Common Myths About Open Adoption
You have finally welcomed your precious baby home. You are settling in and getting to know her – watching her every facial expression, training yourself to learn her cues, and the differences in her cries. As you watch that scrunchy little face, you are mindful that you have a huge responsibility ahead to raise her and build a relationship with her birth family.
You and your spouse did the required readings on open adoption while you waited for Baby, so you are committed to the idea of it, but likely you are just now realizing that there’s a lot you don’t know about how to do open adoption well. And you might be a bit unclear about what it is and what it is not.
Many people have preconceived notions of what they think open adoption is – those ideas set the stage for how they proceed when it’s time to craft a relationship with a child’s birth family. To help you think through notions and think ahead to what your open adoption can look like, here are a few of the most common myths about open adoption and what you should know about them.
Myth #1: “Open Adoption is Co-Parenting”
Open adoption is not without boundaries. All of parenting requires limits. In open adoption, you will have to put some additional, intentional boundaries in place to include your child’s birth family. But those boundaries should also be put in place to represent best your family’s unique character and purposes for raising your child. Your limits must also be flexible to respect the changes in ages, stages, and family circumstances that typically occur in life.
Myth #2: “Open Adoption Will Make Me Feel Like I’m Not a Real Mom”
If you enter this new adoption relationship with an “either/or” mindset about your roles, definition of “real family” or of “real mom,” you could very well be setting up for a competition you cannot win. Open adoption with a “both/and” framework becomes an openness that expands the definition of family. It can free you from striving to get the definitions “just right” and re-focuses you on the people with whom you have expanded your family.
Myth #3: “Open Adoption is Confusing for Children”
On the contrary, children experience less confusion when they feel as if they have all the information available regarding who they are and from where and whom they came. Adult or young adult adoptees consistently say that what was confusing for them was not knowing all of their “pieces” and not having access to their whole history. When you choose to craft an open adoption, you commit to deconstructing this myth by crafting an authentic connection with your child but also with his family of origin so that he can grow in wholeness.
Myth #4: “Open Adoption is Not Worth the Trouble”
Again, yes. It can be a lot of extra work. It will require a lot of extra mindfulness and attention to many peoples’ needs. Keep in your focus why you are taking on that added work. The reason to push through the “trouble” – maybe better labeled as complexity – is that it prepares your child for the reality of what her life IS and what it will be as she grows to adulthood. It’s helping her integrate all her pieces.
*Source: Creating a Family radio show/podcast, November 15, 2019, What You Need to Know About Open Adoption, with guest Lori Holden, author of The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption