Open Adoption Facts and Myths
Answer the following True/False questions to the best of your ability.
1. In an open adoption, the adoptive parents control day-to-day decisions, but birth parents are entitled to share decision-making authority in certain medical and legal matters.
False. Birth parents permanently relinquish all parental rights, and adoptive parents have total decision-making authority for their adopted children. Open adoption does not mean co-parenting.
2. In some states, open adoption agreements are legally binding.
True. Many states have legislation that allows for limited enforceable “adoption with contact” agreements. 15 states currently have this type of legislation.
3. Statistically, open adoptions tend to increase the probability that birth parents will attempt to reclaim the child they relinquished.
False. It is extremely rare for a birth parent in a voluntary open adoption relationship to seek custody of the relinquished child.
4. In an open adoption, both sets of parents must, by law, divulge personal information to one another, including health status, income, criminal background, etc.
False. Both birth parents and adoptive parents are encouraged and typically provide medical, and psycho-social histories. Adoptive parents provide information in their profiles.
5. If the birth parents see the child regularly, they will never be able to resolve their grief and loss.
False. Openness does not increase, nor does it cure, grief and loss. Everyone experiences grief and loss individually.
6. Open adoptions are less stable and more likely to disrupt than closed adoptions.
False. Participants in an open adoption are typically more secure in their relationships and comfortable about their decisions.
7. During certain developmental stages, children of open adoption become confused about who their “real” parents are.
False. When both sets of parents are open and forthcoming about the child’s history, children are clear about who’s who in their lives. There is no more confusion than there would be for a child with stepparents and multiple grandparents.
8. Open adoption is a form of co-parenting.
False. Open adoption is not co-parenting. In an open adoption, as in all adoptions, the birth parents relinquish all parental rights and the adoptive parents become the child’s only legal parents.
9. There are no boundaries in open adoption.
False. Open adoption is based on reasonable and mutually respected boundaries. Both parties agree to frequency and degree of contact which remains dynamic and will change over time based on the needs of the triad.
10. Adoptive parents are likely to feel less threatened by or jealous of the birth parents if they are in their lives.
True. When the parties know each other, there is less concern about, and less likelihood of jealousy. The Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project noted that adoptive parents feel more secure when in contact with the birth parents.
11. Children of open adoption are more likely to want to live with their birth parents when they reach a certain age.
False. Children raised in open adoptions have fewer fantasies about their birth families that many adopted children have. Most children of open adoption are realistic about the limitations of their birth families and are less likely to want to live with them.