Chosen Children

Billion Dollar Babies in
America's
Foster Care, Adoption
& Prison Systems

by Lori Carangelo

DESCRIPTION - REVIEWS - CONTENTS

"The people discussed were not 'born to lose,' but their life histories reflect the powerful influence of the American way of adoption, foster care and prisons.... and those who make it a commodifying, destructive experience."
- JEAN PATON, MA, MSW, "Mother" of The Open Records Movement & Anti-Adoption Movement in the U.S. since 1953.

"A well done study that would make an interesting publication..."
-JOHN R. ALLEY, PhD, Executive Editor, Utah State University Press

"An impassioned plea for more and freer access to information about adoptees, birthparents; and reform of the adoption process. ...She documents the effects of adoption-related behaviors and broken birth bonds on adults adopted as children..."
- GORDON BROOKS, Librarian III-Social Science, Los Angeles Public Library

"In Chosen Children, incarcerated adults who were adopted as children narrate their life histories of abuse, addiction and crime. These transcriptions of interviews, phone calls, letters and media quotes provide an interesting collection of primary source material for future resarch on 'Adopted Child Syndrome.' "
- ROBERTA MEDFORD, Social Sciences Bibliographer, UCLA Research Library

"A fascinating, well-researched 'must read' for both liberals and conservatives interested in following the dollars we are now spending to create monsters of these billion dollar babies."
- DR. STANLEY S. REYBURN, Past President, Palm Springs Writers Guild

"Chosen Children is a unique and important book, shedding light on the correlation of being adopted and criminal behavior......a must read for all those whose lives are touched by adoption. I have been professionally involved with some of the individuals depicted in Chosen Children; Carangelo has done a great job of putting this all together."
- JOE SOLL, CSW, DAPA, psychotherapist, adoptee and author of Adoption Healing... A Path to Recovery

"Chosen Children by Lori Carangelo is an excellent example of frank, no nonsense research needed if we are to understand the paleopsychological dynamics of adoptees that commit violent crime. Paleopsychology is a theory in psychology which believes that in order to assess human behavior and motivation, one needs to understand history from its evolutionary beginnings to modern man. Lori seems to understand the connection among the disciplines of kinship, adoption, regression and aggressive behavior. This connection is exemplified in her case studies of the perpetrators of minor criminal behavior, serious sexual assault, homicide and crimes directed toward females by adoptive males.

"Dr. Kent Bailey (in his monumental work entitled 'Human Psychology') and I both assert that adoption, whether legal or illegal, is a dysfunction of kinship, and as such, is not solely the physical action of the exchange of ownership of a young human being, but a psychological action imprinting on both the infant and the biological parent(s). The action can and does endure the separation, but has great implications for the mother, father, and the child whose relationship, when severed by an adoption, can only be healed by a 're-union' in whatever form it takes. This re-union is in many cases hampered by the government and those very professionals and agencies purported to be the vehicle that began the healing after the birth of an unexpected or unwanted child.

"In the case studies explored in Chosen Children, what is seen in many adoptive children is the beginning of a cycle of violence against both the adoptive parents and strangers. This cycle of violence against a person is fantasized by the adoptee-perpetrator and the victim is seen as an 'enemy' to the quest for wholeness. It is our view of the adoptive child that he/she perceives many people in his world as 'strangers.' This may even include adoptive parents. This 'stranger' effect is not so much a 'syndrome' as a paleo-psychological state that comes directly from an unconscious feeling of a lack of belonging, or as Colin Wilson puts it, feeling as 'an outsider.'

"Further, we believe there may be a reaction experienced by the adoptee, either as child and/or adult, that as the most primitive wounds to the psyche, is experienced at the very essence of his/her humanity. By and of itself the adoptee's specific loss of the most elementary biological kinship, this process known as adoption, may cause a paleo-psychological regression experienced as uncontrollable rage deep from within his/her own ancient history, which when focused may find as its end predatory violence deep within the self as is borne out in several of the case studies.

"This book is a 'must read' for all those who hope to understand the dynamics of the adoptive human experience which many times is shaped by the ghosts of the past, secrets many times never exposed nor understood."
- PATRICK J. CALLAHAN, PhD, ABPS
Forensic Educational & Neuropsychology,
Child, Adolescent, Adult & Family Psychotherapy
- an international consultant in several high-profile homicide investigations including the Jon Benet Ramsey case which is recounted in his book "Who Will Speak for Jon Benet?"

"Lori Carangelo has given us an excellent source book with a great deal of relevant historical information about the world of adoption. It should be helpful to researchers and readers who seek to understand the changes in the institution of adoption and how they came about in the 20th century."
- ANNETTE BARAN, MSW, ACSW, LCSW
co-author of The Adoption Triangle, which advocates opening of sealed records, and Lethal Secrets, which discusses ethical issues of donor insemination