e-mail
I’m often asked about our open adoption. People are amazed that our kids are happily in contact with their birth family. I think the surprise comes from several sources:
Children are placed for adoption for a variety of reasons: The underlying assumption many (erroneously) make is that children are placed for adoption because something is “wrong” in the family of origin. People routinely believe that one or both of the birth parents are involved in something unsavory. In fact, the first question I usually hear is, “What’s wrong with the mother?” Or “Why did the mother ‘give them up’?”.
Whereas, it can be true that there are substance abuse or other dysfunction within birth families, there are other reasons birth families seek families to place their children with. In our case, our children’s birth mother loved them so much that she wanted them to have a better quality of life than she was able to provide for them. Additionally, her stated desire was that she wanted her children to have “both a mother and a father” (her words).
Lack of Competition: Sometimes birth and adoptive parents (the women in particular) are “set-up” to be pitted against each other, in an adversarial manner. The prevailing assumption is that parents in an open adoption “co-parent” and that decisions are made jointly together. I don’t know of any open adoptions that work this way (but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any, I just don’t know of any!).
This is my theory, and I hope I don’t offend anyone with this pure conjecture of mine. But, I think the “societal pitting against each other” has to do with a woman’s ability, or lack thereof, to reproduce. Women who are unable to conceive are made to feel inferior by society in general. Please do not misunderstand me to say that birth mothers are making adoptive mothers feel this way – I am not saying that! Other examples of this “societal influence” are thin women versus women who are overweight; women who are pretty versus women who are plain; – and the biggie – women who choose to stay at home versus women who must (or choose to ) work outside of the home. These “competitions” are lose-lose, with our children being the biggest losers.
I think it also has to do with how secure people are with themselves. It takes an incredible amount of confidence in yourself to be part of an open adoption, both as the birth and as the adoptive parent. If I am not secure, I will second guess myself, or doubt and feel intimidated by the other parent. This is also true of divorced parents who are co-parenting (who often have a similar adversarial relationship, and we can understand that context).
What an open adoption really means: An open adoption means that the birth and adoptive families have communication with each other. In our situation, we have phone conversations with birth family, and we send e-mails and lots of pictures. We make and send cards on special occasions like birthdays and holidays. I also document “firsts” like lost teeth, etc., and send pictures of these events.
I think many of these fallacies in how we view open adoptions come from a lack of education on the topic, and from our lack of adoption etiquette. I love how Patricia Irwin Johnston points out this dichotomy:
Though in adoption parent and child are linked by love and by law, the fact that they are not connected by blood has often meant that some people are unwilling to acknowledge their relationship as genuine and permanent. Thus they use qualifiers (”This is Bill’s adopted son”) in situations where they would not dream of doing so in a non-adoptive family (”This is Bill’s birth-control-failure son” or “This is Mary’s caesarean-section daughter.”) They tend not to assign a full and permanent relationship to persons related through adoption (”Do you have any children of your own?” or “Have you ever met your real mother?” or “Are they natural brothers and sisters?”) They assume that adoptive relationships are tentative (”Will the agency take him back now that you know he’s handicapped?” or “What if his real parents want him back?”)
Clearly, we would not have conversations where we would call a child a “birth-control-failure” child, yet we find it acceptable to publicly discuss a child’s adoptive status, parentage, and possible erroneous assumptions (often in front of the child!).
Obviously, there are situations where open adoptions are contraindicated. If a child has been removed from a home where there has been neglect and abuse and where the parent(s) are still involved such activity, adoptive parents may choose a closed adoption for the safety of the children.
Hopefully, this article has helped demystify open adoption. When both parties are fully committed and able to communicate, it can be a richly rewarding experience for all, and our children are doubly blessed.
