Hellobee

Mr. Train and I, like many adoptive parents these days, have adopted our son through an open adoption.  When we first talked about this with our parents and close friends, a lot of them had a hard time understanding the concept and how it would turn out.  I found it difficult to explain my position.  It really wasn’t even an option for us.  Any adoption agency we looked at had some degree of openness. When I first started reading Hellobee, I loved Mrs. Jacks description of the varying levels possible in an open adoption.  It was nice to see someone else talk about the possibility of open adoption.  I realized the biggest thing getting in our way of people understanding us was history, and the stigma surrounding adoption in our country.  I love looking up facts so I decided to look up a little on the history of open adoptions.

I found that what I thought was the new trend in adoptions was not new at all.  In the colonials days of this country an adoption was as easy as exchanging a deed for land.  The records were public and it was not kept a secret.  Often these adoptions were from large families having difficulties taking care of all of their offspring to families with little or no kids.  It was seen as a win-win for both.  One family had the burden of too many mouths to feed relieved, while the adopting family received the ability to pass on their trade to new family members.

In the 1800’s adoption became controlled by the government more.  Laws were put into place in order to facilitate the process.  For 100 years or so orphanages were opening up and common practices were emerging in order to take care of children and find them homes.    In the early 1900’s social workers emerged.  At the time there were so many orphans and very few adoptive parents.  Society believed that the sins of the parents would be passed on to their offspring.  If biological parents came from poverty, struggled with alcoholism, were criminals or practiced sexual promiscuity, it was believed that these traits would continue on in the next generation.  This made it difficult to “sell” the idea of adoption to prospective parents.

In order to solve this problem of the social stigmas surrounding behavior choices, social workers became mediators and took on the job of “matching” adoptive parents with the right orphan.  Biological mothers would work with a social worker in order to place her child, but never would know where they were to be or how they were to be raised.  They were even told to pretend the child was dead and mourn for the loss in that fashion.  Adoptive parents were not given any information about the biological family; they were essentially just handed a child and told to raise them as if they were born to them.

It was often feared by adoptive parents that the biological parent might return for their child.  Children were placed with families that looked similar so that the secrecy of the adoption could be maintained and the biological history would not haunt the child.  This started the process of sealing birth records and adoption papers.  By 1950 most states had laws that required all adoption papers to be sealed.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s that social influences started to change the views of adoptions.  Abortion laws were changing which caused the amount of infant adoptions to drastically drop.  Unwed mothers were not as taboo as they were in the early part of the century, which also caused a decline. Pressure was placed on agencies to change their practices because mothers were not choosing adoption anymore.  At first most agencies were not willing to “open” adoptions and give birth mothers much say even though their numbers of adoptions were dropping.

In the late 19080’s it was adoption lawyers who first began facilitating open adoptions.   But lawyers were not always trained to handle the emotional part of adoptions, so in the beginning over 25% of open adoptions were failing.  This put the pressure on the agencies to begin their own processes of open adoption.  Social workers had more of the tools for handling counseling and previewing prospective adoptive parents.  For several years agencies argued over whether or not open adoption were beneficial.  By the 1990’s the arguments were no longer the validity of open adoptions but rather how should they be handled.  Now, and for the last 20 years or so, open adoption has been the common route.

The value to an open adoption has been seen in all parties involved.  Instead of adoptees being shrouded in secrecy and shame, their adoption can be openly celebrated and talked about.  Children are able to know more information about their biological family even if there is no continued contact, and they have some basic knowledge of backgrounds, life situations, physical traits.  It often helps a birth mother to know where her child will go and how they are progressing.  It does not negate the pain completely but helps biological parents to find peace.  For adoptive parents it is helpful to have some medical histories from biological family and it may allow them to raise their child with a strong confidence in who they are.

So even though to some people contact with birth parents seems crazy, it is becoming the norm for infant adoptions in the US.  When people ask me about our situation I have no problem talking about our adoption.  I am proud of our little man and who he will become. I am glad we have some information about his first family.  I am hoping to raise a secure young man who knows that he is loved by many people in this world.