I believe in open adoption. Because I am selfish.

About two years ago I spoke to a class of future foster parents about our fostering and adoption journey. At the end the class members were told they could ask questions. There were a couple of the usual questions and then one guy said, “My wife and I are considering adoption either through foster care or just domestic infant adoption. We weren’t planning on telling the child we adopted them because we thought that might be confusing. Are you saying you think it’s always a good thing to tell kids they’re adopted?” I was flabbergasted. We believe so strongly in open adoption that the idea of not telling our kids the basic fact that they were adopted never occurred to me. Of course, having multiple transracially adopted kids and having older kids who know exactly how the younger kids came into the family makes hiding this stuff pretty impossible anyway. But in case there’s anyone else left out there who doesn’t quite understand the “why” of open adoption, I’ll give you my take on it. And it’s purely selfish.

I think that’s one element that’s hard for people to understand. The assumption is that we invest in an open adoption relationship because we are selfLESS. We are somehow better people because we are willing to “share” our child and open ourselves up to a potentially complicated birthparent or birth family relationship. But that is really not how I see it.

Before I get too far into the benefits of open adoption, let me explain what exactly I mean. There are different levels of openness that can exist in an adoptive relationship. At a bare minimum an open adoption would mean adoptive parents have some level of communication with the biological family, even if that is mediated through an agency or lawyer (no exchange of addresses or last names). At the other extreme you have families where adoptive parents and biological parents get together regularly to celebrate holidays and are fully incorporated into each other’s lives. We have chosen a middle ground that involves communication via email, cards and pictures and an occasional visit depending on the safety of a situation. We have three adopted children and one foster child and no two relationships look the same, even between a biological mother and biological father of the same child. We have to evaluate each situation based on the best interests of everyone involved. We also have multiple biological siblings involved in the lives of our kids, so we also keep in touch with each of their families along with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as much as it is safe and they desire contact. Whew! Keeping up with that many people for each child can feel like a part time job (and there are definitely seasons where I’m not able to do as much as I want to or feel like I “should”), but we feel it is important.

When you adopt from the world of foster care, there are options presented to you regarding contact. Some people have a formal contact agreement. There may be a reason why a biological parent is encouraged to ask for a contact agreement or prevented from asking for a contact agreement. These agreements can be changed by the adoptive parents if they feel they are no longer appropriate. In our adoption situations we have not had a parent ask for a contact agreement. We have no legal obligation to have relationships with them, but we have pursued them anyway. There are two main reasons why we selfishly prefer to have an open adoption relationship.

Honesty

I am a big proponent of being age appropriately honest with your children. I believe this when it comes to talking about sex or drugs or finances and especially when it comes to the origins of your kids. When we are honest with our kids, it builds trust. If we were to hide the realities of their adoptions, it would require a multitude of lies over the years since kids are naturally going to ask questions. If I choose to lie to them (either with actual lies or by just avoiding telling them the truth) this damages our relationship. While my hope may be to protect our relationship from the influence of a competing parental figure, what I’ve actually done is push them TOWARDS that other parental figure by communicating that I am not a trustworthy person. And while I may feel that withholding the truth is protecting them, they may not see it that way. I want my kids to know I will always be honest with them even when the truth is difficult. By having a relationship with their biological parents, they know I am not hiding anything from them about their origins.

Answers

There are questions my children will ask that I can’t answer. Questions about their ethnicity, cultural heritage, their birth story, or the relationship between their biological parents. Maybe my kids won’t care about those things, but if they do, I can’t help them. In the absence of information, they are likely to create a fantasy. This may be an escapist fantasy where everything is idealized and if they had only been allowed to stay with that family, their life would be perfect. This may be a frightening fantasy where they imagine their birth parents were horrible people who are secretly looking to find them and hurt them. Whichever direction they choose to go, I can’t help them deal with reality if I can’t connect them with answers. Some of those answers may be difficult to hear, but I believe if my kids grow up understanding the reality of their situation it will be much less traumatic for them than if they find out these things in their teen or adult years. The truth is we can only “protect” them from those answers until they are old enough to do a google search on their own. Is that how I want my kids to find out about their history? Alone in the public library? Or do I want to guide them through the process of understanding the difficult realities that lead to the need for an adoption plan and point them to the adults who were actually involved in that decision?

I say we are selfish about this, because having honesty and answers for our kids is a huge benefit to us. We don’t ever want our children to feel like they are in a position of having to choose between us or their biology. Having openness and honesty with them strengthens our relationship instead of letting secrecy drive a wedge between us. And when you have a biological family member vocally supporting the child’s placement with you, it helps the child understand you’re all on the same team. We have also found that the concept of adoption and its benefits are much easier for a child to grasp when they understand the “whys” specific to their situation.

“Sharing” your child isn’t without complications. And we don’t know what the end of the story will be like for our kids— what kind of a relationship they will choose to have with their birthparents and what their birthparents will want in response. We can’t control the outcome, we are only responsible to do the right thing as their parents, and we believe giving them access to answers and being honest with them ourselves is the best gift we can give them.