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I confess that, as a hopeful adoptive mother, I was intimidated by the thought of having any openness at all in our adoption. I have since come to appreciate the value of openness in adoption. What changed my mind was educating myself about open adoption. This is why I want to spend some time on this topic.
Why do some hopeful adoptive parents fear open adoption in the first place? Here are some of the reasons that I have heard:
- I don’t want to co-parent my child with the birthmother.
- I don’t want to feel like the babysitter. I want to be the parent.
- I am afraid of what the birthmother might do in the future.
- Open adoption is not “normal.”
- I am adopting the child, not the whole birth family.
- I shouldn’t have to “prove” that I am a good parent to anyone.
- My family thinks I am crazy to even consider it.
- Open adoption can get complicated.
- It’s a lot harder to close an adoption than to open one.
- The birthmother might not respect my boundaries.
Before I launch into this discussion, I want to make two disclaimers about this Top Ten series:
(1) These discussions are not talking solely about fully open adoptions with visitation. Openness in adoption occurs on a broad continuum. For this series, I am considering anything that is not fully closed to fall under the category of “open adoption.” I, myself, have a semi-open adoption with my son’s birthmother. I am not trying to talk anyone into a fully open adoption. I just want to encourage hopeful adoptive parents to open their minds to the possibilities without immediately shutting the door to any openness.
(2) When I am talking about open and semi-open adoption, the context is with a birthmother who lovingly places her baby for adoption. I am in no way saying that open or semi-open adoptions are best for children who have been removed from abusive households.
1. I don’t want to co-parent my child with the birthmother.
Some people fear that if the adoption is open, they will be co-parenting their child along with the birthmother. This is simply not the case. The adoptive parents are the ones who make the parenting decisions, and the birthmother has chosen the adoptive parents to hold this job. If the birthmother was seeking to parent the child, she could have done so without involving adoptive parents in the first place.
Setting boundaries is important in any relationship, and an open adoption is no exception. The adoptive parents and birthparents need to communicate with each other about the roles that each will hold in the child’s life.
Not all open adoptions even involve visitation. I know two birthmothers in open adoptions who do not visit with their birthchildren at all. They just wanted to know that they could contact the child if they needed to. Just having that knowledge was enough.
