[Isabo]

Originally Posted by KellyKA

Hey everyone sorry but im going to rock the boat at little bit but I am all for closed adoptions especially for infants. I think for older children who know and remember their parents other options should be considered for keeping contact but for young children and babies I think things should be closed and Im saying this not as a selfish parent but as an adopted child myself.

I will admit I am very curiouse about my birthmother and family but I would have been VERY confused growing up to have 2 moms I knew about and possibly other half brothers and sisters, and it would have "normalfied" if thats even a word, a broken family. I grew up in a great home with two brothers who were my parents biokids and while I feel a little differnt I would have felt like an OUTCAST had there been other parents to "know about" besides my own and I think putting a concrete face, to the abstract idea of my adoption would have isolated me and caused alot of upset and pain. My parents never hid my adoption and were always very open about me being adopted but they were MY PARENTS and my brothers were MY BROTHERS and to have other people hanging in the wing popping in an out, being "family" but with no resposibilty would have greatly lessened my view,value and feelings of what a family ment.

Im sorry if Im not saying the popular thing its just my point of view and im also looking at it as the example of how I want to raise my own children. While giving a child up for adoption is a truely selfless thing I think this new idea of Open adoptions is a little bit of "Having your cake, and eating it to" at the expense of the child.

Kelly,

I am glad that you had a good adoption experience. Not all adoptees have that good experience. My son did not and was very damaged by feeling rejected, abandoned and unconnected due to his adoption. He would have benefited greatly by knowing his first family. He sought us out while still a teenager. For him, finding us as a teenager was too late to undue the damage caused by not knowing us.

I am blown away by your characterization of open adoption as "having your cake and eating it too" for first families. I relinquished into the closed adoption system as a scared, shamed, uninformed and yes, coerced, teenager. I have no idea what "cake" you would be referring to. As a mother who lost her only child, adoption has not had ANY rewards for me at all. Open adoption is about lessening the losses involved in adoption, not putting extra icing on the cake. The closed adoption system was a punitive, horrible system that inflicted tremendous losses on families. The director of my agency told me a few years ago that "what they did to young girls was inhumane." I would not wish a closed adoption on my worst enemy. It is a soul destroying experience for a mother.

As far as "responsibility", first families have responsibilities to their child. It is their responsibility to be good, loving people who their child can look up to, and who are dependable and there for their child when needed. I know that not all first families are able to live up to this, but the nature of adoption is that most people are in crisis or in very difficult circumstances or they wouldn't be forced to "choose" adoption in the first place.