming with love and happiness and eager to share photos of recent visits he had with the adoptive family and his birth daughter..Sadly he left the area several years ago and moved to the mid west– he emailed me and said he was trying his best to start a support group similar to ours that included both adoptive families and birth parents..I hope it happened..the world needs less shame, guilt and pain for birth parents..In the meantime I’d like to recommend a great book that will put you in touch with the depth of feelings that birth fathers do have.. “Out Of The Shadows, Birthfathers’ Stories” written by Mary Martin Mason deals with this very issue. Who are birth fathers ? And where are they?…it’s hard to find the book new ..click below to link and consider purchasing a used copy..Well worth it….Hats off to birth fathers who have courageously and lovingly placed a child for adoption…. You are welcome at Kinship Center’s support group or even better contact us to speak at a workshop …. The adoption community needs you to come out of the shadows…
http://www.amazon.com/Out-Shadows-Mary-Martin-Mason/dp/0964625911
Birthfathers are all around us on a daily basis. Some do not know that they had a child and that an adoption took place; many were scared of the implications of being a father and didn’t know what role they could play in a child’s life or their value to that child; some don’t really recognize what it meant to have a child until they are more mature and have other children that they do parent and then feel sadness and guilt about what happened to the child placed. Anger and fear of other members of the adoption community also keep them out of the picture. Few men work in child welfare and this also is an inhibitor to the involvment of birth fathers.