As we look at Chapter Three of Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption, the title of the chapter captures the interest of those who have been pegged or want to peg birth parents as the evil-doers in the adoption world. "Pathways to Irrelevance: Birthparents as Sinners, Saints and Suppliers" really jumps off the page at readers, pushing them to dive into the chapter with intrigue.

Gritter starts off the chapter by talking about the irrelevance that too many birth parents have or feel in their open adoptions. While he states that some disappear of their own accord and others are caught off guard by how little they matter in the grand scheme of an adoption, he questions why birth parents aren't made to feel more relevant to the well-being of their child. His main reasoning, which he dissects in further detail throughout the chapter is that birth parents are set apart, made to feel different. What's the problem with that? He answers his own question, of course.

Once a group is considered unusual in some significant regard, emotional distance is created, and a "we-they" dynamic finds life. It is, unhappily, a small step from "different than" to "less than," and from "less than" to a fearful "watch out for."

Gritter then jumps into the three main ways that birth parents are set apart and viewed as "different than" the other members of the triad. He first hits upon one of the widely accepted stereotypes: the birth parent as the sinner. While chapter one talked about the birth mother as a fallen woman, this chapter goes into further detail as to why being labeled as a sinner gives birth parents an unfair advantage in their own adoptions (and society in general). It boils down to the fact that since the birth parent has sinned once (unwed pregnancy, placing a child, etc) the person is no longer allowed to claim respectful treatment. In a story during this piece of the chapter, Gritter recounts a woman explaining that the birth mother lost "all her rights that night she laid on her back and spread her legs."

Critics of the open adoption format use the birth parent as a sinner to create the many reasons as to why openness is a bad, bad idea. They want to claim that giving these evil people a little bit of mercy (by the way of contact) will only reinforce their "bad habits." Gritter argues that this mindset is just a way of treating birth parents as second-class citizens. They are not all sinners and nor should they be labeled, wide-spread, as such. It does no one any good, including in individual relationships.

The next way that birth parents can become irrelevant is when they are viewed wholly as saints and nothing more. Confused? I just explained how viewing birth parents as sinners doesn't hit the nail on the head so why am I now complaining about being viewed as something good and pure, a saint, for pity's sake. Beyond being another way of setting birth parents apart (and thus making them different and, thus, less than), the saint stereotype really ends up hurting how the birth parent is able to function in an open relationship. As Gritter says, the "better than image is more appealing than the less than slant," but it creates another, deeper problem.

Casting birthparents as saints creates an expectation that they will be continuously and indiscriminately selfless.

To paraphrase, the birth parent was selfless once so they will be easy to deal with and selfless in all of the other issues that may arise in an open adoption. Anyone else giggling because, frankly, that's simply not the case? Me too!

Gritter argues that part of this saintly confusion lies with the misunderstanding of the sacrifice that birth parents make when placing a child for adoption. The adoptive parents are not the intended beneficiaries of the sacrifice. Yes, the reap the rewards of parenting the child but expecting the birth parent to always sacrifice their wants and needs to please the adoptive parents is off base.

Plainly stated, the intended beneficiary of her sacrifice is her child, not anyone else. Yes, she will surely make reasonable concessions to the others involved as the adoption moves forward, but these normal reciprocal accommodations that people make in effective relationships rarely reach the level of significant sacrifice.

He goes on to talk about how the misunderstanding takes place and it goes back to not really grasping, because of how advantageous our lives are in today's world, what the sacrifice entails. Society's mind can't grasp around the thought of losing everything, which is what the placement of a child is akin to: losing it all.

Gritter then talks about birth parents as suppliers and how this view does the entire triad a huge disservice. This atrocity comes about when adoption is viewed only as a business transaction. Adoptive parents become the consumers, children become the product and thus the birth parents are relegated to the role of supplier. Words like incubator are used to remove all emotional connection between the mother and child. The business approach hopes to remove the "messy inefficiency of building relationships," which are vital to open adoption.

While the views of birth parents as sinners and saints are surely not desired, the birth parent as a supplier is the worst of the three views. As Gritter states, sinners and saints are types of people; viewing a birth parent as a supplier removes that human element so that people don't have to focus on the emotions and humanness of the person they are dealing with in the adoption.

Gritter concludes the chapter by stating why each view is vitally wrong. The view of the birth parent as the sinner wants people to believe that they, as morally flawed people, do not deserve a place in their child's life. The view of the birth parent as a saint leaves the biological parents as "doormats" without a say in how the relationship should carry on or forward. The view of the birth parent as a supplier dehumanizes the person in question and wants people to believe that they are "only momentarily useful." And while today's system is trying to work against some of these views, having made changes from the closed adoption system and progress with openness, Gritter warns that there are still problems.

It's not that birthparents are actively excluded; they are not actively included. It isn't that they are thought of as the enemy, they are simply not considered important.

And that's the rub. Until birth parents are viewed as equals in the relationship, we're going to continue to see uninvolved first families for any grouping of various reasons. Gritter strives to get readers to understand that not only are birth parents important but they have a lot to offer the triad in terms of learning.

Tomorrow we'll look at Chapter Four which looks at why birth parents are perceived as dysfunctional people and what families can do when dealing with birth families that are dysfunctional.

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For more on Lifegivers, read:

1. Beginning a Chapter Review of Lifegivers.

2. Lifegivers: Chapter One.

3. Lifegivers: Chapter Two.

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Photo Credit: Book cover.