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After the two part article hit the LA Times yesterday, they hosted an afternoon chat on the article and topics at hand. A pleasant and welcome surprise was the presence of the birth mother (Patti), the adoptive mother (Dorrie) and the adoptee herself (Kendall), all willing to answer questions from those who made it into the chat room. Originally I was under the assumption that we would just be discussing things with the journalist and each other so their presence was an added bonus and a learning experience for all involved.
As the chat was moderated, not everyone got to ask their questions. However, I, along with some others, got to ask some pertinent questions. The questions ranged from asking advice on personal situations in others’ open adoptions to really wanting clarification on what the article meant. It is the clarification questions that shed further light onto this difficult story, answering the questions of not only myself but some of my own commenters.
The assumptions of some readers around the blogosphere yesterday are, bluntly, way off. I wanted to get to the meat of the subject, so I asked a hard question.
Dorrie; What would you say to someone who said that your story is an example of why open adoption is confusing and detrimental to the adopted child, a reason as to why contact shouldn’t be held with the birth family? Obviously, there may have been things you would have done differently in retrospect but if you could go back and erase all contact, would you? Do you think that would be of a benefit to you, Kendall?
I told you: right at the meat of yesterday’s misunderstandings. The answers from Dorrie and Kendall cleared it right up. Dorrie stated:
It was painful at times, but Kendall gained much more than she lost. I wish that Patti would have told me what concerned her about my parenting and we could have talked it out. Then I think it would have gone much more smoothly.
As I said yesterday, there were obvious (and, to the outside eye, glaring) communication problems throughout the years of this open adoption. Dorrie (and later, Patti) acknowledged this issue, stating that if things could have been worked on, certain issues could have been avoided. For those still trying to say, “but the adoptee! She was so screwed over in all of this! Think about the children,” her own answer to my question continues to clear up how she feels about her own adoption.
No I wouldn’t erase contact. With open adoption, there was never a question of where I came from.
In fact, this question was posed to all three women in various forms, over and over again in the chat. Each time, they answered with a similar variation in theme: they wouldn’t change the openness. Kendall (the adoptee) hit on the theme, over and over again, that she wouldn’t have changed the contact and that, in her opinion, “open adoption is the way to go.”
In a similar question, hinting to what could or should have been differently, one person asks what they would have done differently. The answers from all three women hint at how things are viewed the same and differently by all members of the triad while hitting on a big topic that I fight for on a regular basis. The question:
Hi Doretha, Patti and Kendall, thank you so much for sharing yuor Open Adoption story with the world. As an adoptee and a first mother in Open Adoption, I wonder if you could share with us what this journey has taught you and what you might do different now, with the benifit of hind sight?
Dorrie answers:
I think that our adoption would have been much easier if Patti and I were able to communicate better. Then Patti would not have had to leave in a way that made Kendall feel relinquished again. A counselor could have helped us more.
A counselor could have helped them more? Anyone else want to shout, “DUH!” (Not at them but at the adoption world in general!) As I said yesterday, the resources for open adoption parents are limited. The very few books that are available on the topic often disagree on key elements like amount of contact and appropriate boundaries. (Which falls in line with any other parenting book; they all contradict one another!) As these parents were going through these issues, there were basically no resources. They were flubbing their way through, just like the rest of the parents on the planet, and made both good and not-so-good decisions. While even today’s therapists have limited knowledge on what is the best in an open adoption relationship, I think any form of counseling might have helped these parents make better decisions along their bumpy road.
Patti continues:
I agree with Dorrie, communication is definitely the key.
And then we hear from the adoptee herself, Kendall, who must want to have done something (or everything!) differently because of the turmoil in her life, right?
I wouldn’t do anything different now. My life was normal for me. It’s just the way life was. I would have always wanted to do an open adoption.
Her answer may surprise some. It doesn’t surprise me. Looking at my own life, I know that every struggle that I went through (and there were many within my own family unit) brought me to where I am today. Without each of those struggles and inner or outer turmoils, I wouldn’t be who I am today… and neither would my children. Someone who is able to look at their past with this amount of clarity and recognize the past for what it is (the past) makes me wonder if some of the hardship that Kendall endured didn’t shape her into the strong woman she is today. She deserves a pat on the back for realizing certain things long before many other adults are able to realize (and admit!) such things.
The chat was an amazing experience to learn more about this family, in their own specific words, with questions that weren’t sanitized for the media. Every time someone asked Dorrie if she would have rather avoided all of the hardship caused by the relationship and just had a closed adoption, she answered with a firm, “no” and explained a bit more as each question warranted. While their story isn’t a guide for how to “do” an open adoption, it could show others the absolute importance of communication, which they only further indicated by their responses in chat yesterday. Their addition of the realization that counseling could have provided them with some better support or more options is also sound advice to those experiencing communication problems within the relationship. While not a fix-all, counseling can certainly help each party see things in a different light.
This story could have had a much different, much more dramatic or sad ending. Instead, we have a family who made it through the muck and the mire of the worst-case-scenario adoption goo and, in their own opinions, is better for having toughed it out. An honest story on open adoption, with positives and negatives, is rarely told in any of today’s media outlets. I think this is a step in the right direction as far as reporting goes.
Furthermore, I would personally like to thank Dorrie, Patti and Kendall for participating with the entire interview process (nearly 200 hours of interviews!) and the journalist, Sonia Nazario, for tackling such a hard topic in such a thorough manner. If there was an adoption article award to be given for such journalistic integrity on the topic, I’d be personally handing it over. Instead: kudos!
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For more, read:
1. Article Touches on the Realities of Open Adoption.
2. How Birth Parents Can Properly Communicate the Hard Stuff.
3. New Support Venue for Open Adoption Families.
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