Age at placement, adoption experience and adult adopted people's contact with their adoptive and birth mothers: An attachment perspective

Abstract

Adoption holds particular interest for attachment researchers. Although children adopted as babies experience almost continuous care by their adoptive parents, older placed children experience at least one major change of caregiver when they join their adoptive family. Moreover, in the majority of cases, older placed children have generally suffered a pre-adoption history of abuse, neglect and/or rejection. It is now being recognized that older placed children's attachment histories and internal working models (IWMs) established in relationship with their initial carers remain active in relationship with their new carers. Transactional models have helped both researchers and practitioners to understand the dynamics of parent-child relationships in cases where insecure children with histories of neglect,abuse and rejection findthemselves in new caregiving environments. The present study examines the childhood experiences of adult adopted people and their current levels of contact with their adoptive mothers, and in cases where people had searched for and found a birth relative, current levels of contact with their birth mother. Although no information was collected on the adopted adult's pre-placement history,age at placementwas used as a proxy measure to examine whether older placed children reported different adoption experiences and what their current levels of contact were with their adoptive and birth mothers. The findings show that age at placement was associated with adopted people'sreported experiences of being adopted and current rates of contact with their adoptive and birth mothers, with those placed at older ages most likely to report that they (1) did not feel they belonged in their adoptive families while growing up, (2) did not feel loved by their adoptive mother, (3) were least likely to remain in highfrequency contact with their adoptive mother, and (4) were least likely to remain in high-frequency contact with their birth mother. An attachment perspective is used to interpret the findings. Children adopted at older ages appear more likely to have experienced an insecure attachment relationship with their adoptive mother.