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Originally Posted by leoson
With a grown, adopted, son, adoption has always been an issue I've been interested in. I actually have an "anti-open-adoption" posted in a few different places online (even though I realize that everyone does things differently, based on the people involved).
Maybe because, when I adopted my son, I knew I'd be having children myself as well, I wanted to make sure his life didn't have more of a "different element" to it than his siblings lives had; but I would not have been ok with an open arrangement.
Besides believing that children need one mother/one father at one time, and not wanting to confused my son, with regard to his "belonging"; I will admit to having the "selfish" wish to have with him, what I had with my biological children and what all mothers get to have with their children - in terms of being his one and only mother.
My belief has always been that birth mothers should not place their children for adoption if they still want to keep in touch. Adoption should really only be for those mothers (and they do exist) who say, "I don't want this kid - at all, ever - here, someone take him."
From what I hear the UK now has some modified adoption type of arrangement that allows birth mothers to have someone care for their children, while, essentially (I think), remaining the child's mother. That seems like a reasonable arrangement because then the adoptive mother will know how to present things to the child, and present them in a way to let him know that while she loves him, she's not his mother.
With the trend in open adoption, I'm not sure that adoptive parents are being expected to be unpaid foster parents just until the child is 18 - and I don't think that is best in terms of aiming to give the child a sense of really belonging and permanence.
Kids are resilient, and they often just go with how things are in their own family, so I don't think it "has to be the end of the world" if families are different.
It's just that I had the benefit of one of those traditional, two-parent, families and believed it was the best thing I could offer my own children.
Just thought I'd be the one to offer the different opinion. I'm not saying, and I'm not even sure, my opinion is correct.
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