Commitments and the Like
Posted: July 17, 2007 at 10:19 pmCuriousity spawned from a string of openness bashing on a recent post at the birth/first parent blog:
For those with open adoptions, do you, as an adoptive parents, consider your lifelong commitment to your child to also include a lifelong commitment to said child’s first parents? Do you, as a birth parent, consider your lifelong commitment to your child to also include a lifelong commitment to said child’s adoptive parents?
I’m realizing the comparsion of open adoption to marriage is a stretch that some are completely unwilling or unable to make. However, it was used to exemplify the fact that open adoption relationships are/should be more than a casual relationship held with the lady in the cubicle next to you at work. (I’m stopping myself here because I feel an expanded post coming for the birth/first parent blog.)
So, answer the question as best you can. I may swipe some of your comments for the expanded post. (For reference, D got so riled up by the thread itself that she commented and she’s a rare commenter!)
(Breif update: A very controversial post (honestly, wait until you read the title, I am hilarious!) on the ANALOGY will be up on the birth/first parent blog on Friday morning (early). It contains the list of similarities that Heather graciously threw up this evening, for which I am eternally thankful. Also, if you commented, you might be quoted. Check it. I will, haha!, be on vacation (camping) so you need to hit it up to defend your side (pros/cons). I’ll address hate mail when we come home the following Friday and by “address” I do mean “delete.”)
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
ugh. not having an open adoption i cannot comment but I will say i read it and john bugs me.
John bugs the bejeebus out of me as well. Almost daily. It’s great. By great, of course, I mean it’s like daily sticking hot pins in my eyeballs. :)
I don’t have an open adoption either, but even in our situation (an international adoption), I consider my daughter’s birth family to be simply part of the fabric of our lives. My daughter will always be thinking of them, making her peace with her story and her past, and her first family is part of that. It’s all of a piece.
Well I already answered on that blog, but I can’t seem to shut up most days so I’ll answer again.
Yes we made a lifelong commitment to the queen. In fact we said before we were ever chosen to parent someones child, we would turn it down if we didn’t feel we could build a relationship with that person, and yes we did turn down a situation for that reason.
I wouldn’t dream of entering into a relationship as serious as raising someones child without knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the relationship is for life. Because my daughter HAS a lifelong relationship with her other mother, that cannot be ignored (not that we want to) and as her day to day mother I have to be the guardian of that until she can claim it entirely as her own. I promised that we would stay in touch, be friends, and that our relationship would be fully open. I don’t take a commitment like that lightly, it is a lifetime JOYFUL obligation to my daughters mother, and to my friend.
Our lives are forever intertwined because we are both mothers to the same little person. How could I not honor that relationship and that commitment when I look at our daughters eyes and see her mothers eyes looking back up at me. It is my joy to have her [the queen] in our lives and our family, and to try and remove the queen from the equation at any point is a gross injustice to our daughter and her mother and the friendship and commitment that we made a year ago.
Oh and John seriously make me beat my head against a wall.
Absolutely, yes. It’s not a parallel in terms of intimacy (no non-spousal relationship is), but it is in terms of commitment and need for honesty.
I actually had a draft of something written on this topic. Rather than suck up your comments section, I’ll just post that tonight.
Jenna, I totally agree that while I went into the open adoption with a committment to my son, the committment now includes his sister and his parents. I would hope they feel the same. Over the past seven years we have become a family. I have told many people that the relationships formed by open adoption are very similiar to a marriage.
It has taken a long time to get to the place we are now but it’s well worth it. I am not sure if the rewards of the open adoption would be the same or as great if the whole family wasn’t included.
Oh good! I can answer here (I’ve been too lazy to register for the adoption.com blogs)!
My lifelong commitment to Madison includes a lifelong commitment to Jessica. (And to her absent bio dad but in a totally different way.) We are all family now whether or not we “practice” as family. In other words, even though bio dad is not at all in the picture and is unlikely to be in the foreseeable future, he is still part of our family just like I have other extended bio family members who are not a part of my life. I still have a commitment to the *idea* of him but obviously it can’t be too him because he isn’t around.
Because Jessica and I clicked and care about each other above and beyond our relationship to Madison, my commitment to her looks different than it might otherwise. Beyond being my child’s first mother, she is also my friend and someone I love and care deeply about. And so naturally that colors my adoption commitment, too. I mean, if we didn’t click, I would still be strongly committed to her as family but maybe I wouldn’t feel so strongly committed as friend. Does that make sense?
