GOUDA - There must be an expertise center for adoption. Existing foster care centers can be expanded to include adopted children. In addition, there should be consultation offices specialized in adoption. Only in this way can the problems of adopted children be properly taken care of.
That is the opinion of Prof. RAC Hoksbergen, Emeritus Professor of Adoption at Utrecht University. He will speak this afternoon in Gouda at the autumn meeting of the Adoption Association of the Reformed Gezindte about identity development of adopted children.
Hoksbergen (64) is an authority on adoption in the Netherlands. In the early 1970s, he was one of the founders of the boom in adopting children from abroad. "We were very enthusiastic. We took children from bad circumstances to a country where they were better off. It was good work. In retrospect, we focused too little on the ultimate consequences of an adoption. We also immediately provided aftercare for adoptive parents We had to organize. There was little structure in it. But what do you want, we had nothing."
Adoption became popular. Many children came from countries such as Korea, India and Indonesia. Hoksbergen and his associates were active in what would later become the mediation organization Wereldkinderen. His scientific work at Utrecht University resulted in the Adoption Center - meanwhile closed down by the university. The number of applications for adoption rose to more than 3000 in those years.
The pink clouds around adoption persisted until the early 1980s. "Then there was publicity about adopted children placed at home. That was of course not just like that." Adopted children were found to have problems. Problems with accepting their identity. Who am I? Where do I belong? Who do I look like? Who are my natural parents? Do I have to love my adoptive parents? "It lowers the quality of life if there are no answers to these kinds of questions," said Hoksbergen in his study in Soest.