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Closed adoptions are my area of expertise; I know a great deal about them. Open adoptions are less familiar to me. However, I have made it my business to learn a better way than closed adoptions. I am painfully aware of the tremendous damage that many adoptees and birth parents alike have sufferred due to closed adoptions.
From my perspective, there is little positive to recommend about closed adoptions. The whole concept of not offering a choice as was the practice in my time was barbaric and cruel. I believe in my heart that closed adoptions are inherently a flawed idea doomed to wreak havoc in the lives of many. Sometimes they are necessary, but I believe that people should consider open adoptions when possible. However, open adoptions are no panacea either and should never be presented as anything like co-parenting or pain-free.
With a sensitive birth mother’s ear, I often hear a plethora of reasons why open adoptions are a bad idea, why they do not work and/or why they are not good for children. No doubt open adoptions are challenging, but that is not a sufficient reason not to have one. As I listen to all the reasons people complain about open adoptions, the same thought keeps crossing my mind; that all the reasons people complain about open adoption are just excuses. Some adoptive parents have a million reasons why they think open adoptions are not best for children, but few of those reasons make much sense – to me at least.
Here are a few of those fears:
1. Open adoption is confusing for children.
2. Adoptive families cannot bond and be a strong unit if the birth family is still in the picture.
3. They do not want to share their child.
4. If the birth family knows where the adoptive parents are, they may come and steal the child.
5. A child in an open adoption will be hurt if the birth parents walks away.
6. Sharing the responsibilities for a child or co-parenting through an open adoption is too difficult.
The most honest and real objection is not wanting to hassle of having to deal with birth parents, and not wanting to share. Honestly, I think the real reasons for not choosing open adoptions are likely hard for people to acknowledge. That accounts for the many “excuses” that really may not be the real reasons.
Open adoptions probably will not work well unless everyone involved is committed to making them work. Therefore, no one should make that choice lightly. However, I hope that more people will continue to educate themselves about open adoptions and choose them due to the possible benefits for children.
Further Reading:
I am a real mom and so are you.
Love Thursday – Forming Your Own Relations
Photo by Jan Baker 2007
“4. If the birth family knows where the adoptive parents are, they may come and steal the child.”
Ironically, a birth mother is LESS likely to have a “need” to “steal a child” if the child is still in her life. Know what I mean? I think we can thank the “movie of the week” for putting this fear into some adoptive parents’ heads.
Unfortunately, there are many people in society who have this fear. I have been asked numerous times (mostly when my son was little) if I feared his birth mother coming and “taking him back.” I told these people that she CHOSE us to parent this child and that it was a loving decision toward her child. We did not “take” him, setting up a reason for her to “take him back.”
You left off another reason that some adoptive parents resist open adoption — they want to be a “normal” family, and “normal” families do not have a birth mother in the picture. Many adoptive parents who cite this reason have not yet grieved their infertility losses.
I know that our family is different because our son joined it through adoption. It is not “better” or “worse,” just different. Whether or not my son’s birth mother is a presence in his day-to-day life, she is still a part of his life. There are still differences. Removing her from the equation does not change this.
Good post!!
- Faith
Jan, thank you for pointing out that whatever choice is made is likely to work only if everyone is committed to that choice. The idea that you need to do it a certain way because only weak poeple would choose anything else is just setting families up for failure. We are all human and need to stay within what we can live with.
You refer to ‘open adoption’, but that is really a range of choices. In the past you have seemed to find anything less than frequent visiation as unacceptable, do you have any flexability about that?
The items you listed and dismissed are not all baloney Jan. 1 and 5 are true, you may not want them to be a good enough reason to avoid frequent visiaattion, but those items are real.
Number 2 is paritally correct. Bonding is going to be considerably slowed if the child has no need to bond with the adoptive family.
Jan, for pete sakes, stop assigning evil and mean motives to any adoptive family that doesn’t choose the version of adoption you want them to choose. Not wanting to deal with birth parents, or share the child are NOT the only reasons for not making the choice you want. John
You’re right, Faith, “normal” is almost a fantasy state IMHO. My family is not normal because one of my children grew up elsewhere. I think the need for “normal” families is highly overrated.