Sometimes I get emails from adoptive parents who struggle because they don’t really get along with their children’s first parents but they are still strongly committed to them. I really admire these parents because they understand that it doesn’t really have anything to do with the grown-ups (and one can assume maybe their kids’ first parents share the ambivalence and the commitment!) but has to do with the kid. I think parents (first and adoptive) in these more complicated matches have a lot to teach me. (Now I’m babbling. I’ll sign off!)
Some messy thoughts: http://unproductivereproduction.blogspot.com/2007/07/open-adoption-is-to-marriage-as.html
Has any longitudinal, in-depth research been undertaken to see how the children of adoptions with different levels of openness are faring, throughout various stages of child and adolescent development?
Dr. David Brodzinsky has written this “When most people hear the term “open adoption,” however, they think of a situation in which birth parents remain informed about or involved in the child’s life. Brodzinsky defines open adoptionas “an on going relationship among the three points of the adoption triangle: the birth parents, the adoptive parents, and the adoptee.” He reserves judgment on what this practice will mean for the children involved in it. Open adoption is too new and the children too young, he says, for researchers to know how contact with birth parents will change the adoption experience. InAdoption: The Life Long Search for Self, he offers a few cautious speculations.
Open adoption, he says, may eliminate the fear of the unknown that has sometimes troubled children in traditional adoptions. If you know your birth mother, you don’t have to walk down the street wondering if you’ll run into her. If you have questions about why she gave you up, or whether she was artistic like you, or whether cancer runs in the family, you can simply ask her.
But, he says, frequent contact with a birth parent may increase a child’s confusion and anxiety. If she gave you away, what is she doing here? If she is here, can she take you back? At times, a young child may feel torn between two sets of parents. And, he says, as a child learns to manipulate her parents, she may play off one set of parents against the other. If adoptive parents decide to end the open relationship, a child may experience new feelings of loss and betrayal.
Most of the children involved in open adoptions are still under ten years old. Until researchers can follow these children in large numbers for a long time, Brodzinsky says, we will not really know what open adoption meant for them. ”
I think it’s important for the adults to maintain contact in whatever form works for them. I’m not convinced that children are emotionally capable of understanding the relationships involved. I think openness ABOUT their adoption is very positive for children.
I think of open adoption as a lifelong connection, but not necessarily a nearly marriage-like commitment.
Mariah; Considering we now HAVE adults who have lived through open adoption, we ARE seeing the results of what it meant to them. Of course, no one wants to hear that they don’t have an issue with adoption/birth parents/ etc because that’s not what those who are against openness want to hear.
Beyond that, my almost four year old Munchkin understands who I am, where she came from and to which everyday family she belongs. She is able to comprehend older brothers (step), younger brothers that either live with her or far away (half-biological). Children are far more resilient than you seem to be giving them credit for.
Furthermore, hit the birth parent blog on Thursday for a book that is written by a family therapist and adoptive mom involved in an open adoption. Also, read anything written by James L. Gritter. Read up!
As an adoptive mom in an open adoption – I say a resounding yes to being committed to my daughter’s first family! That for us includes a grandma and great grandparents as well as the birth mom.
Did we have to all work to have this relationship develop to where it is today – three years later? Yes of course as it was the first time any of us had entered into *this* particular kind of relationship.
I cannot imagine pulling back, pulling out now – it would be a great loss not only for our daughter but for us as parents as well. The first extended family of our daughter has *adopted* us as well in a manner of speaking. We see one another face to face regularly. Email and send cards and photos.
I see us expanding this as our daughter gets older to have her visit with any of her first family as wants to visit on her own.
I do agree and ascribe to the feeling (and it’s my own thinking on this) that it is healthier to have the adoption all out in the open, photos displayed of everyone in the family album, discussions are often and easy about how our daughter came to be in our family.
We actually filed papers with the court to show our intent but it that was just a formality – love has replaced legality a long time ago.
Yes! and Yes! We are committed for life!!! I recently wrote about this in an article for a local Christian publication. I am appalled at the lack of integrity so many adoptive families have in sticking by their children’s first families. (It is especially disheartening when the a-families are Christians… promising the world, and then backing down.) YUK.
Jenna,
Does Gritter’s book recount the research? Also, does it detail the types of open adoption these adults were in?
