Open adoption is a form of adoption in which birthparents and adoptive parents work together cooperatively to advance the best interests of the adoptee. It presumes that birth families love their children and have much to offer them. It takes the position that every adoptee is entitled to fully know his or her birth heritage. Participants in open adoption are committed to honesty; they believe the quality of the adoptive experience is directly correlated to its commitment to candor.

Historically, in the early 1900′s, children who were adopted were placed into families known to the birth parents. As time went on, the confidential form of adoption evolved as a way to meet the needs of many people in an age when illegitimacy and pregnancy out of wedlock drew heavy social stigma. Open adoption has emerged as an effort to improve on the confidential form of adoption and alleviate a number of its shortcomings. In our current era, this stigma is nearly non-existent and the confidential adoption holds significantly less appeal. Many birthparents who placed children through the confidential system report they are perpetually haunted with wonder as to how their child has fared. Many adoptees struggle with identity issues and acknowledge a lack of roots. Many adoptive parents are frustrated by their inability to help their children work through their struggles.

Open adoption springs naturally from a number of philosophical tenets where the underlying principles stand in contrast to those associated with the confidential approach to adoption.

1. Direct communication is more effective than indirect communication.
2. People have a right to information, which profoundly affects them.
3. Given the life-altering impact of adoption, participants will prefer an active, responsible role in the experience as opposed to passivity.
4. Individually designed plans have better potential to satisfy then do “assembly line” placement procedures.
5. Openness and candor promote a healthy atmosphere while secrecy invariably generates fear and suspicion.

In open adoption, responsibility for the experience, in many ways, shifts from the professionals to the participants. The initial architects of the adoption plan are the birthparents. As they develop a plan which they believe uniquely meets the needs of their child, they take satisfaction in meeting society’s expectation that parents make responsible provisions for their children. The plan they propose is drawn from four basic sets of options:

1. Birthparents may select the adoptive parents from a pool of screened and prepared families.
2. Birthparents may meet with the selected couple to share essential information on a first hand basis.
3. Birthparents may request an early connection between the adoptive parents and the child, thus facilitating bonding and attachment. Typically this means the chosen parents enter the remainder of the pregnancy, are involved in the hospital experience, and provide foster care for the baby upon discharge from the hospital.
4. Birthparents may seek an ongoing relationship with the adoptive family.

Like any new development, open adoption has its detractors. The most frequently mentioned concerns merit at least brief consideration here.

1. Open adoption is too new to be trusted.

The fact that something is new has little to do with its usefulness and value. It makes it neither good nor bad.  The majority of adoption agencies today offer some form of an open adoption.  In fact, open adoption is more correctly understood as a return to how adoption was traditionally accomplished.

2. Open adoption is co-parenting.  It reduces adoptive parents to glorified babysitters.

Like any form of adoption, open adoption in the final analysis is a complete and irrevocable legal transfer of parental rights and responsibilities from one set of parents to another. The parental role is filled by adoptive parents. Birthparents typically take on the role of special friend to the family.

3. Birthparents will be intrusive.

By definition, birthparents are people capable of sacrificial love. They have gone to great lengths to provide their children with a stable environment and will not jeopardize that hard-earned stability. They are involved with adoptive families because those families welcome that contact.

4. The involvement of birthparents will confuse adopted children.

Our experience as well as that of other pioneering agencies indicates that children are not confused by relating to their birthparents. What we have discovered, as a matter of fact, is quite the opposite. Children who know their birthparents appear to have a better understanding of themselves and don’t have the abandonment issues as some adoptees do in confidential adoptions.

Catholic Charities of Central Colorado has been offering open adoption since 1989 and is one of a handful of agencies around the country instrumental in initiating this innovation. Our results have been positive and we truly believe open adoption has been an invigorating, healthy option for the people it has been our privilege to serve.

For more information, contact us.