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In the last couple of posts I’ve been musing about the communication agreement birth and adoptive parents sign in an open adoption—the contract that states how often they will exchange letters and pictures.
Here are links to the first two posts:
Part 1: Maintaining Your Open Adoption Communication Agreement
Part 2: Problems That Arise Between Birth/Adoptive Parents in Open Adoption
My question for the day:
Why do parents not adhere to the terms of the contract?
Here are two speculations, from the perspective of both adoptive and birth parents (readers, please chime in with your own theories):
The balance of power has shifted.
Adoptive parents wait months, and sometimes years, for a child. They feel secretly angry about the power birth parents wield:
- the power to choose who will raise their child.
- the power to meet (or not meet) with the prospective adoptive parents.
- the power to decide to parent (sometimes, birth parents decide to parent after they place their baby with a family).
When adoptive parents finally have the baby in their arms, they relish their newfound power and (consciously or subconsciously) try to put the birth parents out of their minds. In their excitement over the baby’s arrival, they (choose to) forget the grief the birth parents are experiencing. They assume that the birth parent(s) made their decision, so they must be happy with it. They must want to “move on.”
This sudden power shift messes with everyone’s minds. An adoptive parent could easily convince him or herself that the birth family is “better off” not hearing from them.
The Severed Connection
Many birth parents, on the other hand, yearn for a connection with their child, both immediately after the adoption and throughout their child’s life. Now relatively powerless to demand communication, birth parents sometimes slink away, feeling used, taken for granted, and unwanted. Waiting respectfully for the adoptive parents to make the first move, they give up when they don’t hear anything.
On the flip side, my friend who’s the director of an adoption agency says that some birth parents demand too much. They request a letter every year until their child turns 18.
I don’t see anything wrong with requesting a yearly letter; if I was a birth parent, I think I would treasure such a letter. I also realize that people’s lives change. People move away; they grow up; they begin new relationships. Should birth and adoptive parents belabor the contact if no one benefits from it—if it’s just a chore?
There are no pat answers to this question. My gut feeling is that if all parties in the adoption truly have the best interest of the child in mind, they will continue the contact as long as they think it will be beneficial to the child.
When children are young, they accept their adoption without question (until my kids were about 4 years old, they assumed all babies came from the adoption agency!). But as they mature, children begin to ask questions about their birth parents, about why they were placed for adoption, and about the relationship between their adoptive and birth parents. They deserve answers. And what better way to learn those answers than going directly to the source?
I’m not advocating passing the buck here. If you’re an adoptive parent, don’t respond to your child’s questions about his/her birth parent questions with, “I don’t know; you’ll have to ask your birth mom.”
Do your best to answer the questions, and admit that you don’t know the answers to some of the questions. If you have a cordial relationship with members of your child’s birth family, let them know (privately) that your child has questions. Ask whether you can get together (either on the phone, via-email, postal mail, or in person) to work through those questions.
I don’t understand how one letter a year for 18 years can be asking too much!!! I can understand it could be difficult if the bparents don’t pass on contact information and the aparents have to try and track them down – that would be annoying for busy parents. Most bmothers I know value the photos they have recieved over the years. The few brief visits I have had each year with my bdaughter and photos the aparents have sent have kept me sane.
On the flip side, my friend who’s the director of an adoption agency says that some birth parents demand too much. They request a letter every year until their child turns 18.
Your friend is doing any expectant parent who comes through that agency a huge disservice. Not only is it not “too much” to ask for one letter per year but many open adoptions involve much more contact. To let expectant parents think that is their only option, and too much at that, is ridiculous.
Jenna,
I was a little thrown by her comment, but I think she made it in the context of a very few birth parents who tend to get pushy about demanding more contact than their agreement states.
She definitely does not let people think that is their only option; from what I can discern, she is a strong advocate for openness in adoption.
I guess that’s what happens when I report a piece of a conversation out of context. My apologies.
Laura, This was very interesting, yet you spoke very little of birthparents who chose(for whatever reasons)to end contact.
Banjo comments how difficult it can be for busy parents to track down birthparents who do not pass on contact information, and I would have to agree, this has been my experience.
I would be very interested to hear your take on why birthparents might end contact, even when adoptive parents are really working hard to keep the doors open for them.
You know what? I love this! As a previous prospective birth mother and now as a prospective adoptive mother I really love this. I positively know that as a birth mother I would have wanted to be in contact with the adoptive parents of my child.. just knowing that your child is well taken care of and loved and happy can help alleviate the pain and grief with having to give up your child. And as an adoptive mother I really EXPECT to befriend my birthmother, and be writing and sending a new picture once a MONTH while the child is young enough to really change a lot in a month (up to two years of age probably), and then once every six months or so after they start getting bigger. You have to know that this child is going to ask questions when they get big enough to know what’s going on, so you should have information to answer with. And if you’re still in contact with the birth mother, all the better.
We have several open adoptions. MOST of them have less contact than we’d originally worked out!
In all but one case, it’s the birth parent who’ve gradually reduced contact. I have to assume that the reasons are varied — but most surely these are cases where the birth parents have made this decision and not us adoptive parents.
In one case, we have reduced contact. We still have openness – we still send photos, letters from me, colored drawings from one. Bmom still calls us for updates, but we have stopped phone contact and visits between her and the children. In this case, we adopted the children from the foster system – mom had active drug and alcohol problems at that time. She has returned to using now and her behavior is too erratic to include in the kid’s lives right now. These also are childen who are most severely affected by mom’s choices in their early lives. So, this is not a “typical case” maybe? Still, it is one that saddens me. And, it’s the one case where WE have chosen to reduce any of a previous agreement.
To the extent you can, of course you should stick with the letter of your agreement, but I think if you are mindful of the spirit of that agreement, the one letter a year you may have agreed to will seem insufficient.
I know how much the letters and especially pictures of our son have meant to his first mother. We haven’t spoken in almost a year, but to deny her the ongong knowledge of how this soon to be 4 year old is doing would be cruel.
The letters are also a way of letting Julie get to know us, so that we are building the ground work for our long term relationship, and when we do get together we don’t feel like strangers.