ABSTRACT
The major findings from our twenty-year saga have been reported and discussed in this volume and in earlier ones. At each phase of the study, we reported the problems, setbacks, and disappointments, as well as the successes, joys, and optimism about the future. None of the families disrupted the adoption. There were separations and family breakups as a result of parental deaths and divorces. During the pre-adolescent years when the adoptees were eleven or twelve years old, we reported that, in about 20 percent of the families, the adoptees were stealing from other family members. The children stole money from their mother’s purse, and phonographs, bikes, and skates from their siblings. Most often they gave the items away. They did not try to sell them, and the adoptees did not engage in other delinquent acts. Were these behaviors a function of the children’s adopted status, their racial differences, or a combination of both? How long was this likely to continue, and would the children be likely to engage in other forms of delinquent and criminal behavior as they grew older? We could find no references to these behaviors in previous studies that had been done with adopted children, but when we sought out clinicians whose caseloads often involved adoptees, we were told that intrafamily stealing was not unusual. It was the adopted children’s form of testing. How much of a commitment did their families have toward them? Were the families prepared to keep them when things got rough—when they did not behave like model children? Were they really a part of the family, for better or worse?
