This article is published in partnership with Foster Advocates.
Imagine only knowing what you’ve been told, filtered through incomplete memories and unfamiliar faces, while the real story of your life remains sealed behind closed doors. For many former foster children, that’s the reality: a fragmented understanding of who they are and where they come from, due in part to limited access to their own records.
After my father died in 2011, I was deemed a “ward of the state.” Along with him, the stories that built my family, our heritage, traditions, and even everyday memories were lost. All I had were the scattered recollections my brain managed to hold onto.
Only 16 states currently allow adopted individuals to obtain their original birth certificates. In most other states, records related to adoption and foster care remain sealed or heavily restricted. What gets overlooked in this bureaucracy is something fundamental: the right to identity.
We need to ask: Who do sealed records really protect? We need to ask because it’s not protecting the youth.
It’s not the adult searching for the truth about their origins, their medical history, or the names of siblings they may never have met. Sealing records denies us the transparency we deserve. It assumes we can’t handle the truth of our own lives, and it places decisions about our identity in the hands of others often without our consent or input.
This lack of transparency removes the power of choice — the choice to connect, the choice to understand, and the choice to heal. No one else should have the right to decide if I get to know where I came from or why. Our past should not be hidden from us. It should be ours to own.
Who am I really? Where do I come from? Where do I belong?
Many young people go through a period of soul-searching, but for foster youth, that struggle is often deeper, more painful, and more complex. It’s not just about fitting in. It’s about finding the missing pieces of your own story.
One year, my foster sister (my foster parents’ biological daughter) had a custom outfit made to celebrate their Norwegian heritage. I asked if I would be getting something similar to honor my own roots. The response was a flat no. We knew I had German and Spanish heritage, but it was never explored. In that moment, I felt as if my identity didn’t matter and that my culture wasn’t worth celebrating.
To my foster parents, this might have seemed like a small moment. Maybe they didn’t know how to approach something they didn’t fully understand. But to me, it was a turning point. It was the beginning of questioning who I was and whether that was something to be proud of.
Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours researching my family history, not because I needed to validate myself to anyone else, but because I deserved to know. My heritage mattered. But for so long, all I was told was that my family was “bad” as if their mistakes meant I had to be ashamed of where I came from.
Here’s what we need to understand: The families we’re born into may make harmful or even terrible choices. But that does not mean we are inherently bad. We deserve to separate our identity from the actions of others and build self-worth rooted in truth, not shame.
Many foster youth feel disconnected from their biological families while also feeling like outsiders in their foster homes. This emotional limbo can have serious mental health consequences, often manifesting as anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, or ADHD. And while being a foster parent is undoubtedly difficult, being a foster child is even harder.
Regardless of how long a placement lasts, maintaining a child’s connection to their culture, identity, and personal history is not optional. It’s essential.
Foster care should not erase who we are. It should help us discover it. It’s time we unseal records. It’s time we center the voices of those who lived in the system, not just those who manage it. And most importantly, it’s time we stop making foster youth choose between safety and selfhood. We deserve both.
