Despite statistics that sometimes indicate that adoptive parents divorce less that other parents, there are many adopted children whose parents ultimately divorce. Many birth mothers that I know found at reunion that their child's adoptive parents were divorced, as my son's were.

Although blogger Sandra suggests in this post that adopted children do not have any more adverse affects from an adoption that a biological child, I wonder if that is really the case.

I would try to find some studies or research how divorce affects adoptees. Oops, I forgot, there probably are none! In fact, although there are some studies that address the affects of adoption on adoptees, there are not nearly as many as there probably should be. Why do you suppose that is the case?

Although I would imagine that adoptees are able to recover from divorce as biological children do, from all that I know about adoption, I imagine that divorce could hit adoptees harder than biological children. In fact in Lifelong Issues in Adoption, they state:

"Any subsequent loss, or the perceived threat of separation, becomes more formidable for adoptees than their non-adopted peers."

Pregnant women that are considering adoption often mention the fact that they want a two-parent family for their child. When they come across a picture perfect family with an adoptive mother and adoptive father, they may believe that having this couple adopt their baby will insure that requisite two parent family. Pregnant women considering adoption may need to be reminded that adoptive parents divorce just as biological ones do.

Many mothers from the closed adoption era did in fact relinquish, all or in part, because they believed that their child "deserved" a two parent family. Imagine their shock at reunion when they discover that in fact that those ideal adoptive parents eventually divorced. Some adoptive parents divorced shortly after an adoption was completed.

This informative article offers several scenarios that arise regarding adoption and divorce. It explains the legalities of an adoptive parent's responsibility to birth parents regarding divorce. Once an adoption is complete, the adoptive parents are not obliged to inform a birth parent, however, it can be different if a divorce occurs before an adoption is final.

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