If a caseworker suggests that a child's adoption will be open, semi-open or closed, what does that mean? Most times, it will be required in an open or semi-open adoption that the child maintains contact with a specified member of the birthfamily. The guidelines for contact are varied and will be determined on a case by case basis (ex. sending letters/email or having face to face contact). If a 3rd party is required to monitor this approved birth family contact, it's called a semi-open adoption. Those who support openness in adoption believe that this continuity of relationships will minimize the child's losses. A closed adoption requires absolute confidentiality and most often the adoption records are sealed. Those who advocate for closed adoption state that not only are the on-going birth family relationships not in the child's best interests but access to the child's own adoption history should be limited or denied entirely.
Have you had an experience with an open, semi-open, or closed adoption?
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Wednesday, February 6, 2008
open, semi-open, and closed adoption
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10 comments:
Closed adoption is not good.
My son suffered as a result.
His adoptive parents had bio children of their own. Their bio children were gifted Ph'd's. My son could not compete with them on that level. He was always being put down for not being as bright as them.
Worse, he had no one he could take to about this.
I managed to find my son.
When I asked him as to why he did not look for me, he said that he was afraid that I would be as disappointed as his adoptive parents were with him.
He self esteem had been so badly battered that he had dropped out of school, drank heavily and had gotten himself into some serious debt, thanks to the undermining of his very being by his adopters.
I can barely forgive them.
My son is very pleasd that we are reunited now. I have encouraged to go back to school - I am pleased to say that he has now started college and is looking forward to a career as a nursing practioner.
I helped him to budget his money - he has now paid off all of his debts with his own money. He drinks very little now as he is very busy with his studies.
I told him how proud I am of him.
Do you know what he said?
That it was the FIRST time anyone (including his adopters) had ever said that to him!
My son said he wished that I had been in his life - if someone had been there for him to let him know that it was OK not to be a Phd, he may not have had the problems he ended up with and being told that he "must have faulty genes, its your bio mothers fault".
His adopters have no idea just how much that hurt him.
Closed adoption is cruel - it certainly did not benefit my son.
Neither of us wanted it - it was forced on mothers years ago against their wishes.
One should also bear in mind that most open adoptions are not legally binding and that the adopters can close it at anytime.
Many a mother has been misled about that, I can tell you.
I wonder if you will really print this as it is not the fairy tale people are constantly being misled into.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am glad that you have established this positive relationship with your son. Will you share the story of your reunion with him?
I have adopted a sibling group who were my foster children before adoption. During visits with the birth mother before these children were available for adoption she and I formed a relationship. Since we have adopted the children she writes letters to them and I take them to visit her and her father and grandmother several times a year. The children enjoy these visits and their biological mother, grandfather, and great grandmother are respectful of me and my relationship with the children. It has worked splendidly for us. I have also adopted another sibling group and it is not safe for them to maintain contact with their biological family. The birth mother to my other sibling group actually has started writing friendly notes to these children when she sends friendly notes to my children who are her biological children. I am very grateful that all of us have been able to do what is in the best interest of the children.
We have an open adoption with our adopted 3 year old daughter. Her birth parents have mental illness and are very poor. We have an excellent relationship. They know the bonderies and have done wonderful with thier daughter. They spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with us. We send photos to the bio grandparents. We don't have open adoptions with our other 5 children. Their parents were not involved. Every case is different.
So far it has been a positive experience.
I agree that it depends on the situation. One son of ours has no contact with his birthmother, our youngest we have regular visits with his birthmom and we try to help her out with another child she has had since then. I could never feel good about cutting these people out of their lives, they are a big part of them being here. I feel comfortable enough that we are the parents legally.
We hope for a semi-open adoption with family members who are appropriate - this is the key word.
Many children involved in adoption vis foster care are not able to continue a healthy relationship with their biological family.
Simply out of safety.
I do feel that with the system progressing that it will become an adapted postive attitude for many families to secure some type of contact. In a semi-open adoption the exchange of photo's or a letter can be helpful to the adoptee and the birth mother as they change and hopefully mature and become members of society.
We want solutions not hurt people carrying a torch of loss forever!Have you ever met an angry adoptee?
These secret's and hardships can cause such pain in one's life.
Where someone is from ... is simply something that should not and can not be taken away from a person.
Just because the birth parents failed at parenting does not make them unable to receive word via a letter or photo - that their child is OK. As humans we all want to be able to fail and become successful at something.... to be accepted for who we are.
Throughout life we are capable of clarifying who we are - perhaps it takes many, many chances to reach some type of success...or perhaps they may never see the light.
Recovery is essential to those who have real life losses... Can we not think of being compassionate at all ends of the adoption triad/spectrum?
When considering your adoption - look into compassionate ways to handle these important questions.... your adopted child will want to know, as they should know.
Sam's Mom - When we adopted my son the agency wanted to do a completely open adoption. We felt very uncomfortable with this as he lived with us from the start and didn't have a relationship at that time with either bio parents. There was behavior on the part of both parents that I wouldn't expose any child to. It seemed that all openess was being pushed as the best for everyone. In this case I think it was not looking at the best interest of child. We got a laywer who set it up for some openess unless they didn't follow through and now it is just left that they could send him something but there is not expectation. My son wants to meet his bio Dad but not his bio Mom. and we have told him we will help him when he gets older. The bio Dad was willing to have contact if he is clean. I hope that will work out for him.
What I saw happening is that very open adoptions were the rule and it was a set up for the families and children.
Many families don't have the skills to say no you have to leave because your high, drunk or saying or doing inapropriate things.
