Lost & found : the adoption experience / Betty Jean Lifton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lifton, Betty Jean.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adoption--United States.

Adoption.

Adopted children--Family relationships.

Adopted children.

United States.

Adopted children--United States.

Adopted children--Family relationships--United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 330 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

Third edition, expanded and updated.

Other Title:

Lost and found

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2009.

Summary:

The first edition of Betty Jean Lifton's Lost and Found advanced the adoption rights movement in this country in 1979, challenging many states' policies of maintaining closed birth records. For nearly three decades the book has topped recommended reading lists for those who seek to understand the effects of adoption-including adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, and their friends and families.

This expanded and updated edition, with new material on the controversies concerning adoption, artificial insemination, and newer reproductive technologies, continues to add to the discussion on this important topic. A new preface and afterword by the author have been added, as well as a greatly expanded resources section that in addition to relevant organizations now lists useful Web sites.

Contents:

Preface: Adoptee with a Capital A ix

Part 1 Lost

1 On Being Adopted 3

2 Messages from the Underground 9

3 The Adoption Game 12

4 The Chosen Baby 19

5 The Adoptee as Mythic Hero 28

6 The Adoptee as Double 34

7 The Adoptee as Survivor 39

8 Adolescent Baggage 43

9 Good Adoptee-Bad Adoptee 54

10 The Adoptee as Adult 62

Part 2 Found

11 Waking Up from the Great Sleep 71

12 Who Searches? 73

13 The Decision to Search 78

14 Stages of the Search 86

15 Varieties of Reunion Experience 101

16 The Journey after Reunion 139

17 Father-The Mini-Search 152

18 Siblings 162

19 The Unsuspecting Spouse 168

20 Aftermath: The Restless Pulse 172

Part 3 Roots and Wings

21 Taking Wing 177

22 Telling the Adoptive Parents 178

23 The Chosen Parents 183

24 Telling the Child 188

25 Birth Mothers-Are They Baby Machines? 207

26 Birth Mothers Who Search 228

27 Adoptive Parents-Are They Baby-Sitters? 256

28 The Right to Know 263

Rights and Responsibilities for Everyone in the Adoption Circle 283

The Adoption Resource Network 289.

Notes:

Originally published: New York : Dial Press, 1979.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-322) and index.

ISBN:

9780472033287

047203328X

OCLC:

301560459