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The Truth about Open AdoptionOpen adoption is presented to you like a beautiful box of candy. But when the box is opened, it is empty inside.
Read "Open Adoption The Wall" to see how adoption may affect natural mothers, grandparents, siblings and even the child who has been adopted-out. All adoptions - whether closed or open adoptions - are based on the lie that the adopters gave birth and are the mother and father of the child they have acquired. They are based on the lie that the child is "as if" born to them. When prospective adopters say they will respect the mother of the child they plan to take, this is a lie. One does not respect someone by pretending she is not her child's mother. Even if a mother has died, when a true friend is caring for her child she will help the child by acknowledging the child's mother as her mother and trying to keep the memory of her mother alive for her. Human beings are not "birthmothers" "birthmoms" "birthparents" "lifemother" - "birth objects" meant to be used as the source of a baby for adoption - a mother is the mother of her own child. Other websites on Open Adoption:
Click here to learn about open adoption vs. closed adoption. Open adoption? Just say "no" to open adoption or any adoption. Do not even look at "Dear Birthmom" letters looking for babies. The facts are that you are not a "Dear Birthmom" - you are the mother of your child.Instead, read Keeping Your Child and Making it Work. They may want your child, but your child needs you.
How "Positive Adoption Language" Tears Families Apart
Adoption Counselors TrainingThe following quote shows how moms are coerced to hand over their own sons and daughters for use in adoption: "OVERCOME OBJECTIONS AND STEREOTYPES" "Counselors must be trained to give women sound reasons that will counter the desire to keep their babies. One example is to reinforce the notion that it takes a strong, mature woman to place a child for adoption. Honestly addressing the issue of financial survival can be compelling as well. Counselors must communicate that adoption can be an heroic, responsible choice and that the child benefits tremendously ..." - From The Missing Piece: Adoption Counseling In Pregnancy Resource Centers by Curtis J. Young. Family Research Council (2000). "Successful" Open AdoptionExperts consider an adoption "successful" not based on the outcome for the child - or the outcome for the natural family, but only on getting a baby to "sell" to their customers, the adopters. See this quote from Paul Meding, a Columbia attorney who has been taking adoption cases for 12 years:
The "process" Meding is referring to? Getting a relationship going in advance between the mom and the unrelated people who want to buy her child, so she feels beholden to them. The History of Open AdoptionOn a webpage about adoption history, Bruce Rappaport, PhD of the Independent Adoption Center explains how "open" adoption has helped to get more children from families that might otherwise have kept them. He says he was "struck by how few options were available if fertility treatments did not work". In the opinion of those adoption agencies and lawyers whose job it was to get babies for people, the fact that people were raising their own kids was a problem. How could they get more children - babies in particular - away from their moms and families? To make more "options" available to those who wanted to get a baby to use, the adoption attorneys and agencies began to offer "open" adoption. Ostensibly, the ability to select prospective adopters and possibly have some contact helped to "counterbalance" the mom's suffering from the horrendous loss of her child. Unlike closed adoption, with "open" adoption a mom who surrenders her child can "experience firsthand the new parents’ excitement".With closed adoption, "Ironically the very separation that was supposed to protect the adopting parents from the birthparents' changing their minds, has often resulted in the parents having no child to adopt at all." So with "open" adoption offered it was possible to get a mom to identify with the prospective adopters' desires rather than to consider her own child's needs and her own needs. Having her thinking about the prospective adopter's desires results in getting her child more often. By offering "open" adoption, Rappaport explains, business picked up and they were able to charge significantly higher fees within a few years time. According to Rappaport, it is "unfortunate" that so many moms are keeping their families together - and it is "hard on the kids" to be raised by single parents. (Hard on kids, being raised in their own families, with their own loving grandmothers, mothers, fathers and siblings around them? .... Later - on the same webpage - he states how great is is that more aging and divorced people can adopt.) Rappaport claims "the procedure is more normal" than the
closed adoption system and "appeals to young people" (Perhaps
the naive young people don't realize how they are being used.) The
real goal is made clear in the last sentence: "Instead of long
waits or arbitrary agency restrictions around age or divorce",
most people can get someone else's child "often within six to
eighteen months". So with the "miracle" of "open" adoption, not only do they get more babies, but there are fewer restictions on adopters. The natural parents and the children themselves wind up being less well-served, the real customers (the adopters) get babies to use and the agencies and lawyers are able to charge much higher fees and expand their businesses.
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The
promises made by seemingly kind prospective adopters nearly always
fade within a year or two after an open adoption is finalized. They
want a baby. But they don't want you. Natural family members (who
are referred to by the dehumanizing term "birth relatives")
must know "their place" and be careful not to say something
to upset adopters or their adoption will be closed. 