If I left my child with someone that is like his bio mother you would say I was putting him in danger by not protecting him.
I think each situation needs to be looked at individually.
Another family I know that has two adopted children where having visits with a convicted sex offender without knowing in an open adoption.That has stopped now and mostly they have a relationship with the grandparents.
I also think it makes more of a difference if the chldren are older and already have a relationship with the parents. Even then if they are too dangerous for the children to be around, not taking violent thats easy. Things like verbal, exposure to substance abuse inappropriate behavior which is confusing to the child.
I think that is terrible that the adoptive parents that had PhD. treated there son with such disappointment.
I think semi-open with letters pictures and more in certain situations.
I guess it seems that the pendulum has swung way over to the fully open situation which I don't think is the best for the child all the time just like no information ever is not best either.
Put yourself in the shoes of a child who has been removed from the only family they knew and is expected to fit into a new family. How would your heart feel if you were told you could never see your sisters or brothers again? This is what frequently happens to kids adopted from foster care. I believe that if there is any possible way, children should be allowed safe (with an emphasis on SAFE) contact with members of their birth family if they wish to. It is important to hang on the healthy portions of emotional bonds a child has. I do feel that it should be the needs of the child that come first, not the desire of the birth family.
I have adopted 2 daughters from the foster care system who had both spent time in residential centers. Since they were both older when they came to live with me, I have tried to keep every safe avenue open for contact with their birth families. My oldest daughter has 2 younger siblings who still reside with their birth mom. When she came to live with me, her grieving for her sisters whom she had not seen in 2 years was a constant pain in her heart. We now send cards and letters. I review both sides of this contact before giving to my daughter or sending letters she writes. Also, they are mailed through a social worker to keep our address private. We also have supervised visits in a safe environment when it can be arranged. Now that they have moved back to the state we live in, we visit about every 2 months. My daughter usually visits her sisters, but in the past year has decided to visit with birthmom also.
My younger daughter has monthly visits with her older brother who lives in residential care. He usually spends a weekend with us. Just recently, we have begun some written contact with a birth aunt and uncle, but are taking it slow.
What topics would you like to discuss on this blog? Let me know!
We fostered our daughter for two years before her mother voluntarily relinquished her rights. We had a good relationship with the biological mother from the get-go, and worked just as hard as the rest of the team to reunite this family. The mother was very young, and we even played with the idea of mentoring her and/or letting them both live here. We sincerely care for the mother, but felt we couldn't deal with the drug and gang issues in a household full of small children - it was just too dangerous and she seemed unwilling to change at the time. My daughter is a little older now. She doesn't have much contact with her biological mother, but we have never planned on hiding the fact that she's adopted. (We are already a multi-racial family through adoption, and I think it would be pretty hard to lie about or avoid the subject - "You're Not My Real Mother" by Molly Friedrich is a really GREAT children's book that I LOVE to read to the kiddos! Biological, foster, and adopted - it's relevant!) We feel that it's important for her to know how much she means to us and how hard we had to fight to keep her!
The bio-mom relinquished only after specifically asking us if we would be the ones to adopt. She had safety concerns and bad memories of her own family, and the paternity was uncertain. But because of the laws in our state, we weren't even going to be considered! They wanted to send her to biological family who hadn't even known she existed before the state called them; and by then she was a preschooler who had been with us since she was born! And I certainly didn't sit in a jail cell, hugging the bio-mom and crying as we discussed this painful decision she was making, promising to stay in touch and take the best care possible of our shared daughter just to have her shipped across the country to live with distant cousins... We did everything we had to do, cooperated with the system, but made it quite plain that we were willing to hire a lawyer if it became necessary... In the end the state decided what everyone else had known all along - that she was already a part of our family and should be so legally as well.
In the mean time, her biological mother has finished her rehab, work release program, and gotten her GED. She will possibly be going to a community college, and has been clean for over a year. She filled out our daughter's Life Book for us, the section about the biological family. She was able to provide us with important health information about our daughter's birth, genetic conditions we may have to look for, etc... I write her, send pictures, and we visit occasionally (when she's sober and in neutral locations - not taking Baby Girl to a prison!). She seems to respect our place in Baby Girl's life, our decisions (even when she doesn't agree with them), and also seems sincerely thankful to be allowed to be a part of it all. Our daughter isn't quite old enough to understand the whole situation yet, but she knows her bio-mom by her first name and we hope that she grows knowing that she is a very lucky young lady with TWO families who adore her and will be here for her whenever she needs them...
Honestly, there will probably not ever be an adoption in our family that isn't open or at least semi-open. Simply because we are responsible for visitation, and we take our job to reunify children with their biological families very seriously. So we will have some form of relationship with any family before adoption ever becomes an option in the back of our minds. In some cases, that is a frightening prospect - I've met my share of biological family members who honestly frightened me. (We had one little boy who asked for motion detectors for Christmas because he was afraid his bio-mom would climb through his window at night to get him...) So in some instances, semi-open is definitely better! But I'm not sure I'd ever personally go for a closed adoption - there are too many things we needed to know about our daughter that could have affected her health, her future, her children, her LIFE if we didn't know them! So even from a strictly medical perspective it seems like there needs to be some information exchanged... I would highly recommend the book, "Loved by Choice" by Horner/Martindale to anyone who wants a good read on a related subject (be prepared to cry!). And I would have to say that having added these extended family members has only enriched our lives in ways we never expected! We really appreciate and love our bio-families, and the awesome sacrifice they made for our shared children!
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