Open Adoption

The recent movement toward open adoption has taken place in the context of larger social change. Birth parents are now empowered to make choices - there are fewer stigmas in raising children alone and greater access to abortion and birth control. Also, the societal movement toward less secrecy and greater diversity has allowed for large-scale acceptance of open adoption.

A reflection of societal standards of the time, laws were passed in the late 1940s mandating adoptions to be closed. As a result, most baby boomers have grown to believe closed adoption to be the most ethical method of raising an adopted child, despite the lack of favorable research. The 1960s and 1970s ushered in a backlash against such rigid, unfounded standards. Finally, 10 years later, longitudinal research indicated the benefit of open adoption. At the same time, closed adoption adoptees began to speak out against their experiences, citing the emotional pain endured from not having the opportunity to seek out their birth parents.

Open adoptions allow adoptive parents, and often the adopted child, to interact directly with birth parents. Falling at one end of the openness communication continuum, open adoption allows family members to interact in ways that feel most comfortable. In semi-open (mediated) adoptions, information is relayed through a mediator such as an agency caseworker or attorney, rather than via direct contact between the birth and adoptive families. In confidential adoptions, no identifying information is exchanged.

In open adoptions, communication may include letters, e-mails, telephone calls or visits. The frequency of contact ranges from every few years to several times a month or even more, depending on the needs and wishes of all involved. The goals of open adoption are:

• To minimize the child's loss of relationships.
• To maintain and celebrate the adopted child's connections with all the important people in his or her life.
• To allow children to resolve losses with truth, rather than with fantasy.

Many fears regarding open adoption are based on myths.

• Parties in open (fully disclosed) adoptions are NOT confused about their parenting rights and responsibilities.
• Birth mothers do NOT attempt to "reclaim" their children.
• Children in open (fully disclosed) adoptions are NOT confused about who their parents are. They do understand the different roles of adoptive and birth parents in their lives.
• Differences in adolescent adoptive identity or degree of preoccupation with adoption are NOT related to the level of openness in the adoption.
• Adoptive openness does NOT appear to influence an adoptee's self-esteem in any negative way.
• Adoptive parents in open adoptions do NOT feel less in control and, indeed, have a greater sense of permanence in their relationship with their child.
• Open adoption does NOT interfere with adoptive parents' sense of entitlement or sense that they have the right to parent their adopted child.
• Birth mothers in open and ongoing mediated adoptions do NOT have more problems with grief resolution; indeed, they show better grief resolution than those in closed adoptions. Researchers did find that birth mothers in time-limited mediated adoptions (where contact stopped) had more difficulty resolving grief at the first interview of the study (when the children were between 4 and 12 years old).

Adoption should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a discrete event. Open adoption is based on relationships and, like all relationships, grows and changes over time. As birth and adoptive families grow and change, the need for communication changes, as well. For example, older adopted children may have more questions about their birth family than they had as toddlers. Adoptive and birth parents need to be open to the needs of children as they get older and gain a sense of ownership over the relationship they have with their birth families.

The level of openness should be decided on a case-by-case basis. There is no one level of adoption openness that best fits all families. Each type of adoption has its own benefits and challenges that should be considered for each particular situation.

Factors associated with increased openness:

• The birth and adoptive parents' mutual concern for the child's well-being.
• An emergence of friendship or a personally satisfying relationship between the birth and adoptive parents.
• Regular flow of communication between the birth and adoptive families.

Factors associated with decreased openness:

• Parties living far away from each other.
• Major differences in life situations, interests or values.
• Relatives or friends who discourage contact.
• Change in a birth mother's situation such as marriage or the birth of another child.
• Inability to negotiate a mutually agreed upon comfort zone of contact.
• Adoptive parents feeling that contact is becoming stressful for the child.
• Inability of agency intermediaries to keep up contact to everyone's satisfaction.