John, I do not believe that adoptive families bond less with a child if birth parents are in the picture.
As for assigning evil motives, I never said or meant that. Nor do I expect every adoptive family to assign as much importance to ethics as I might. Many factors enter into any adoption decision – I do know that.
Plus ,I never said that not wanting to share the children, etc. were the only reasons, but popular ones often disguised as something else.
Personally I take a offense at the suggestion that any reasons or issues with open adoption are merely excuses from adoptive parents. I AM involved in(a few of them)and I disagree.
If you (as you admit) have limited experience with open adoption then how can you make such a sweeping judgement?
So adoptive parents are frequently not ethical? Jan the reason families might not make the choice you want may be a genuine judgement call that parents have to make all the time. There is no one right way to parent. It is a cheap debating trick to say that anyone who doesn’t agree with you must surely be unethical.
The bonding problem is not with placement at birth, but children who first bonded with the birth mom. No reason for the child to re-attach if mom is still regularly in the picture. This can be very difficult even if mom is not in the picture, but worse if the family can not have a period to bond before contact resumes with the birth mom. John
Deb, in this article I am discussing reasons why some people do not choose open adoptions. I am not saying that there are no valid and real issues inherent in open adoptions. I admire people who have open adoptions and am wholeheartedly in favor of them. I say that often.
Sweeping judgments – opinions – people make them all the time, and are entitled to so so. I said I have limited personal experience with open adoption. That does not mean that I know nothing about them. I know quite a bit.
John, I disagree that there are NO right ways to parent. Even allowing room for some variances, there are still some absolutes.
Again, John, I never said, nor meant to imply, that anyone who does not agree with me is unethical. Adoption is complex – there are few absolutes – I know that well.
“Nor do I expect every adoptive family to assign as much importance to ethics as I might.”
I think that this is the statement that sounds like you are saying adoptive parents don’t think ethics are as important as you do. I totally understand if that’s not what you meant, I say stuff in the wrong way lots of times. But, I admit, it hit me the wrong way too when I first read it….
Jan, as the custodial parent of my adopted child, I am responsible for his welfare. As his adoption is international, contact with his birthmom is unfortunately not an option. We do, however, have contact with his fostermom, who is a wonderful woman. I really appreciate and love this woman for all she has done for ds. She provided for him in a truly selfless and generous way. Ds will benefit from her care in 1000 different and important ways. She can have anything of mine or from me that I have to give.
Having said that, if there was ANY chance that she would attempt to co-parent or if her lifestyle was, in my opinion, harmful for ds to be exposed to, I would cut contact in a heartbeat. Because DH and I are the ones RESPONSIBLE for his welfare. Even if it hurt me very much (and it would), dh comes first, not bmom.
I’m curious as to why you would find this unethical…….
oops, meant “ds comes first, not fmom or bmom”. sorry for the confusion!
so blessed – Honestly, I think some adoptive parents value ethics as much as I do. Unfortunately, I do think some care more about getting a child faster, easier and with less hassle. Not saying that I do not understand that.
Ethics in adoption has been ignored for so long that many people do not even understand what is ethical and what is not – that includes birth and adoptive parents.
Protecting a child from harm is something that I totally understand, and I do know that is a parent’s responsibility.
thanks for clearing that up, Jan
“so blessed – Honestly, I think some adoptive parents value ethics as much as I do. Unfortunately, I do think some care more about getting a child faster, easier and with less hassle. Not saying that I do not understand that.”
Obviously, I can’t speak for other parents. I can only speak for myself. We went with an agency that we felt comfortable was honest and ethical. Along the way, we ran into lawyers and facilitators in ds’s country of birth that were far less honest and far less ethical. Among the adoptive parents I know, I know many who suffered to keep their adoptions ethical. I know of none who chose the fast, easy, less hassle way.
I think I feel kind of the inverse of what you seem to be saying. I feel that there IS negative in adoption, but my experience has been that there is just as much good than there is bad. Again, there IS bad and it needs to be both stopped immediately and also prevented from recurring. But I really don’t think the majority of adoptive parents are trying to find a way to scam themselves a baby.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.