Thanks.
Gritter is a social worker. Pick up either Lifgivers or The Spirit of Open Adoption and read them for yourself. The writings of adults raised in OA are available on the internet via blogs, articles, etc. Again, no one wants to listen. I wonder why.
Jenna, why do you say no one wants to listen? I only asked if there’s been any long-term studies done. I read all the time, and have been reading for many years. I’m always happy to hear of another book to check out. Personal stories are wonderful, and provide that insight that research just can’t. But, I would still like to know what’s out there. If I didn’t want a broader perspective, I wouldn’t be here. Thanks for your suggestions.
I didn’t necessarily mean YOU, I was speaking in a general sense, of course. That said, if you like research and reading, you should really benefit from Gritter’s books. They opened my own eyes as I was still learning what to expect and do in our own open adoption. I recommend them to the population at large!
Mariah; Hi, I’m Brandy and I’m an adult raised in Open Adoption (I’m also a first mom in open adoption).
While my personal open adoption was different than the open adoption I enjoy with my daughter and her family, the principles are very much the same.
I had visits, including overnights, unsupervised, with members of my first family (maternal extended family).
Contrary to what most people seem to thing (or are lead to believe) my open adoptions (both) were/are never involved co-parenting. While I considered my first mother a mother, I knew who made the rules and I knew who controlled all aspects of my life.
I am quite normal. I’m a mother, a wife, a professional, with an advanced degree and I am very comfortable with where I am as an adopted person.
I am constantly amazed to hear comments from those who have never lived it. It’s great that you don’t choose OA in your life (or, if you’re an adoptee, you are happy you didn’t have an OA) but please, don’t tell me how wrong my way of life is and I won’t tell you how much awesomeness you’ve missed out on by knowing and living OA.
Deal?
Great!
Got it, Jenna. Got it, Brandy. Real discussion isn’t okay. I don’t know why I keep thinking it would be. I’m glad for you that your open adoption situations are working for you. One of ours did, and one didn’t. Based on those two personal experiences, I formed the opinion that a lifetime connection is appropriate, but a lifetime ‘commitment’ isn’t necessarily. I just wanted to know what formal research has been done that studies the typical emotional development of children, and what kind of impact open adoption has on it. I wasn’t trying to stir up any kind of controversy.
Most likely the same kinds of studies done on other things. In reality, studies are only worth the paper they are written on – they are often funded by organizations that have a vested interest/agenda in the outcome.
Sure, real discussion is ok – but I wonder, is that really what you’re looking for? You keep talking about wanting ’studies’ (proof) – if you live your life doing only things that are proven by study…I can’t imaging how exciting that would be.
Random question: If you and your SO divorce and remarry , will one of you terminate your parental rights so the others new SO adopt? I only wonder…since having more than one set of parents is confusing and hasn’t been proven to be ok by study?
Kinda silly when you think about it like that…
I’m going to ramble – hope that’s ok, but it’s been a long week and my thoughts aren’t very coherent.
1. Of course it’s like a marriage. I would say it is almost more…. The bond between a child and a parent is lifelong and natural. From the moment you learn of their existance (both for adoptive and birth parents) to the moment of separation by death (and even beyond if you are a believer) , you are connected to that child. It is a natural draw, yearning and need to protect and care for them. No legal document can change that – as is evidenced by the birthparents who yearn for their children years later and the adoptive parents who feel loss when an adoption doesn’t happen, or their adopted children go on a journey to find their birth parents. Marriage is a choice we make to commit to someone and it takes a heck of a lot of work. An adoption agreement is also a commitment you make and also takes a lot of work, the difference being that each set of parents is more intrisicly and naturally connected to that child than even we are to our spouse. Now, their connection to each other? That is where the commitment comes in. But keep in mind, this agreement happens between the adults before the child. An adoption is NOT truly just a commitment to raise a child. It’s a commitment to a woman to raise HER child. To take that child and make him your own. She is commiting to ALLOW you to do that. How quickly people forget that….. You first commit to her, then she allows you to commit to the child. (Except in some cases where the state is involved).
2. Jon seems to be one of those people who wants to think his child materialized out of no where. Some woman squirted out the baby and then walked away. The mother had little to do with the child. He’ll learn. It’s all a lifelong bond and even in closed adoptions, the child senses that. I don’t think he was trying to be argumentative, but rather is just that clouded in his outlook.
