Granted, I haven't read the book just yet though I'm ordering it as I type. Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties through Open Adoption by Micky Duxbury sounds like something that should be handed out to all parties agreeing to any level of openness. I have seen the book before during my searches on the topic of open adoption but a recent article on DailyRecord caught my eye.

I was pleased with what I read.

The author, an adoptive mom and family therapist, is obviously a supporter of open adoption. She explains that she met her daughter's birth parents prior to relinquishment. They then began to have visits about once a year. To explain the reasoning behind her decision to continue contact and promote the benefits, Duxbury gives a fabulous quote.

It's about openness, where birth parents and adoptive parents stay in touch and build relationships for the benefit of the child.

She goes on, hinting around the reasons why open adoption is superior to the closed adoptions of our past and present.

Essentially, it makes an argument that it's a really big challenge for adopted children to go through life without knowing who they are or where they come from, and who created them.

I cannot begin to articulate how it makes me feel to hear these words coming from a mother who is not only an adoptive mother but a family therapist. Open adoption dissenters often state how contact would be too confusing for their child. Now we are presented with someone whose profession involves working with children on that psychological level and she's saying, basically, that's not the case.

She does go on, as you can read in the article, to explain that openness is not equal to co-parenting. I think that is such an important point for someone to state in an article, simply because many readers will be untouched by adoption and could honestly be confused as to what openness entails. She does, in a quote, state that birth parents aren't "crucial," which is something that I would debate for some adoptions and some children. I would also argue that once the child becomes an adult, they are thus the decision makers concerning who is crucial and who is not so to label birth parents, prematurely, as not crucial could backfire in the end.

For those who are jumping at the bit to say, "But my kid's Mom is a druggie! We can't have contact," the author addresses those situations as well, stating that there are some cases where openness is not warranted. Obviously, as parents, we are to make the best decisions we can for our child.

To close the interview and really drive home that I should pick up the book for full review, Duxbury offers this quote that I may have to start touting to people when they tell me that birth parents are not important to their children.

"Adoptions really are supposed to be about helping children," she said. "If we're really into helping children, then it's really good to stay in some connection with birth family members."

I'll most likely review this book in August since I'm mostly finished with the book I'm reading for this month! I have high hopes, based off of the article. I hope I am not disappointed!

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For other books on adoption issues, read:

1. Book Review: Second Chance Mom.

2. Book Review: The Mistress's Daughter.

3. Book Review: Somebody's Daughter.

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Article Reference. Buy the book in our adoption store: here. Photo Credit.