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In the first two installments of this blog, I wrote about a problem I sometimes see in open adoptions: open adoptions that aren’t really open but consist of on going correspondence between the birth parent and adoptive parents, correspondence that the adopted child has no knowledge of while it’s ongoing.
I think I have made it clear that this is a big mistake. It is calculated to breed distrust between the parent, birth parent and adopted person. It simply defeats the purpose of open adoption.
So why do adoptive parents do this?
It’s the snowball effect. Many adoptive parents don’t start out with the intention of withholding information from the child. It just happens and then it becomes harder and harder to tell the truth.
This secrecy is all fear based. My observation has been that parents in these type of situations build up fear that grows with the years. They have an inner dialogue that they scare themselves with over time. “If I tell my child about the correspondence they will want to know more about the birth parents (probably,but so what?), become traumatized because they never think about the birth parents and now I’ve gone and brought it up (wrong), get upset because I have kept it hidden (maybe),” and on and on. Some of the inner dialogue gets completely irrational but then its based on fear. Fear generates irrational thinking. They convince themselves that telling the truth will set off some earth shaking consequences that will be just awful. Or, adoptive parents don’t “get” how and why it might help to know the truth. Remember children are forming their identity, they do have questions and concerns, even if unexpressed, and knowing that birth parents love and care bout them can only help!
So, please, tell the truth. Share information with your child about his or her birth parents. Build their story over time. Take each age, each stage of development as it comes,and don’t worry and anticipate problems that don’t exist!
Thank you for a great post! Telling the truth – such a simple concept – that often does not happen in adoption. So many excuses, rationalization and, yes, guided by fear type reasons.
How can parents ever expect the truth from their children if they do not set an example of being truthful? Even if the truth isn’t easy.
Thanks,Jan. I think we have some similiar thoughts because we have the experience of being on something other than the “loading end” of adoption. Once you have worked with a lot of adult adopted people,you learn how very critical truth telling is and how not telling the truth causes so many avoidable problems.
“children are forming their identity” this is so true!! Our children dont remain babies and very young for long. They become teens and adults and believe me their view and questions can change dramtically. It is THEIR story and info after all.
Great subject!!!
I hadn’t thought about this before…our daughter is 8 months old, so while I read to her the emails that we send and receive to and from her birthfamily, it’s very non-threatening because it’s not like she has an opinion right now!!
This post has reinforced our intentions to continue to do this even as she gets older. We visit with each other as well, and have photos, etc. I think a big key in open adoption is that the child grows up knowing her story, so it seems logical that she would be included in correspondence!
That’s wonderful. It sounds like you atre doing a great job keeping connected and being aware of the future issues!