You were well spoken and he twisted your words. I liked what was said that if you have marital problems, you see a therapist, but you still talk to your husband. That’s exactly what you are saying. You may see a therapist to discuss the intimate dealings of your heart, but it is important that you keep an open line of communication with those involved in those issues.
If anything, allowing them to know what’s truly in your heart should set them at ease with the situation. If they know you are in pain, but that you have a commitment to them, they can allow you to work through your grief without worrying you are going to jump off the deep end.
See…. rambling…. more than two cents, kind of like 15.
Mariah, there has been and it’s on-going. The MN/TX Research Project is all about open adoption. If you go to http://www.openadoptionsupport.com and click on “Research About Openness” in the right hand column you’ll see an in-progress compilation of studies about openness in adoption. You can also find a link to the MN/TX study in our links list there.
Hi Jenna, I have been of fan of your writings and have followed your story since shortly after Munchkin was born. I’ll guess I’ll stop being a lurker.
As to a lifelong committent to my daughter’s firstparents…ABSOLUTELY. For us, I feel our committment to our daughter automatically includes a committment to her birthparents. It’s a package deal! They are forever tied to her and her to them. This was also considered when choosing gaurdians. It was important that we choose caregivers that would support that relationship.
Thank you, Dawn.
It saddens me when adoptive parents like John are out there as “examples” of adoptive parents. It only makes the whole process of adoption skewed – making adoptive parents seem like they will do or say anything to have a child in their lives.
If someone does not want to have a relationship with the birthparents – do a closed adoption or adopt internationally!
My husband and I thought long and hard about what was right for us when we moved to adoption after many years of infertility treatment. We decided the level of being *open* would fall to the birth parents and what they wanted. It is a relationship like others as posted – a marriage of sorts due to the committment each are making to the other.
In the end – I believe as I stated before that for us, and I can only speak for our family — that having an open adoption is the best for all concerned. Our daughter knows where she came from and how, she knows she is loved by all her parents (birth and adoptive) and there is not some *mystery* birth family out there somewhere. If she wants to see photos – we have them with her in her birth mom’s belly and others as she grew during visits.
I wish adoption reform would occur to make adoptive parents legally accountable to hold up their end of their promises made before the child they adopt ever arrives.
John, oh John. We all know John. We all know who John really is. We all know his stability or lack theirof, his position on adoption and openness and his adoptive circumstances. And seriously, if he wanted to remain anonymous, he really, REALLY needs to take a lesson in English grammar and common spelling usages.
And yes, absolutely I am in a life long relationship with my sons’ first famililes. Why? Well we ARE family. My sons are their sons. Their children are my sons brother and sisters. Their parents are my children’s grandparents. Their place in the world affects my children’s sense of self. How could I “not”care? I have no idea … no concept of being capable of NOT viewing us as a family. I dont know how others manage to turn that sense off, but I certainly have never found myself able.
Jen
Mariah -
A long-term study:
Openness in Adoption: Exploring Family Connections (SAGE Library of Social Research) by Harold D. Grotevant and Ruth G. McRoy (Paperback – Jun 24,
Absolutely yes. When we began the process of our open adoption, we did it only because we were so convinced that a continuing relationship with her firstfolks is in our daughter’s best interests. We’re still convinced of that fact 6+ years later because we see how important they are to her.
Were we scared? Yup. But we also believed that it’s our job as parents to do what’s best for our child, and not just what’s easiest and most comfortable for us. Period.
Adoption is not about the parents; it’s about the children for whom major, life-changing decisions are made without their input or even consent.
In our case, since our daughter’s firstmom has, for now, chosen to not be in active relationship with her, our committment extends to the rest of firstmom’s family: father, brothers, cousins. Our daughter’s firstdad lives far away but he flys in to visit frequently and we’re in relationship with his parents and brother, also. Firstdad’s mom is from Eritrea so we use her as our main source for that cultural information as Firstdad said it was important to him that BabyGirl knew and understood her Eritrean heritage.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. The lifelong committment includes the people who gave her life.
As for the open adoption/marriage thing, I think it just may be apt, but rather than spouses, we’ve thought of it as inlaws. I chose to love my inlaws because they are my husband’s parents, and vice versa. It’s just part of the deal. To dishonor my inlaws would be to dishonor my husband; to dishonor my daughter’s firstfolks would be to dishonor my daughter.