Do you ever feel having an open adoption causes you to hold on more cautiously (or perhaps too tightly) to your children in other life situations?

Open adoption causes us to face so much birth/first parent loss head on, and also surrender some of our own feelings of independence because we are not the singular parents of our children. I believe it can lead to our over sheltering of our children. I certainly feel I have experienced this with my own three adopted children at times.

As my children get older, and require more independence and freedom, I find myself becoming more anxious about our separations. I also find myself more worried at times about our connection as a family. Part of this is normal family progression I am sure, but I wonder how much of it is my own anxious hanging onto my children, because open adoption forces us as adoptive parents to surrender so much of that early, singular control.

This does not mean that I view openness as co-parenting. I have begun to acknowledge though, that parenting on a daily basis knowing I am not the only mother they have, has created a bit of psychological drama in our relationship. I am a secure person, but at times it does chip away at even a secure mother, that you do not have the same autonomy that most average parents see as a given. I cannot ever be the same in that respect as other, non-adoptive parents, and it does have an effect on me.

When my oldest was tiny I found I did not allow her to go off with family or friends without me as much as another parent might. The cousins spent the night with grandparents, but I was more cautious about being separated from her, even if she was with close family. As we have added other children I find myself relaxing some, but I still am overly anxious if we’re not all always together as a family, all the time.

In my belief this is one way my mind has dealt with the losses of adoption, and how they impact me. I lost the ability to be the only mother of my children, and holding on to them in other ways must be one way to process that loss, albeit not the best way. It was harder for me to connect to them, there for it is much more difficult for me to let go.

As my oldest has been going off to camp, school events, and more parties and sleep overs (where a hovering mom is not welcome) I have finally begun to understand some of my reaction. I feel like that because our bonds are not somehow reinforced by DNA, that they might then also be more fleeting and temporary in some way. So I hold on, I keep them close. I know who they know, where they go, what they do, and I begin to imagine that our history cements our kinship.

As a mom by way of adoption, I have been required to learn to adapt to a different kind of parent - child relationship. At times it is not easy, and I hold on much too tightly. In the adoption experience loss is everywhere, and the prospect of additional loss is something all members of the triad continue to struggle to cope with. I am afraid of lossing my children as they grow up, and away from me. For myself, learning how to love, trust, and let go have been some of the most difficult things. I have learned to love my children. I search for the signs that allow me to trust that my love is accepted, and I struggle to trust myself to let go.

I suspect no matter how I became a mother I would have become some sort of “helicopter parent.” Adoption has turned me into more of a “blanket” mom though. Now my work is to make sure this old blanket keeps all my children feeling loved, secure, and covered in care, but never worried about being smothered under worry and my own feelings of loss.

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