Umm... Triad, what Triad?

I first aired this on the Norcap Forum some time ago, because they seem find it difficult to get beyond the triad concept of adoption at times, even to the  point of using the impossible triangle illusion as their corporate logo.

I've always disliked the use of the words triad and triangle in adoption, which invariably involves a whole network of different people and interests, not just three. I find the triad and triangle symbolism a constant burden especially when trying to communicate with the government departments involved in adoption, they sometimes seem to find it difficult grasp just how complicated the network of broken and re-formed relationships in adoption can be.

One of the questions in the Civil Registration: Delivering Vital Change Consultation here in England & Wales was Supplementary Question S6: Do you have any views on the proposed definition of family in respect of accessing registration records? My answer was as follows

<<<........ I can see very little merit in the Government taking some arbitrary definition of family and making it a mandatory definition for the purposes of this legislation. A family should be defined by those who comprise it, and not by the state.

Families come in many shapes and sizes and different kinds. I and my brothers and sisters consider ourselves to be a "family". But we have been adopted or kept by nine different other "families" some of which include other adoptees from different "natural families" and there are probably eight different fathers involved whose "families" one or more of my half siblings also belong to.

But the law sees me only as a member of my adoptive family and my brothers and sisters as members of entirely different families.

I am pleased to be a part of my adoptive family, but it is the least useful definition of family to me in terms of investigating my genetic heritage.

It would be far more practical for the government to restrict access to information on vital records either on the basis of need to know or leave it as it is now with the proviso that anyone who feels that access to their records will endanger them can seek a Confidentiality Order.

However if the Government does decide that it is essential to have a definition of family, that definition should be as wide as possible, to include people who are related whether by blood or by adoption. In terms of blood relationship, access to cause of death information should be extended to aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, and second cousin relationships.....>>>

Since I first wrote this, I've become involved in trying to find my agnate siblings by several other mothers that my father had relationships with. It is very difficult it  to get civil servants and their Ministers to understand all of this when those of us who are supposed to understand it, all continue using the over simplified language that we often do, and I'm probably just as guilty as everyone else. Sorry to ramble on but In my opinion we really do have to be more thoughtful about the terminology that we use. I don't that mind what first mothers call themselves, but calling a thing that is as multifactorial as adoption and those affected by it is farcical

Then of course there's the politics, as I've seen Ron point out on alt.adoption  http://bbchurch.blogspot.com/  The Triad is a Five-legged Stool...

Well I'm recycling there, but wondered what you all think here, doesn't the word 'triad' really confuse what adoption is all about, when think about it adoption is just fixed form of fostering (or least it should be if get the 'lets pretend it's really ours' element of adoption), would you describe fostering as a 'triad'

Robin

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