What exactly is an open adoption?

First, lets start with the definitions:

“Closed Adoption” is loosely defined as the process by where an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed.

"Open Adoption" is loosely defined as a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each others personal information and have an option of contact.

In practical terms, there is no one mutually agreed upon universal definition of what an open adoption is. Instead of trying to force a definition on the term or concept, and as much as we want to because it's comfortable, most individuals who are actually in an open adoption cannot succinctly describe this relationship. I once heard an adult adoptee describe it this way: "well, it’s in and out, in and out." While this definition is in no way scientific or clinical, it’s REAL and a lot of adoptees can relate to that idea. Open adoptions run the gamut from being VERY open where there is an ongoing, in-depth personal relationship to being technically open meaning people have identifying information about each other yet there is little or no contact.

A lot of people speak about open adoption in a very fearful way. The term open seems to conjure up feelings and ideas of limitless, boundless interference and participation of birth parents involvement in everyday family life. Of course, every adoption is different, every experience is different and every PERSON is different. I have heard about all kinds of arrangements, issues, boundaries or lack thereof adoption arrangements out there. But I think it's fair to say in MOST adoptions, open adoption generally is not the following:

Co-parenting – clarity of roles is essential for both birth parents and adoptive parents
Legal Rights - The birth parent(s) does not hold or maintains any legal rights to the child including educational, medical, religious decision-making.
Consistency - There is no guarantee that there will be any consistent ongoing contact in any form throughout the life of the child or at any particular developmental stage
Quality - There is no guarantee about the quality, type or frequency of communication or contact throughout the child’s life.
O pen Adoption does not erase an adoptee's grief and/or loss

One of the best, if not the best, resource on open adoption came out in 2012 from The Donaldson Adoption Institute in a study called Openness in Adoption: From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections. I suggest anyone curious about this issue read this. I have -- a few times -- and I get something new from it each time.

A few of the more interesting statistics about the changing tides of openness in adoption:

95% of adoption agencies now offer the option of open adoptions
In the overwhelming majority of infant adoptions (private and agency adoption) the birth or expectant parents choose through one method or another the family who ultimately ends up adoption the child.
Most parties report positive experiences in open adoption
Birth mothers who have placed their child in an open adoption & have ongoing contact report less grief
Adoptees report positive things about open adoption including access to birth relatives, birth story and narrative, family and medical histories, positive impact on formation of self-image, ethnic or racial identity development, physical touchstones to identify personality traits, and feelings towards birth parents
Adoptive Parents report reduced fear and greater empathy towards birth parents, more open communication with their kids, greater sense of entitlement of being the adoptive parents

Regardless of whether there is an “open” adoption, any adoptive family should think about the dynamics of the extended adoptive network they are all a part of throughout their lives because members of the their extended biological families are psychologically present to varying degrees throughout each others lives.

This idea of psychological presence is so complex and an entirely new blog.. so we'll leave it at that for today!

Read more about the Donaldson Adoption Institute's report here