|
Back in the 70's when my parents adopted my abrother and me... there were VERY few open adoptions. In fact my older abrother is the first open adoption in the state of WI. My aparents advocated for as much openess as possible. In my abrother's case, the bfamily was very willing to make this possible. Letters were exchanged, addresses, last names, PO Boxes and even visits (remember this was in the 70's!).
My bmom was nervous about that type of openness. She was willing to write letters for me and send pictures along with me (when she surrendered me for adoption) and give my aparents contact info but not willing to recieve any info from them. She did not want to continue meeting with my afamily or have any knowledge of how to contact us over the years. But made sure that I had the info to find her if I wanted to at any point.
Now that my bmom and I are in reunion we have discussed this at length. She says that she couldn't trust herself at that time. She thought that if she knew how to contact me or was allowed (through an totally open arrangement) to visit me as a child that she would have never been able to leave me again. She was afraid that with open contact through childhood she would have hurt me emotionally- by coming and going over the years. (I disagree with her thinking on this point but that is how she felt).
So in my afamily we had all levels of openess: open with my older abrother, semi-openish with me and extremely open with my youngest abrother. The varying degrees of openess was not a problem for us at all growing up. If a bmom cannot handle a totally open adoption- I suggest trying for some type of compromise such as the one my aparents set up for me.
|